eudoh940: Real-Life Electric Jedi
Hover-Bike Takes Off in
Prague
BY KEITH BARRY 06.13.13 2:29 PM
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A flying electric bicycle made its first
public voyage around a Prague convention
center this week, taking off with a dummy
on board and hovering in the air like a
budget speeder bike from Star Wars.
The Design Your Dreams Flying Bike is the
product of three Czech engineering firms
who joined together to fulfill a shared
childhood dream, and the result has been
a year in the making. We first told you
about Design Your Dreams last June,
when the e-bike was still on the drawing
board. Now, their first prototype has
taken to the air, and it looks amazing.
Six horizontally mounted propellers lifted
the 220-pound electric bike into the air,
while an engineer on the ground
controlled it with a handheld remote.
According to Milan Duchek of Design Your
Dreams, the prototype will fly remotely
with a dummy on the seat for now, but a
version that can be piloted by a human
will be ready this fall.
While the prototype isn’t as sleek as the
drawings we originally saw, the project is
still in very early stage development.
Most parts came right off the shelf, and
the total project cost in the low five
figures.
According to Design Your Dreams, the
final product should be as easy to
maneuver as a regular bicycle, but will
also have the ability to fly for between
three and five minutes, using solely
electric power. It will include “foolproof”
stability control for takeoff and landing,
and a fly-by-wire system that isn’t
susceptible to outside interference.
Though the prototype bike looks like a
homebrew version of something
Industrial Light & Magic would’ve
dreamed up, the designers told Czech
news organization ČTK that their
inspiration came from two Czech works of
science fiction: a series of books by
Jaroslav Foglar about a boy with a flying
bicycle, and a 1966 Karel Zeman film
based on a Jules Verne novel.
Even when the flying bike is complete, it
won’t be for sale. The engineers and
designers say that simply seeing the
project to fruition is satisfaction enough.
“Our main motivation in working on the
project was neither profit nor commercial
interest, but the fulfillment of our boyish
dreams,” said Design Your Dreams
engineer Ales Kobylik. As much as we’d
love to buy a flying bike, we can’t argue
with that kind of logic.