Sydney: An Australian man has claimed that he has created a flying bike, which will be able to hover an estimated 10,000 feet above the ground.
The hoverbike, which has skeptics questioning its validity online, has a weight of 105 kg without fuel and its rotors are made of Tasmanian Oak.
But, according to its creator Chris Malloy, 32, from North Ryde, it was not targeted at ‘recreational use’.
It is more tailored for use at wildlife parks, in films, cattle mustering, search and rescue and aerial surveying, he said.
Malloy has so far only released one video of the Hoverbike showing airflow visualisation using smoke, but it does not show it flying, a newspaper reported.
On his hover-bike.com site, he says he''s working on producing a video but in the meantime swore by still pictures showing it flying though strapped to the ground and said they were not doctored by a photo-editing program like Photoshop.
Speaking with Fairfax Media he said he didn''t see the ‘necessity’ in releasing video footage. “People can wait.”
With a maximum takeoff weight of 270 kg, the Hover bike is estimated to reach an airspeed of 278 km/h and travel 148km on a primary tank of fuel at 80knts cruise, according to his website.
Malloy, who works at an optical engineering company in Sydney, has spent the last two years working in his garage on the bike.
In two months time, after receiving some of the required parts, Malloy plans to unstrap the bike from the ropes that attach it to the ground “to see what happens” and test whether it flies steadily.
ANI
First Published: Wednesday, June 15, 2011, 10:57