Posted on 10/19/2025 4:50:23 PM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum
Welcome, and congratulations. You’ve lived long enough to see the age of flying cars—privately owned, solo-piloted aircraft, free to operate in unrestricted airspace, much as automobiles can take to the open road. And they’re all electric. I knew you’d be thrilled.
Here in the future, we call them ultralight eVTOLs (electric vertical takeoff and landing vehicles). Of course, they don’t much resemble the levitating Studebakers and auto-gyrating Chevys foretold in pulp science fiction. The Pivotal BlackFly—the first series-produced ultralight eVTOL to reach the consumer market (2023)—doesn’t even have wheels. It takes off and lands on its curved keel. It’s also amphibious, behavior highly atypical in cars.
Don’t be afraid. Try the VR simulator. The two joysticks accommodate righties or lefties, but you only use one to fly. The rocker switch on top pushes/pulls for climb/descend. The joystick controls speed and turn/bank angle. The trigger switches between flight modes: Hover and Cruise. In Hover mode, the joystick provides fine-grained yaw control, allowing the BlackFly to execute its surreal pirouette.
The author gets ready for liftoff. The Pivotal BlackFly aircraft has a pilot weight limit of 200 pounds; an updated version, the Helix, offers slightly more capacity (220 pounds). Flight time is limited to 20 minutes.
To take off, simply hold the toggle switch forward. The props turn slowly in unison—calibrating, calibrating—then spool furiously, a squadron of lawn mowers on deck. The machine vaults into the air, nose-first, throwing you on your back, looking at the sky. It will just hang like that until you push the joystick forward. Remember to keep that thumb going up.
Around 100 feet, pilots transition to Cruise mode. Click the trigger and the BlackFly noses...
(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...
More than two of me could fit in, but why? Ugly, clumsy looking and of doubtful value. What kind of license wold. you need? How would routes be determined or coud we justy fly all over the place at any hour of day and night?
Hahahahaha!
For a long while that was the primary reason we didnt have them.
No ATC and untrained mentally unstable drivers were said to need self flying cars that would all be AI controlled.
Put in or speak destination and after it connected and got the route it would fly you to your destination and land itself.
Not that I liked that version.
In the 70s Moeller promised me a flying car that had more of a Battlestar Gallactica Viper fighter look, Id prefer that one.
Sure but that's a bit of overkill. I think small arms fire can take this down. ;-)
Me either.
I’d like one along the lines of Little Nellie from James Bond.
I’d want one like Scaramanga had in Man With The Golden Gun.
You thought you were going to the grocer but the sheriff had heard that you made a disparaging statement about the government and has sent the vehicle orders to bring you in.
Ask the Chinese
I’ll have to look that up. Never saw a James Bond movie.
Both of my sons in their 50's would love one of those.
Base model $190,000
I think you’ve got the gist of it.
CC
Think of the work you can get done-wifi.
Cool idea and neat technology but with 20 minutes of flight time and a speed of 55 mph it isn’t very practical.
Just wait for these things to drop out of the sky.
“Base model $190,000”
Maybe TEMU will come out with a cheaper knockoff.
I’m retired.
CC
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