Larry Page

IT WAS only a matter of time before someone joined the dots.

First there was Amazon planning to deliver books and other goods sold online to customers by flying direct to homes using remote-controlled drones with cargo compartments.

It made sense. Drones using four rotors or more can fly relatively quickly above traffic and, importantly, land in a space only marginally larger than the drone itself.

Now one of the founders of Google, Larry Page, has concluded that if you can carry a book across town in a drone, why not people?

It has just been revealed by business information services company, Bloomberg, that Mr Page has invested $135 million ($US100 million) in a flying car project that shrugs off the one problem that has plagued flying car proponents from the very beginning; where and how do you land?

Solutions have always revolved around cars that sprouted folding wings that once you landed at your nearest friendly airport, could fold in the wings and then function like a car to drive you to your destination.

I have lost count over the years of the number of designers who have wanted me to write stories about their flying cars. I even had one who said you could bypass the nearest airport because his car could land on the power lines strung along the street outside your destination. Just like a bird. He even sent drawings. He ghosted me for years but he eventually stopped. Maybe he was electrocuted.

By channeling the core features of drones based around multiple rotors and vertical take-off and landing, the concept of the flying car suddenly becomes more achievable.

Larry Page thinks so. So does Toyota if reports are correct that the world’s leading car maker has been taking out patents on flying car designs; although the Toyota patent is said to be about folding wings.

Some clever sleuthing by Bloomberg has found that Mr Page invested in a project called Zee.Aero, which is housed next to the Googleplex in Mountainview, California, but not officially connected to Google or

Google’s new parent company Alphabet.

By combining the technology of drones and that of driverless cars, Zee.Aero’s promoters think they can provide Uber-like services across towns above the traffic.

Zee.Aero was founded in 2010 and now boasts 150 employees and has a very basic website which is calling for more technicians to work on the project.

Zee.Aero patent drawings show a single seat cabin with eight rotors (four along each side) for lift and two on the tail for propulsion. It has wings fore and aft, presumably to take over from the rotors at speed.

Reports from observers at a nearby airport suggest Zee.Aero has both the single seater illustrated and also a larger version that seats more people.

Mr Page also has an investment in another flying car start-up called Kitty Hawk, which is a separate outfit to Zee.Aero but details of this project are sketchy at best. However, Mr Page has recruited one of the brains behind the early development of Google’s driverless cars to work on the Kitty Hawk flying car project.

This suggests that Mr Page thinks that flying cars will need to be autonomous if they are to avoid mayhem in the skies above cities.

But the multi-rotor drone, which is now everything from a serious tool to a toy, has changed the requirement of an airstrip.

By John Mellor