Flying cars may not be a reality yet, but the flying bike has made its first successful manned flight. The Hoverbike from Aeroflex is the first vehicle of its type, and although it still has a long way to go, it shows us that this technology is actually on its way. The Hoverbike is also known as the “Flike.”
The Hoverbike still has a long way to go because it can currently only reach speeds of about 30mph, and can only reach a maximum height of 15 feet. Its batteries also have a fairly short lifespan, and can only sustain a flight of about 30-40 minutes.
According to the website for Flike:
Flike is equipped with Lithium Polymer batteries, allowing for around 15-20 minutes of hover flight, that extends towards 30-40 minutes in cruise. the lift is provided by six fixed-pitch, carbon composite rotors, directly driven by individual electric disc motors, resulting in the highest possible efficiency, and zero-emission by design.
Due to its layout, Flike is fully controllable by solely adjusting the rotation speed of individual rotors. Its airborne behaviour is comparable to any helicopter: it can hover, roll, bank, drift, spin, yaw, climb, turn, sidle, dive… just as well as it is also capable of various things yet to be named. Flight stability, lateral position and altitude are taken care of by its full-authority flight management computer, therefore flying Flike is as easy as riding a bicycle.
The vehicle took less than a year to develop to this stage, and is expected to become perfected and improved over the years.
Video of the first manned flight can be viewed below:
John Vibes writes for True Activist and is an author, researcher and investigative journalist who takes a special interest in the counter culture and the drug war.
This article (All Electric Flying Bike Has Successful First Flight) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to the author and TrueActivist.com.
