Kitty Hawk, the flying car startup backed by Google co-founder Larry Page, has revealed its newest passenger vehicle, simply called “Flyer,” and has created a sweepstakes on Instagram that will let one lucky follower and a friend come to the Kitty Hawk training facility and learn how to operate it. The machine looks something like a cross between a small boat and a winged drone, and is supposedly user-friendly enough that you can learn to fly it in only two hours. The Flyer is meant for recreational use, and can only go about 20 miles per hour, with a maximum altitude of ten feet. These limits are enforced by a control system for the sake of safety, but its capabilities likely far exceed those levels.
The attached photos were taken with YouTube personality Casey Neistat behind the controls. The training took around the proposed two hours for Neistat and happened in a simulator that was meant to be as close to the real thing as possible. Those who want to see it in person can head through the source link below, then simply follow Kitty Hawk’s account and tag a friend that they would want to bring with them in the comments of the post. If you’re interested in buying it, Kitty Hawk has yet to drop pricing or release date information, so you’re in for a bit of a wait. If you sign up to be part of the Founders Series group, you can be among the first to get that information when it’s available. The good news is that you won’t need any sort of special training or licensing to operate the tiny aircraft in the United States.
This redesign improves on the previous Cora vehicle by making things a bit sleeker and more compact, but also adding some extra propellers. The redesigned vehicle weighs in at only 250 pounds, though that’s 50 pounds heavier than the 200 pound Cora design. It should be noted that Kitty Hawk does want to make a viable form of flying transportation, but the focus, for the time being, is getting the technology down and iterating on it to eventually produce the kind of reliable, user-friendly, heavy-duty machine that the concept needs in order to be viable for daily use.
