hoverbike
Hoverbikes are no longer a fictional piece of machinery. Pictured: A piece of the "Born to be Wild: Vintage and Celebrity Motorcycles" special exhibit in the Reagan Library's Air Force One Pavillion in Simi Valley, California, on July 8, 2010. ROBYN BECK/AFP/Getty Images

California-based company Hoversurf will deliver its long-anticipated hoverbike in May or June 2019 for an estimated $150,000. The limited edition Hoversurf3 resembles what you’d get if a motorcycle was crossed with a quadcopter. The bike is equipped with one seat and four horizontally mounted electric propellers that are controlled by a pair of joysticks.

Weighing 250-pounds, the craft hovers the landscape at a pre-determined “safe-altitude” of approximately 16-feet, but the technology allows the pilot to adjust the limit. The craft is built to reach a top speed of up to 60 MPH. Equipped with lithium-manganese-nickel batteries, the craft may stay airborne for up to 25 minutes, depending on weight and weather conditions. To fly the craft, there is no license requirement because its low weight and speed exempt it from FAA regulations.

“I think it’s a good idea assuming that it can be made safe, which is questionable in my mind,” says Richard Anderson, a professor of aerospace engineering at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, Florida. “I assume if you ran into somebody it would chop them up.”

Hoversurf’s COO, Joseph Segura-Conn, says the craft has many safety features like a computer-controlled system to help stabilize the bike and laser scanners for detecting and avoiding dangerous obstacles. To keep riders and others who may get in the pathway of the craft, the company will offer extensive training to buyers. Hoversurf officials say future models will be carried through the air by enclosed fans, not by propellers.

“It looks frightening at the beginning, and you’re unsure,” says Segura-Conn, who has flown one of the hoverbikes, among a handful of others. “But as soon as you get up in the air, there’s no experience like it.”

Hoversurf designed the S3 with a monocoque frame that was created using different types of carbon fiber technology. It includes a triple security system for an emergency landing, sound and visual warning system, anti-interference screening, and a kill switch.

Other companies developing hoverbikes and piloted drones include California-based Kitty Hawk Corporation, British company Malloy Aeronautics, and Israel-based Tactical Robotics.

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