Race is on to turn flying car into reality

– ‘New era for aviation’ –

The real future, said ONERA’s Sainjon is “a system of on-demand air transport, which would clearly be the start of a new era for aviation” — a flying taxi service, in other words.

Flying cars will not be something that just anyone can drive, “because it’s too risky,” Pascal Pincemin, an aerospace specialist with Deloitte, told AFP.

He envisaged digital platforms to manage the new form of traffic, and that appears to be what Uber, the App-based ride-hailing service, has in mind with its “Elevate” project.

The idea appears to be to develop a network of electric, vertical-takeoff aircraft and they are aiming to make their first demonstrations in 2020.

Dubai could be the first off the starting blocks with a new kind of small autonomous electric helicopter scheduled to come into operation later this year.

There is “a real appetite, a real interest”, in this kind of transport in some of the more traffic-congested cities, said Jean Brice Dumont, head of engineering at Airbus Helicopters.

At the last Geneva motor show, the company presented its own prototype flying car, “Pop Up”, developed in cooperation with a subsidiary of Volkswagen. But Dumont said they were expecting the technology to mature and develop further.

Boeing, so far, has not shown its hand and Deloitte’s Pincemin does not see flying taxis becoming a common mode of transport before 2050. First, he said, the vehicles would have to prove their reliability.

Air transport today has a death rate of 0.2 per million flights, said Patrick Cipriani, director of security at the DGAC, France’s civil aviation directorate.

“Will we be prepared to accept levels like those of light aircraft, which are 100 times less safe?” he asked.