Are we on the brink of the flying car?
Are we on the brink of the flying car? For 50 years, science fiction has been tantalizing us with visions of airborne roadways and quickly maneuvering, sports-car-like flying cars. And for 50 years, companies have been chasing the dream, releasing the occasional prototype to keep their investors investing. But in February 2007, an Israeli company named Urban Aeronautics made a bold projection: A flying car on the market by 2012. The Urban Aeronautics X-Hawk and its smaller cousin, Mule, have a very specific, guiding application: urban rescue. By all accounts, the concept is right-on. Where helicopters fail, X-Hawk plans to succeed. Its designers claim it can press right up against a building to rescue people stranded on top floors and hover there, in contact with the structure, maintaining stability. Its technology, while patented, is similar to the innovations employed in vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) craft marketed as “
