Manned multirotors

With the ability to carry up to 250 kg of payload at speeds up to 80 km/h, the 12-rotor Seraph is Britain's leading electric VTOL air taxi candidate. Vertical Aerospace has released video of this chunky bird in flight.

Japanese electronics giant NEC has been working with a company called Cartivator to design, build and test VTOL air taxi concepts. Now the two companies have demonstrated a multi-seat manned multicopter, a step toward a flying car future Japan believes will arrive around 2030.

A grid full of 10 giant coaxial octocopters, each with a pilot on board, racing each other head-to-head through the air at speeds up to 200 km/h (120 mph)? That's exactly what the Airspeeder racing series is set to introduce in 2020 with the aim of being a kind of Formula One for flying cars.

A new electric VTOL air taxi company came out of stealth mode today, using a hydrogen fuel cell powertrain that neatly sidesteps the energy density issue that's holding back battery-powered aircraft. Alaka'i Technologies' Skai machine has a range of up to 4 hr/400 mi and a five-passenger capacity.

​Boeing's race to achieve safe, quiet, compact VTOL personal flight devices has narrowed its list down to five competitors, each of which get US$50,000 to help develop their prototypes. Meet the Phase II GoFly winners going on to compete for a US$1.6 million final round prize pool.

​Flying taxi services may take some time to arrive, but if you want to be among the first to pilot a manned multicopter, you'll have the chance in 2019. Lift Aircraft is preparing to debut a personal flight experience in an 18-prop electric VTOL aircraft for about the price of a skydive.

This crazy looking motorcycle-styled hoverbike appeared in early 2017 and we were skeptical the contraption would ever move beyond just an odd engineering curiosity. However, Hoversurf has revealed its hoverbikes are now ready for production and preorders are open, with delivery scheduled for 2019.

Today we get our first look at the production-ready Flyer from Kitty Hawk, a 10-rotor, single seater sport and leisure multicopter that gives pilots around 20 minutes of flying saucer fun at altitudes up to 10 feet. Check out photos and videos of the Flyer in action!

Californian company Advanced Tactics is pushing forward with a range of military-focused manned multirotors that run on regular gasoline. It has now announced the AT Transporter, a multi-mission quadcopter capable of carrying up to six people or 1,200 lb of cargo using detachable pods.

The Russian team that brought us the Scorpion Hoverbike is working toward a 5-seater VTOL air taxi. The Formula Project, from Hoversurf, uses fold-away wings and 52 tiny turbine Venturi propulsion units for a combination of VTOL convenience, winged efficiency and a compact form factor.

The magical kingdom of Dubai continues to cement its dual reputations as both the world’s most future-forward city, and the most desperate for attention, with the announcement that it plans to add quadcopter-style hoverbikes to its police fleet.

Here at New Atlas we love a good hoverbike. So when Kalashnikov, the Russian weapons manufacturer best known for its infamous AK-47 assault rifle, released a video demonstrating a strange hoverbike prototype it certainly piqued our interest.