The flying car has arrived and it looks scary as hell
Deliver packages by drone? Yawn! Thorstin Crijns aims to transport people by multicopter, flying car style, and he actually built a brilliant/insane working prototype. A typical quadcopter won't cut it, so his machine has 16 separate motors and props, with a cluster of lithium-ion batteries to power it. Since weight is of the essence, the computer-optimized frame is made of lightweight 6060 aluminum. The final piece of the puzzle is the control system, and Crijns chose the MultiWii Autopilot, a well-known product that adjusts the power on each motor to keep things straight and level.
The resulting machine weighs in at 110 pounds, and the test pilot (Crijns himself, of course, who else would fly it?) is 132 pounds, for 242 pounds total. With a total static thrust of 282 pounds versus 242 pounds of weight, his contraption should theoretically fly, and as you can see in the short video below, it worked like a charm. Nevertheless, the test flight was understandably brief and Crijns only got a few feet off the ground. We're not sure what he plans to do with it next, but so far we'd call his experiments a success. On the other hand, it looks dangerous on so many levels that we're questioning whether we want the whole flying car thing after all.
