When Michael J. Fox said, “All those other people will have to be here in flying cars,” Jimmy Kimmel’s public tribute to the Back to the Future franchise on October 21, 2015, when Doc and Marty arrived on their Delorean flight in the future, Kimmel’s reaction summed up well. “No, no, we never understood flying cars.”
Well, Japanese startup SkyDrive would probably have found out.
Last Friday in Tokyo, SkyDrive Inc. announced at a press convention that it had effectively completed its first manned verification flight and showed a video to show it. In images previously filmed in August at its base near the city of Toyota, the PROTOTYPE SD-03 single-seater, operated through a verification controller, used its 4 pairs of propellers to take off and navigate at an altitude of approximately 6 feet in a fenced control area. It may not have cleared the surrounding trees, but it showed that the vehicle can also navigate untethered at low speed with a drone-like stability, a flight time of approximately 10 minutes.
According to a family commentator on flying car projects, other companies, such as Lilium of Germany and Jothrough Aviation of California, are also implementing electric takeoff and landing vehicle (eVTOL) projects, but many have been blocked by the coronavirus pandemic. SkyDrive would probably not be the first company to conduct a verification flight, but it is the first company to combine a successful non-captive verification flight from its flying car that will soon be marketed with government help and significant investments to achieve its ultimate goal. . until 2023.
Backed by the automaker Toyota, corporate structure Obayashi, electronics company NEC, oil conglomerate Eneos, Japan Development Bank and others, the SkyDrive SD-03, which seems encouraged through Luke Skywalker’s Land Speeder and Star Wars’ X-Wing Fighter, would be redesigned in a two-seater business style until 2023. SkyDrive’s head of effort, Tomohiro Fukuzawa, said he hoped his flying car could be announced up to that date, but admitted that protection is his number one priority. “Of the more than one hundred flying car projects that are taking place lately in the world, only a few have been successful with manned flights,” he said.
Japanese auto designer and SkyDrive stylist Takumi Yamamoto said: “There are many more restrictions, limitations and regulations in the design of flying cars than popular road vehicles, but I hope I have given you an air of mystery among those restrictions.
Currently, the SD-03 can fly up to 10 minutes, but the purpose according to Fukuzawa is to expand a flying car capable of sailing at 40 mph for 30 minutes, a fact that would make its commercialization in countries like China. One of the first routes planned for 2023 is a short passenger flight around Kansai Airport in central Japan.
Compared to aircraft and helicopters, eVTOL would allow fast traditional point-to-point travel. One of the most important concepts of them is to alleviate airport hassles, traffic jams and drive force prices through production cars like the standalone SD-03. A symbol of the SkyDrive video showed a flying car taking off from a car park in a store near Tokyo, revealing the versatility of cars to get in and out of tight spaces.
The key, according to experts in the field, is not only to make them as foolproof as possible, but also to make flying cars profitable. After all, few other people will pay $1 million for a flying car and can’t wait to build confidence if such cars fall from the sky. In a sense, they want to be more than road cars and have multiple emergency functions.
While battery length and weight, flight time, range, air traffic control regulations, and other infrastructure and protection barriers will need to be removed before SkyDrive takes off definitively, flying car brands in total will have to work hard to win the hearts of the public and minds settled for the air in the same way it took years for smartphones to smartphones for smart cars and self-driving cars will settle.
Perhaps until 2030, Jimmy Kimmel will be able to tell Michael J. Fox that flying cars have been discovered in spite of everything.
Over a 30-year career, I have written about automotive, innovation, games, luxury lifestyles and gastronomy. Based in Tokyo since 1988, he was at the forefront
During my 30 years of automotive experience, I have written about automotive, innovation, games, luxury lifestyles and gastronomy. Based in Tokyo since 1988, it was in the front row to tell stories about Japan’s Golden Year of 1989 when local automakers introduced legends such as the Mazda MX-5, Nissan Skyline GT-R, Subaru Legacy, Toyota MR2, Nissan 300ZX, Mazda. . RX-7, then opened the first Lexus and Infiniti showrooms in the United States. I presented a global television exhibition on automotive culture called Samurai Wheels in Japan, won a Japanese oratory contest, co-piloted a Lexus V8 in the 24- Nurburgring Race with Gran Turismo author Kazunori Yamauchi, finished fourth in a team I created with the former driving force of F1 Ukyo Katayama to co-drive an MX-5 race car in the annual 4-hour race of Mazda , drove a first-generation Porsche 911 at The Hill in Goodwood, drove Jeremy Clarkson’s leading car in his “GT-R vs Bullet Train” race for Japan for Top Gear, co-starred in a World War II Japanese television series playing a Russian baseball pitcher, published a Japanese e-book on automotive culture, and sang in a men’s choir at the Vatican (but not in a men’s choir. Vatican to the Pope). I have also scribbled on everything similar to Japanese for publications such as Car and Driver, Edmunds, Top Gear, Autoautomobile, Auto Express, Quattroruote, The Sydney Morning Herald, Herald Sun, The Japan Times, GQ Japan, Japan Airlines and Forbes Japan. I am co-chair of the World Car Awards and a member of the jury of the Japanese Auto of the Year and The International Engine of the Year.