AeroMobil's Flying Car Could Land This Year

The flying cars of science fiction have always been a bit of a logistical nightmare: Vehicles in sky lanes zipping around, narrowly avoiding head-on collisions, and rarely meeting the ground. In other words, George Jetson probably would have needed some quality auto insurance.

The reality is still impressive, but a little more practical. This week, AeroMobil announced that their plainly named AeroMobil Flying Car—a small passenger plane that doubles as a street-legal vehicle—will be available for pre-orders beginning this year.

The four-wheeled plane (or winged car) has gone through several prototypes to get to a stage that AeroMobil says is in total compliance with current regulations for both aircraft and automobiles. A previous iteration used regular gas, could take off with 650 feet of airstrip, land on just 164 feet of strip, and reached speeds of up to 124 miles per hour. It also crashed during a 2015 test run in Slovakia. (The pilot, who deployed his parachute, survived.)

AeroMobil is keeping specs for their new, commercial version under wraps until April 20, when it plans on debuting the vehicle at the Top Marques Monaco industry trade show. The price is also TBD, but chief technical officer Doug MacAndrew told Business Insider last year that “it's not going to be cheap.”

[h/t Mashable]