Flying Car

A flying car is a hypothetical personal aircraft that provides door-to-door aerial transportation (e.g., from home to work or to the supermarket) as conveniently as a car and without the requirement for roads, runways or other specially-prepared operating areas. Such aircraft lack any visible means of propulsion (unlike fixed-wing aircraft or helicopters) so they can be operated at urban areas, close to buildings, people and other obstructions.

The flying car has been depicted in fantasy and science fiction works such as Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, The Jetsons, Star Wars, Blade Runner, Back to the Future Part II and The Fifth Element as well as articles in the American magazines Popular Science, Popular Mechanics, and Mechanix Illustrated.

The flying car was a common feature of science fiction and futuristic conceptions of the future, including imagined near futures such as those of the 21st century. For instance, less than a month before the turn of the millennium, the journalist Gail Collins noted:

Here we are, less than a month until the turn of the millennium, and what I want to know is, what happened to the flying cars? We're about to become Americans of the 21st century. People have been predicting what we'd be like for more than 100 years, and our accounterments don't entirely live up to expectations. (...) Our failure to produce flying cars seems like a particular betrayal since it was so central to our image.

As a result, flying cars have become a running joke; the question "Where is my flying car?" is emblematic of the supposed failure of modern technology to match futuristic visions that were promoted in earlier decades.

The term "flying car" can also be used to refer to roadable aircraft and hovercar.

Sitting amidst a sea of cars in bumper-to-bumper traffic on an endless expresswa­y, have you ever daydreamed about your car taking off and flying over the road? Imagine if you could just flip a switch and unshackle yourself from the asphalt!

Traffic jams are the bane of any commuter. Many of us spend an hour or so stuck in traffic every week. The growing population is partly to blame for our congested roads, but the main problem is that we are not expanding our transportation systems fast enough to meet ever increasing demands. One solution is to create a new type of transportation that doesn't rely on roads, which could one day make traffic jams a 20th century relic. To do this, we must look to the sky.

In the last century, airplanes and mass-­produced cars have changed the way we live. Cars, which became affordable for the general population, have allowed us to move farther away from cities, and planes have cut travel time to faraway destinations considerably. At the beginning of a new century, we may see the realization of a century-old dream -- the merging of cars and planes into roadable aircraft, or flying cars. You've probably heard promises about flying cars before, and the technology to make them safe and easy to fly may finally be here.

here is no lack of engineers taking on the challenge to design a new breed of flying cars. While sleeker, more advanced cars have been developed in the last decade, no one has come close to opening up a flying car dealership. Here are a few of the individuals attempting to deliver a flying car:

·         Paul Moller has spent 40 years and millions of dollars developing his Skycar. He is now very close to developing the first mass-marketed flying car. In 1965, he demonstrated his first attempt, the XM-2, which hovered off the ground but didn't go anywhere. In 1989, Moller unveiled the M200X, which has now flown 200 flights and can go as high as 50 feet (15.24 meters).