VTOLS WHICH CAN BE A REALITY IN FUTURE

Almost all aviation major companies are investing heavily and collaborating in meaningful Research and Development of vehicles capable of Vertical Takeoff and Landing, facilitating Urban Air Mobility (UAM)

- WING COMMANDER R.K. YADAV

BY 2050, THE GLOBAL POPULATION IS PROJECTED TO GROW by over 2 billion to nearly 10 billion, with almost 70 per cent of us living in an urban environment. Urban traffic congestion is likely to get worse in the metro cities around the world. For over eight decades, sci-fi writers and visionaries have discussed the idea of “Flying Cars”, which will be able to get us from our rooftops or gardens to any place we wish to travel, avoiding the traffic on road. Today we are already at the end of second decade of 21st century, and we have seen most of other sci-fi imaginations like video calls, sleek mobile phones, robots, cloning and artificial intelligence become a reality. The idea of flying from the house to office is limited to very few super-rich who can afford helicopters. Helicopters’ capability of Vertical Takeoff and Landing (VTOL) has made them an integral part of the military forces and a fancy toy for the billionaires.