Flying cars race points to future

We have been told flying cars are coming since the days of The Jetsons TY programme, but they could be racing through our skies soon with an Australian flying vehicle company in the van.

Adelaide’s Alauda Aeronautics has built several 4.1 metre long flying vehicles (pictured) specifically for a new racing series called Airspeeder.

Aluda Aeronautics and Airspeeder chief executive Matt Pearson has already staged the first race around a one kilometre course in South Australia, according to a report by ABC news, and has big plans for the future.

According to the report Pearson said: “We can probably be the world’s most-exciting motorsport, watched by millions of people around the world, and [travel] the world with races all over the place.”

The first quadcopter flying vehicles are unmanned and flown by remote control, but it is panned that human pilots will be trained and certified to fly the craft.

According to Airspeeder, the racing series is being developed with partners Telstra Purple, Acronis and Amazon Web Services to create the digital architecture needed to manage autonomous and piloted eVTOL vehicles.

According to Airspeeder: “The staging of the race was supported by the government of South Australia which has nurtured an ecosystem of the world’s leading space and advanced aerospace companies.

“This extends to co-funding Aluda Aeronautics hyper-factory, a place where the world’s best performance flying cars will be built alongside spece-craft, satellites and aircraft.”

According to Airspeeder, its second race was due to take place this weekend, with crewed races to take place from 2024.

Picture: Alauda Aeronautics