Practically all those out there are failures. The winners are yet to come.

Fascinating article. I like the down to earth approach and that Mr. made a craft that actually works. I like his safety remark "I am not designing for people who focused on there fears". By the way, the Volante is no canard but has a normal wing/tail configuration. The most stubit things are the multi rotor things. Some of the absolutely dangerous like the "knee chopper" with the rotors down and the cabin up. The thing is inherent instable with the rotors down and the cabin up (metacentric to high). How about a pneumatic wing (used in Switzerland for ski jumping). instead of a parasail as a next step? Okay, would be also no speed monster, but sure faster as the parasail and not much more expensive. Every pilot and designer is dreaming up a flying car. At least you are doing it. I wish you in any case success.

Thanks for posting that. It's about time peeps realised, whether they like it or not, this IS the future of transport and I look forward to the '5th Element' style of getting to and from places. It needs a Musk or major car manufacturer to plough some of their dosh into this instead of autonomous car rubbish. But it will take off longterm.....

Nice report! I'd like to cite the 1919 US patent 1.294.418, by Glenn H Curtiss, about his 'Autoplane'. The Möller designs look well adapted to an hybrid version, he owns also the Freedom-Motors Rotary Engine company, and his designs could use electric engines for flight; as a matter of fact, a Quadcopter toy, named: 'Magic UFO' exists, with the shape of Moeller flying discs. The Spanish Helikar is also nice. Regards, + Salut

I thought McCulloch had something flying around Lake Havasu back in the 1960s. I saw one in the Pima Air Museum and it looked like a mini cooper with folding helicopter blades out the top. What was that?

That is one of the best flying car roundups, but a glaring omission is Waterman Aerobile. Waldo Waternan is definitely my favourite aviation design pioneer. Appropriately his aerobile is hanging in the Smithsonian Aviation Museum in the same hall as the Super Constellation. I have a flight simulator for the Aerobile which demonstrates that the aircraft flies exactly as Waldo intended it to fly, safely and easily. There us even a photo of Waldo talking to a cop who has pulled him over on the road in about 1937.
Even though I am not a dan of gyrocopters the Pal-V is the other stand out success, though the recent electric vehicles show major promise.

This guy has rounded up some cool/interesting projects but seems to have a screw loose. "I don't really care about people that want safe vehicles. I care about people that want to BASE jump." This is a rather small market in my life experience. Most people I have known want to use a vehicle to get to somewhere on Earth--not in Heaven! Even on the fringe, base jumpers take all precautions they can think of to land safely. He made this comment in an attempt to put down the Terrifugia's focus on safety = getting to the destination in one piece--that does not put down the Terrigugia in my book!

A stationary source to "spin up" for take off would be good. Kind of like the helicopter guns you used to see years ago. An inflatable wing that would inflate to various spans would be good.

Flying cars will never work for commuting. MAYBE extremely huge flying busses. For weekend travel it can work, but the economics won't work. Roaming autonomous VTOL planes will be the most likely outcome. Again, it won't be for commuting, especially not in and out of denser populated areas. Even if the tech works (and eventually it could), the practical space limitations won't allow us all to commute in flying objects/cars. Weekend trips out of town and some fun or relaxation after work is about all we'll get.

I don't know why none of these are using an anti-gravity engine. That's obviously the easiest way to make something fly.