It might sound crazy, but there’s every possibility of hoverbikes landing for the everyday traveller before flying cars ever do. The Back To The Future 2-inspired dream of getting your own hover board may be no closer to becoming a reality, but you could well get to fly around in one of the quodcopter drone tech bikes in your lifetime.
There are a few exciting looking hoverbikes in development at the moment and while they’re still a little way off, they definitely look like they’ll be the first off the blocks. There’s a lot of fine tuning to go on each of them, but check out the video demos below to see how they’re shaping up, along with our update on how each one is coming together.
The Hoversurf Scorpion-3 hoverbike and cargo-drone
This is by far the coolest looking of the three tech developments being worked on and perhaps the closest to delivering something that could feasibly arrive for the public. The demo video below shows it making a very short and tightly controlled indoor test flight, so it’s very clear that there’s still a way to go before we see hoverbikes flitting around all over the place, but it does give you some indication about the potential of the kit.
The single-seat aircraft has a central frame shaped, at least a little, like a motorbike with four propellers on each corner, similar to a quodcopter drone. It’s powered by an electric motor, has leg guards to keep you from getting too close to the rotors and can fly either manually with a driver in the seat, or as a drone with fully automated controls. You can also see the concept artwork for the next installment in the Hoversurf development, the Scorpion 4, in the picture above, which looks even more market-ready.
Malloy Aeronautics Hoverbike
Malloy’s hoverbike looks a lot more like an automated drone with a dude clinging to it, but the demo video below is at least outside in slightly windy conditions and it looks very stable. It would be more impressive if the pilot was flying it himself and did a little more in terms of manoeuvres, but the fact that it’s in more of a real world situation – not in some super-sized hi-tech warehouse – does a little to counter the other elements.
It kind of looks like the Malloy hoverbike has been built for autonomous drone deliveries and logistics first and given the title hoverbike second. Although, a few aesthetic tweaks and an onboard manual flying control system would go a long way to put it closer to the top of the futuristic pile.
The Aerofex Aero-X hoverbike
Sporting just two rotors, the Aerofex Aero-X hoverbike features just two rotors, compared to the four of both the Hoversurf and Mallow propositions. However, it looks pretty impressive from a design point of view and seems to all intents and purposes ready for market stylistically with seat, structure, wheels and body finish that comes across as being quite advanced.
Things appear fairly strong in terms of the variety of movements that are demonstrated in the video below, but each clip is very short, so it’s hard to know for sure how consistent it is. We’d prefer to see more of a continuous flight from takeoff, through a few moves in the air and then a precision landing. For now though, the vid below is all we’ve got.
