DAVIS-

For anyone who has felt cheated because it’s 2013 and there still isn’t a flying car, get ready to feel a little bit better.

Dr. Paul Moller has spent the last 40 years working on a flying car that can be affordably mass produced and sold to the public. The first was built in 1967 in his Davis garage. He made some upgrades and flew another model more than 30’ off the ground in 1989.

A great accomplishment, but Moller knew it needed more.

“If you’re going to change transportation,” Moller said. “You need to go fast.”

He’s done that with his latest creation – the Sky Car.

Moller estimates the vehicle has an average speed at of 300 mph at 25,000 feet and 200 mph at sea level. The car is also different than any other flying car currently in the works.

“It takes off vertically and lands vertically; the typical flying car requires a runway,” Moller said. “What we have built into this vehicle is a complete automated flight system. In the future highway-in-the-sky you can sleep, read, play games and wait to be delivered to another spot.”

It sounds like the stuff of science-fiction, but Moller has created the pieces to make it reality. He built an engine that weighs 65 lbs. and has 200 HP. With the engine, fuel, car body, and two passengers the entire vehicle weighs 1,600 lbs.

Once the weight problem was solved there were legal issues to getting the Sky Car off the ground, and those have been somewhat solved also.

“It’s flown many times, but it’s always flown with a tether or without a pilot just because of FAA rules,” Moller said about the Sky Car. “We’ve now gone past that. The FAA has approved this vehicle to fly on a specific date.”

That will be June 10, 2014. The reason for the weight is FAA safety upgrades need to be made. To pay for the modifications, the forward thinking inventor got another idea with crowd funding. Moller added depending on how much a person donates that he or she can receive memorabilia or even ride in the Sky Car.

After that, Moller said it’s only a matter of time before the Sky Car can be mass produced.

“It looks complicated but it’s a very simple machine it has very few moving parts; many less than an automobile. We’ve looked at the economics of producing this vehicle in large numbers. One model of an automobile, perhaps 100,000 vehicles a year, this would be the price of an automobile,” Moller told FOX40.

Even with all this momentum, Moller knows there will be skeptics.

“The fun part of life is to prove people wrong. The naysayers who think this is never going to happen have been around a long time, and we’re going to prove them wrong again,” he said.

For more information about the Sky Car visit Moller’s website at www.moller.com