Airbus has long been invested in creating an autonomous flying taxi service. The AlphaOne is their impressive demo for the Vahana project. On January 31st, 2018, the Vahana Alpha One autonomous electric craft took off and flew for almost a minute, without a pilot in charge.
Now, you can watch that flight and see the Vahana six-rotor flying vehicle in motion.
The Airbus Vahana project aims to become essentially a self-driving (or self-flying) air taxi, offering passengers the chance to quickly move, without the inconvenience of traffic jams.
As Tom Enders, Airbus CEO, put it last year, “with flying, you don’t need to pour billions into concrete bridges and roads.”
Of course, we’re still a long way from having an autonomous flying taxi.
During the first Airbus Vahana test you saw above, the flying car managed to just hover, without moving in any direction. We’re sure that ability will come soon though, so stay tuned!
Until then, check out the Vahana flying taxi specs:
- Width: 6.2 m / 20.3 ft
- Length: 5.7 m / 18.7 ft
- Height: 2.8 m / 9.2 ft
- Takeoff Weight: 745 kg / 1642 lb
Quite a lot of leg room, right?
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