In 2021, the AirCar flying car madehis first flight between two cities in Slovakia. He began his journey in the Slovak city of Nitra - in a few minutes the wheeled car turned into an aircraft, gained a speed of 170 kilometers per hour in the air and landed in Bratislava. In total, the flight lasted 35 minutes, and it sounds very impressive. However, experts consider this type of transport to be very dangerous and tend to assume that we will not see a flying taxi soon - at the moment, all this is just expensive pampering. However, a flying car has recently been tested in China, which may well be put into operation in the future. It is safer than the analogs shown earlier, because it levitates in the air thanks to an air cushion at a low altitude.
The car levitates in the air thanks to a magnetic cushion
Flying car in China
The flying car was designed by engineers fromSouthwestern Jiaotong University. It was not created from scratch - the specialists took an existing car and modified it so that it could hover above the ground. It should be noted that the device cannot fly over people's heads, because it rises only a few millimeters. This is enough for it to move without the help of wheels - there is no friction, which means that the car can reach high speed.
Frame from the tests of the car-maglev
The most important part of a flying car ispermanent magnet design on the bottom of the body. If the car is on a special track with conductive material, it can levitate in the air. A special road for testing a flying car was built in the Chinese province of Jiangsu. The design weighing 2.8 tons was able to rise by 35 millimeters and accelerate to a speed of 200 kilometers per hour.
Important: The flying car test videos are only available as YouTube Shorts. Here is the link.
A total of eight were tested on the test track.cars, five of which were equipped with experimental power sources. They traveled along a 7.9-kilometer road and showed impressive results. So, one of the samples was able to gain speed of 230 kilometers per hour. In addition to speed, such cars are notable for the fact that they do not harm the environment. This, at least, is what the authors of the project say.
The world's first flying car for racing successfully passed the test. What's next?
What is maglev and what are its advantages
In many foreign publications, these carscalled "flying", but this is not entirely true. After all, we are not talking about technology like AirCar, mentioned at the beginning of the article - the cars that took part in the tests will not be able to fly between buildings like in science fiction films.
It is most correct to name the shown carsmaglev is a vehicle that moves along the roads due to the strength of the electromagnetic field. Typically, maglevs are trains and trams that can gain tremendous speed due to the absence of friction between the cars and rails. They are almost non-existent in the USA, but in China and Japan they are very popular and allow you to cover long distances in record time.
Maglev in Shanghai (China)
The fastest railway line on the magneticsuspension is considered a Shanghai maglev. It connects the Shanghai metro Longyang Lu and Pudong International Airport in Shanghai (China). A train on a magnetic cushion overcomes a distance of 30 kilometers in just 7 minutes and 20 seconds - we have to agree that this is an impressive result. Due to the absence of friction and the aerodynamic shape of the cars, the train is able to accelerate to 431 kilometers per hour and maintain this speed for about 2 minutes.
Maglev cars will not become a habitual transport for a long time
Maybe maglevs will still beby trains - the technology is already proven, and there is nothing special to experiment. About why maglevs are better than ordinary trains and what terrible accidents they took part in, read in this material.
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