The consortium behind the project includes three companies already focused on aerial vehicle design: Bartini, Hepard, and IAMAERO; three blockchain development groups, Universa.io, Emercoin, and AIRA Labs, and a battery and charging point manufacturer, Farad.Energy, as well as Drone Employee by AIRA Labs, which makes smart contracts for auto-piloted drones.

Bartini CEO and McFly.aero advisor Ilya Khanykov explained the proposed system in a statement, “We are building a flying car for mass use as air taxis in cities. For safety, aircraft has to be restricted for flights after a fixed flight-time. We use blockchain to control this. Only the transfer of McFly tokens into [a] vehicle’s wallet will trigger the flight: one token per minute. The vehicle will only accept, over its lifetime, a fixed number of tokens, after which its use will be restricted. Tokens will be used to reward other devices and their owners. Token transactions will also contain flight parameters and records of maintenance.

The company states that initial development of this ambitious project is currently in progress in 17 countries around the world, with a community of entrepreneurs and early supporters setting up air taxi management systems and marketplaces in Australia, Belarus, Canada, Egypt, France, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Malaysia, Mexico, Nepal, Netherlands, Nigeria, Panama, Philippines, Russia, and USA.

McFly.aero says it is working on introducing unified technology solutions for those willing to develop the industry in their geographic locale. Missions assigned to leaders of local chapters include creating standards, managing local communities, and lobbying with city authorities and national regulators.

“Consortium members [are] enthusiastic to integrate their products into a unified air taxi infrastructure [and] entrepreneurial community, which is organised in city-focused chapters desiring to use that technology to earn revenues, i.e. sell that technology as a service, as well as develop other business models.” Khanykov concluded.