Vaculik: Slovak Flying Car Shouldn't Be Toy for Billionaires

Brussels, July 10 (TASR) – The AeroMobil, a flying car from Slovakia, occupies a prominent place in the entrance hall of the Council of the European Union in Brussels during the country’s presidency in the second half of 2016, TASR learnt on Sunday.

More particularly, the AeroMobil 3.0 prototype, which has undergone all necessary flight tests successfully, has been put on display in Brussels. Nevertheless, this isn’t the exact model of the machine that should be put into production in around two years.

Stefan Klein, who’s developed the flying car along with Juraj Vaculik, told TASR that the vehicle must undergo a strict developing process applied to the aviation industry – from pre-prototype, through prototype, zero series and finally production series.

“A new prototype is now being prepared and constructed to have some improvements and knowledge gained from the AeroMobil 3.0 integrated into the latest solution,” said Klein.

According to him, the preparation team has grown and now features people who meet the top requirements of the aviation and car industries.

“It’s a new type of product that needs top-level integration of the aviation and automotive worlds,” noted Klein.

Vaculik, who’s the general director of a company called AeroMobil, told journalists that the flying car shouldn’t become only a “toy for billionaires” but should be accessible to the broad masses instead.

Meanwhile, it’s already known that the first flying cars will have a flying range of roughly 1,000 kilometres, which will be covered within around 3-3.5 hours.

Even though some people have already expressed serious interest in buying the flying car, the company still hasn’t begun accepting early orders. The process of pre-orders should be formalised next year, with production expected to be launched in 2018, said Vaculik.

According to Martin Bruncko, director of the company’s financial and strategy department, the AeroMobil should be viewed as a combination of car and aircraft, making road transport faster and more effective, tackling such issues as traffic jams.

“We have a vision to change the world,” said Bruncko, noting that road transport is on the brink of collapse in many large cities, where there’s nowhere to construct extra roads.

The flying car isn’t an issue relating to a couple of years. “It’s a long-term vision. It also took decades for ordinary cars to become part of ordinary life. We believe that it could be faster with the flying car, however,” added Bruncko.