The lack of hovercrafts in this day and age is often lamented in
the tech community. But now Aeroflex, a high-tech company based
in California, is testing an aerial vehicle that uses two ducted
rotors to hover above the ground. Mark De Roche, founder of
Aeroflex, describes the vehicle by saying, “Think of it as
lowering the threshold of flight, down to the domain of ATV’s.”
A couple of decades ago, the design for this “hover bike” ran
into trouble because of stability issues. Aeroflex may have
fixed that with a mechanical system that lets the vehicle react
to leaning movements from the driver to correct balance.
Currently the prototype bike flies 15 feet above the ground at
speeds up to 30 mph, but it could go faster. Innovation News
Daily points out that the slower speeds could be attributed to
caution rather than technical limitation. Unlike Luke
Skywalker’s personal hover bike, this won’t be for individual
use. Instead, the working prototype is being tested for possible
implementation in heavy-duty drones.