“Meh! Another wanna-be flying car invention” – No, wait a minute. This is actually pretty cool!
We’ve featured flying cars here on crankandpiston before and I have personally gone on record with my big bag of ain’t care on the subject. This part all-terrain vehicle and part light-sport aircraft – the Parajet SkyRunner – however is a different kettle of fish and actually has a usability and practicality in purpose which makes sense.
The SkyRunner is a light weight dune buggy weighing in at 420kg that is powered by a one-litre Ford EcoBoost direct injection turbo engine that can have you racing around the sand pit or other demanding terrain. Acceleration is 4.3 seconds for 0-100kph and tops out around 185kph, but this is just in ‘car mode’. When you encounter a forest, a river, a lake or even a mountain that is just too wide, deep or high for a regular dune buggy to tackle you simply deploy the reflex paraglider wing and take to the skies.
Sure, you can get a bit of air under your Nissan Patrol or Toyota Land Cruiser by launching it off the top of a sand dune. But in the SkyRunner you can get to a max altitude of 15,000ft (restricted to 10,000ft) and cruise at 88kph for about a 320km range. The usability of the SkyRunner means it is practical for adventurers, farmers or even military applications although, as we are none of these, we just wanna take it out for a hoon in the dunes.
Source – CNNMoney
Source – Sky.Runner
Source – Sky.Runner
