Many people are fantasizing to simply fly away when they are stuck in traffic. In one of our PAL-V videos, Marco van den Bosch explained that you need to drive to an airstrip and transform from car to airplane. This sounds simple but I can imagine that it took a lot of research and innovation to develop it like this. Can you explain the technology behind it?

This is actually one of the key elements to make a flying car successful, the “trick” is to combine both aircraft and car into one vehicle, making the conversion from one mode to the other which is needed to comply with both air and road regulations. We have patented our folding rotor system that uses a unique hinge in the middle of the rotor. Furthermore, we have implemented a hydraulic lift system to raise the height of the vehicle by 35 centimetres when transitioning from drive to flight mode. This was needed to ensure that the propeller doesn’t hit the ground while also making the car more stable on the road, which we managed to do by lowering the centre of gravity when lowering the complete cabin/fuselage.

The PAL-V Liberty uses two motors, both 100 hp. For a sportscar, it does not sound like a lot. How are these engines capable of driving and flying in such a sporty manner?

Indeed, 100 horsepower doesn’t sound like an enormous amount but remember that the vehicle weighs only 664 kg, which is half of the weight of a small hatchback so our power to weight ratio is pretty good. Additionally, add in an aerodynamic body. Looking closely at the lines of the PAL-V Liberty, you may notice it looks a bit like a water droplet, aerodynamically that is a very good profile to use, reducing drag-resistance for driving and especially in flight mode.

PAL-V selected the gyrocopter principle, in one of the videos Hans Joore showed us how safe this really is, very impressive, but what other technical arguments were considered in order to choose this principle?

Apart from all the safety (highest priority) and then the ease of use arguments, a gyroplane in general is a very simple mode of flight. There are no complex mechanics involved, you have an engine that is connected to the propeller and you have a rotor that is powered by the wind or passage through the air, simple! So, there is no complex mechanical connection between the engine and the rotor as you see on helicopters. This allows us to use for example a foldable rotor system and create a flying car that is lightweight, easy to operate, and with low operational cost. The less moving parts you have, the less to maintain, the cheaper it is to fly.