By Andrea O’Sullivan | Reason
Peter Thiel summed up a wide-felt disappointment with the technological status quo when he quipped: “We wanted flying cars, instead we got 140 characters.” The famed investor should buck up, because he may soon be able to tweet (or not) from his taxi in the skies. Believe it or not: the technology is here. The real task is to set up the skyways across which they’ll zip.
Technologists are fond of overprojecting roll-out dates. But in the case of flying cars, or “vertical take-off and landing” (VTOL) aircraft as they’re known in the biz, it is no exaggeration to say they are right around the corner.
In some cases, it’s actually an understatement, as Brent Skorup pointed out in the Wall Street Journal. Helicopters, a kind of proto-flying car, already whisk passengers safely above rush hour traffic in cities like São Paulo and Mexico City. Voom is the “Uber for helicopters,” and its roll out is a good illustration of the buzzing airspace to come. The app-based business matches time-strapped commuters with helicopter pilots for hire. They meet at the closest helipad, and then whisk away to their destination in a fraction of the time it would take in bumper-to-bumper traffic.
