Netherlands-based company Pal-V is expected to gather on-road approval for the world’s first flying car within the next few months which will be followed by certification for its use it as an aircraft as soon as next year.
Pal-V’s Liberty hybrid car/gyroplane has been in development for more than 12 years. The company with a workforce of 75 people, has already taken orders from people in 14 countries.
The organization is also providing training to its first “fly drivers” inhouse and intends to deliver the first flying car before the end of 2021.
The Liberty is powered by separate petrol engines for road and air use. It uses an unconventional three-wheel design for its road mode and converts into a self-stabilizing gyroplane for flight mode.
According to Pal-V’s CEO Robert Dingemanse, a gyroplane has inherent design qualities that make it suitable for use as a flying car. He said, “Aircraft require large surface areas, which are facilitated by large rotors or large wings. But a large surface area is very hard to deal with on the road.
PAL-V Liberty
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PAL-V Liberty Design
PAL-V Liberty Interiors
PAL-V Liberty Side
PAL-V Liberty, the first commercial flying car.
“Typically flying car projects use small wings and their stall speed is too high, but they are still very large for the road, like a truck which is hard to maneuver and full of lots of fragile aviation technology.
“The Liberty can fold in a couple of minutes and is compact on the road, but still has the surface area required to make it safe and effective in the air. We don’t have a stall speed, you can go to zero airspeeds and just descend safely fully under control, hit the gas again to continue or land without the engines.
“Meanwhile on the road its footprint is just four meters by two meters. It’s 170cm high, so it fits any parking spot or in any garage. Without making compromises, the Pal-V safely folds its rotor system to become small enough for a compact car.
“Alongside minimizing the weight and achieving a marketable performance in the air, the biggest challenge has been working out how to make it so the rotor blades, propeller and tail can be folded and fixed in a way that makes it safe in all circumstances, by anybody in a couple of minutes.”
