If you’ve always wanted to glide around the air on a hoverbike, it looks like those day dreams could turn into reality soon. An Australian mechanical designer, Chris Malloy, has been hard at work over the past two and a half years in his garage creating the Hoverbike. Designed to fly above the ground with the use of two giant propellers, the Hoverbike is just like how we imagined – though not as sleek or futuristic-looking as the ones found in Star Wars.
Malloy’s Hoverbike packs a 1170cc 4-stroke engine capable of delivering 80kW to the propellers that keep it afloat and moving. It is built out of Kevlar reinforced carbon fiber with a foam core frame and uses the same basic flying principles as the tandem-rotor Chinook helicopter – one propeller in the front and one in the back.
While the Hoverbike hasn’t been tested yet, a prototype is in the works, with tests to be completed next month. Theoretically, the Hoverbike should hit speeds of 173 mph, though we’re yet to find out if it does reach those speeds. The future sure is an amazing place to be. Chris Malloy hopes to get these Hoverbikes into limited production within a year and full production two years later. The Hoverbike is estimated to cost about $40,000 though prices will drop if it becomes successful enough for production to be ramped up.
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