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Watch: Boeing Successfully Tests Autonomous ‘Flying Car’, Describes It As Revolutionary
Boeing’s self-driving flying car prototype. (@Boeing/Twitter)
As part of its bid to revolutionise urban mobility, aircraft manufacturing giant Boeing announced yesterday (23 January) that it has successfully tested its autonomous “flying car”, reports Business Standard.
Boeing also posted a video of the test on Twitter:
The company is locked in a tight race with its traditional competitor Airbus and many other firms to successfully launch self-flying vehicles with vertical takeoff and landing capabilities.
Boeing’s under-development model is a 30-foot-long aircraft which has attributes of a helicopter, drone as well as a fixed-wing plane. During the initial test at an airport in Manassas, Virginia, the prototype was able to hover a few feet above the ground for just under a minute and then make soft landing.
"This is what revolution looks like, and it's because of autonomy," president and chief executive officer of Boeing subsidiary Aurora Flight Sciences, John Langford, remarked.
As per details from Boeing’s marketing materials, the ‘low-stress’ mobility initiative still faces numerous challenges such as ensuring robust safety features and overcoming regulatory hurdles.
The company aims to build models for both passenger travel and for transporting goods; it wishes to reach a range of 50 miles (80.5 km) with two of its variants which will have the capacity for two and four passengers respectively. A package-carrying version which would be able to haul around 226.8 kg is planned to be tested later this year.
"The future of mobility - moving goods, moving cargo - moving people - that future is happening now and it's going to accelerate over the next five years and ramp up even more beyond that," Boeing's president, chairman and CEO Dennis Muilenburg, stated at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
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