No we are not talking about Star Wars neither are we playing a cheek-in-bone joke with the Jetsons.
The phenomenon of building a flying bike/vehicle has been making the rounds ever since we took to the sky. Many have attempted in creating wacky and insane personal flying machines, pods, vehicles but none of them has actually been able to take it to the sky successfully.
The FBike as it has been termed, is a collaborative effort between a bunch of Czech companies and enthusiasts and is still very much in its early stages of development. The project began in the autumn of 2011 with a proposal to create an e-bike, but enthusiasts from Czech firms like Technodat, Evektor and Duratec set their sights on loftier designs instead. Inspired by the stories of Jules Verne and Czech author Jaroslav Foglar (who penned a trilogy of works featuring a flying bike invented by a young apprentice locksmith).
The proposal for the FBike was to fit a number of electrically-driven propellers to the custom frame of a two-wheeler that would allow the pilot to rise above the traffic for as long as the batteries would hold out. Gyroscopes & accelerometers would be housed in an on-board control unit for keeping stability in check and automatically adjusting the speed of each propeller for a smooth and steady flight. It’s also expected that the FBike would be capable of a flight time of approx 3 to 5 minutes.
The FBike team states that the vehicle is not expected to ever go into production, it’s just being created for marketing purposes. The first flight tests are expected to take place in mid-August, as of now we just have to keep our fingers crossed.
For more details about the FBike … click on the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=yiLZh3lluBg#!
Chuck Miller a resident of Anchorage, Alaska undertook an outstanding journey which involved 49 states, covering a total of 13,000 kms in 10 days on his BMW motorcycle, to raise money for Big Brothers/Big Sisters charity in the US state.
