Dutch flying car gets permission to drive on European roads

Please note that this is a single issue, early prototype license. Those are quite different from somewhat more normal custom build licenses for these kind of vehicles once they are entering limited production. This has not been approved for any other usage like limited production and is only valid for this specific vehicle. While this license is &quot;European&quot; there are lot of issues driving these kind of vehicles with this licenses across Europe legally.<p>Addendum: This means they cannot sell them yet as they first have to show production compliance. And have more stringent testing for those vehicles.<p>Addendum 2: It also has no aircraft license so flying is not an option.

They lost a bunch of points for not calling it &quot;The Flying Dutchcar&quot;. Very disappointing.

Autogyros are cool, not quite a helo and quite a plane. They have several unique advantages and are undergoing a modern renaissance after being used in the very first days of non-fixed wing flight:<p>-Inexpensive and reliable. Far simpler to build and fly vs a helicopter<p>-Can fly at very low speeds without stalling<p>-VERY short landing, pretty much anywhere. Not quite so short take-off, but pre-spooling the horizontal rotary wing can mitigation this.<p>Cost and low stall speed are probably the biggest factors for their choice of autogyro.

Someone brought up a good point in a past discussion --<p>Think of how many safety checks and procedures you go through with a plane before you entrust your life to it to not fall out of the sky. Are you really going to be wanting to take it on the road, park it in a garage or on the street, and alternate back and forth the use as a car vs. plane? With all the potential abuse a car gets?

That&#x27;s nice. But very expensive. For that much, you could buy a couple nice autogyros and also a nice car to drive around to the airports where they are parked.<p>I could see this being a little more viable if it was less than double the cost of a modern autogyro.

A three wheeled design was a comical trope in Mr Bean where he frequently topples a three wheeler. And how good are the low profile tires and suspension in imperfect roads and runways (video depicts no shock absorbtion on landing)?

It gets about three time the mileage when driving compared to flying - a small reminder of just how energy efficient it is to let the normal force from the ground hold something up compared to expending energy to do so.

Haha that&#x27;s so neat. I wonder if it&#x27;s a bigger target for break ins&#x2F;bad stuff. Sucks to think that way, guess no different than owning a super car. What a neat idea though, assuming it has great auto-pilot capability you&#x27;d be in same vehicle from home to airport and just sit back.<p>edit: I have seen different versions of these too in the past(with wings). But still this one looks more compact.

Title is misleading. The car got a single license (i.e, for it&#x27;s prototype only) and only for Dutch roads, not full Europe.

I like that they made a video with typical Silicon Valley Start-up, epic, up-beat music but kept the guy with the super dutch accent as the narrator (probably the CEO). Is this some standard iMovie music?<p>Btw, not so nice: This time I already started the movie and only THEN yt ask me if I want to log in (pauses the vid for it).

Of course without the word &quot;flying&quot; the headline loses some of its impact.<p><i>The European Aviation Safety Agency is still examining the company’s request to have the vehicles certified to fly.</i>

Hopefully in a few decades - when we&#x27;ve got self driving problem licked - we can make these fully autonomous on the road, and in the air!

More a road-legal autogyro than a flying car.

Wonder if this can do pre-rotation, it would be cool to take off like a helicopter.

For those not familiar with autogyros, this xkcd was a major factor in me choosing to learn to fly one:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;xkcd.com&#x2F;1972&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;xkcd.com&#x2F;1972&#x2F;</a><p>It&#x27;s not 100% accurate though: &quot;Can land vertically&quot; isn&#x27;t true unless there&#x27;s a <i>lot</i> of wind (although you can almost always land with very little ground roll). &quot;Cannot hover&quot; is less true. In my aircraft you need 35mph of airspeed to maintain height (when relatively fully loaded). You often have 35 mph of wind at altitude, so a ground relative hover is often possible. &quot;Can often be flown without a licence&quot; doesn&#x27;t apply in the UK.

Shouldn&#x27;t the headline be &quot;Dutch flying car gets permission to _fly over_ European roads&quot;?<p>&#x2F;me grabs coat and exits building

Helicopter?