Vertiia - is this the "flying car" we have been waiting for?

Today I stood and watched the future pass me by – not in some metaphoric sense, literally. I saw a prototype drone fly past me that could be the future of transport, or at the very least will play a role in it. It’s called Vertiia and it’s from an Aussie company called AMSL.

Andrew Moore (the AM) and Sibhan Lyndon (the SL) formed AMSL with a goal of changing the way the world travels.

They scored some funding from Telstra’s muru-D startup team and now have a 1/5th scale prototype of their vision.

Vertiia is a verti-plane, capable of vertical liftoff and landing, and horizontal flight. The benefits of the flight path being speed – potentially up to 300km/hr.

It’s fully electric making it safer than traditional choppers and also much quieter.

There’s some talk of this vertical take-off and landing aircraft market being a $27 billion industry within 15 years, so why not get on board.

Andrew and the team hope to have a full scale test aircraft within the year, and see no reason (other than regulatory) why flights with these aircraft won’t be taking place within five years.

It seats two, but may also be unmanned carrying cargo or supplies – the possibilities in defence and natural disasters are endless.

Telstra’s interest is primarily in the 5G space, an autonomous craft like this will need reliable and fast connectivity – latency is critical when you’re dealing with passengers in an autonomous vehicle so they see this as a strong area to show the strength of the future 5G network.