NEWS
Flying motorbike takes to the skies
Ludovic Lazareth’s jet-powered dream machine will be able to soar over busy traffic
Is it a motorcycle? Is it a helicopter? Actually, it’s both. French custom automotive builder Ludovic Lazareth has conjured up several unusual motorised creations and the Moto Volante flying bike is his latest. It rides much like a regular motorcycle on the road - except for having four wheels instead of two - but when the rider gets tired of traffic jams the contraption changes, Transformer-like, into a jet-powered quadcopter that soars over the gridlock.
After pulling over to the side of the road, the rider presses a button to convert the Moto Volante to fly mode. It takes about a minute for the jets mounted in each wheel hub to warm up. Then the wheels tilt 90° to provide takeoff and gliding thrust. There’s a parachute mounted in each wheel in case of emergencies. Lazareth expects to launch the Moto Volante later in 2019 at a price of about R8m. Whether or not this oddball Jetson-style creation will ever really see production it is a very clever piece of engineering and wor...
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