The flying car everyone imagined in the 20th century was, well, car-like.
As the 21st century rolled in, that image morphed into something insectoid, powered by a multitude of rotors or turbines that vastly affect the vehicle’s form factor.
However, Dallas-based aerospace company FusionFlight is developing something closer to the 20th-century vision of a flying car: A passenger compartment, and little else. They’ve done this by eschewing rotors and working with jets.
Company founder Alexander Taits is a mechanical engineer, in case the vehicle’s design didn’t tip you off. His Axion is a personal VTOL powered by pairs of micro-jets at each corner, and the bulk of the craft is occupied by two 15-gallon fuel tanks. These can be filled with regular “gas-station diesel,” the company says, and can then haul a 176-lb. pilot at 225 mph for 15 minutes.
The company says the hot gas emitted by the micro-jets doesn’t reach the ground during take-off or landing, and so doesn’t damage the landing pad surface. (Indeed, in the demo video below, you can see the Axion’s predecessor taking off and landing on grass.) They also say that should one of the eight jet engines fail, the vehicle can automatically execute an emergency safe landing sequence with the remaining seven. Furthermore, they point out that being jet-powered, the Axion “is not as susceptible to inclement weather as other propeller and winged-based vehicles.”
If this all sounds too good to be true, it’s worth noting that FusionFlight has chops. The company was founded in 2016 to develop the JetQuad, Axion’s predecessor; that vehicle is essentially an autonomous Axion designed to carry emergency medical supplies.
The JetQuad can also be remote-controlled, as you can see in the demo video below:
FusionFlight has drawn the attention of the U.S. Navy, the Air Force, the Army and DARPA. That said, if the company is producing a version of either the JetQuad or the Axion for the military, they aren’t saying. But they are pitching the Axion to the consumer market, and are soliciting purchase requests. The asking price is $290,000, and there’s a 12-month lead time.
Below is the pitch (though there’s no flying demo):