I Test Drove a Flying Car. Get Ready, They’re Here.

The Wall Street Journal ^ | Oct. 17, 2025 11:30 am ET | Dan Neil

[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...

[FrozenAssets]

Yeah. I want to pay $190,000.00 for something that can only fly 23 miles.

[Ancesthntr]

Do they fold up into a briefcase in a few seconds so that their owner can carry it around all day? If not, I’m not interested.

[The Duke]

"They’ve always been death traps."

But, when they work, they're awesome! /s

[Silentgypsy]

I’d like a hovercraft and a tank.

[Songcraft]

It sometimes can be a tad difficult getting off at the next cloud off-ramp.


     

[Rio]

What’s the glide ratio?

[dfwgator]

[Dr. Franklin]

We’ve had flying cars for decades... They’ve always been death traps.

In addition to the problem of one mechanical breakdown causing death, there is also the problem of air traffic control. It looks great in the movies when no one else can do it, but as a practical matter, it's extremely dangerous if it becomes prevalent.

[GenXPolymath]

Autogyro...no that needs a runway and cannot do zero length landings or takeoffs.

Gyrodyne yes you betcha. Zero/zero all day , loose an engine no worries you are already in auto rotation at any phase of flight. This means there is no dead man’s zone you can soft land at any time from any altitude. Two important things make this possible. First the rotor has collective control like a helicopter autogyros do not. Second is the ability to spin up the rotor via a powered drive shaft that can clutch.in and out spinning up on the ground lets you do a zero length vertical leaping takeoff. While in forwards fight with full rudder control authority you can also clutch in and spin the rotor to much higher rpm than simple auto rotation allows storing momentum in it. With the collective pitch control you can then do a zero length vertical landing as well with a few seconds of hover above the landing site. Gyrodynes are much safer than helos and autogyros too. Like the article says I would put my grandmother in a gyrodynenever ever a EVTOL.

https://newatlas.com/aircraft/skyworks-aeronautics-evtol-gyrodyne/

This one has 4 rotors and it can reverse pitch two or one of them in flight to allow for fully powered rotor hover unlimited time since the rotor torque is then canceled out by the outer reversed pitch prop.

This is the way. As a pilot myself I would never trust my life to a quad copter evtol or even 6 or 8 rotors everyone of them has a dead man’s zone from liftoff till ballistic parachute altitude. Same on landing twice every flight you must cross dead man’s land no thanks. Helos also have a dead zone where they lack the forward speed and or altitude to spin up the rotor for an auto rotation landing. Gyrodynes always have the rotor at auto rotation speed from the second it left the ground it can come back down softly from any speed or altitude.

Why.. Don’t you see more gyrodynes? Top speed is slower than a prop plane and the lack of extended powered hovering means they can’t do everything a helo can. The innovative 4 prop one solves both issues it’s faster than a helo and can hover at will. Win win.

[MayflowerMadam]

Thanks! You talked me into it. Gyrodyne. And my birthday is next week. How convenient is that?!

[GenXPolymath]

“Too bad we won’t see Moeller’s Volantor anytime soon.”

My ears hurt just seeing that. EIGHT barely muffler equipped rotary engines at full WFO throttle just to hover 1000+horsepower its drinking 20+gallons per min to hover.It’s disk landing is atrocious. There is a reason helo rotors are large disk loading.

As with all powered from that aircraft has dead man’s zone twice every flight, no amount of rocket fired ballistic or airbags can solve tbat. Nope nope nope. As Dr.Krieger would say.

[GenXPolymath]

“In addition to the problem of one mechanical breakdown causing death, there is also the problem of air traffic control”

The nexgen ATC system is all digital you file a flight plan electronically it comes back electronically and your FMS via ADS-B sends once per second positioning,velocity and flight vectors to the ATC system and every other aircraft with ADS-B IN which feeds the automatic traffic avoidance and all commercial aircraft will have TCAS as well which receives ADS-B and Mode S/C transponders. Licenced pilot’s will not be an issue in evtols the FAA is never going to allow unlicensed pilots in the national airspace. G airspace is very limited and has 1 mile day 3 mile night time minimums, no clouds,no IMC and 1200AGL except for Alaska and some really remote Western rural areas it’s uncontrolled airspace not incorrectly called unlicensed no NO still must hold at least PPL to fly in uncontrolled airspace. Unlicensed flight is limited to ultralight powered aircraft...ultralight aircraft have a weight limit of 254 pounds (115 kg) empty weight and a top speed limit of 55 knots (63 mph or 102 km/h) at full power in level flight. That’s it everything else requires at least a PPL then , IMC rating,then a VTOL or Helo rating then a type rating if above 12,500lbs a individual type rating for each aircraft above 12.5KLb so yeah no “flying cars” are just going to be buzzing around each one will.have to have a licensed pilot on board. Unless Congress passes a law that allows for remote pilots like large drones like a predator or.reaper must have while in national airspace via 5G or sat comm links at all times mind you.