Another year squandered. . .

. . . and still no flying car. But, this year there are prospects. There's the Falx Air Hybrid Tilt-Rotor and the Icon A5 personal sea plane, of course these designs are neither true flying cars nor even close to production, but progress - any progress - is a good sign.

Falx Air Hybrid Tilt-Rotor

The Falx Tilt-Rotor is a twin-prop VTOL (vertical-take-off and landing) personal aircraft that weighs in at a scant 980 lbs and has a estimated top seed of 270mph. The Falx's Tilt-rotors are driven by electric motors. Due to the limitations of present battery technology, a two-stoke, gas-combustion generator produces the juice needed to keep the Falx aloft. Excess power produced by the generator is stored in batteries and released to the rotors during periods of heavy load - such as take-off or during the transition from vertical to horizontal flight.


Icon A5 Personal Sea Plane

With two, side-by-side seats and sports-car like instrumentation, the Icon A-5 is an airborne roadster that can also land on water. It's 100-horsepower engine runs on pump gas and can power the A-5 to speeds of more than 130 mph. The thing even has fold-up wings so it can be stored in a standard garage. So, "M" I guess you'll be ditching the Aston and outfitting one of these for 007's next mission.

Alas, no flying car this year, these small personal aircraft, however, are a step in the right direction. Perhaps, this will be the year of the flying car and, maybe, next year I will only write about the wasteful practice of wiping our buts with paper.