"Where are my flying cars?!" is an oft-repeated question from despairing futurists, saddened by the fact that it’s 2014 and we’re still puttering around on mundane surface-bound vehicles that on the whole aren’t too different in basic form and function from cars in the 1940s. The bad news is that while Back to the Future II-style flying cars are still a long way off, a company named Aerofex out of California is more than happy to take your down payment on a flying motorcycle—well, sort of, anyway.

Aerofex’s Aero-X is a "hoverbike"—a platform supported not by wheels but rather by a pair of large ducted fans. The company has had a prototype technology demonstrator operational since 2012, which can be seen in the video below:

According to ExtremeTech, Aerofex is targeting 2016 for the debut of its commercial prototype. Unlike the hastily assembled technology demonstrator, where the operator perches in a decidedly uncomfortable-looking position and appears to have only a modicum of control over the craft’s operation, the commercial version should feature a more enclosed seating position, along with a passenger seat. It’s expected to have a carbon fiber chassis and a dry weight of about 785 lbs (365 kg), with a carrying capacity of a bit over 300 lbs (about 140 kg).

Currently, Aerofex is targeting a maximum speed for the finished vehicle of about 45 mph (72 km/h). You also wouldn’t need a pilot’s license to operate the craft, since Aerofex plans on limiting the Aero-X’s altitude to a max of about 12 feet (about 3.5 meters). This seems like a good thing—after watching the video of the tech demonstrator flying and the level of control demonstrated by the rider/driver/pilot, the idea of going much higher than a few feet off the ground seems utterly terrifying.

But "terrifying" isn’t anywhere in the marketing copy for the Aero-X (well, that’s not surprising, I suppose). According to the company’s site, the Aero-X is "a hovercraft that rides like a motorcycle….you can learn to operate it safely in just a weekend of training. It responds to your movements just as a motorcycle would. And it costs a fraction of even the most basic airplane or helicopter."

The FAQ page has more info about the Aero-X platform itself—the production craft will be powered by a water-cooled rotary engine, generating 240 horsepower. One thing ExtremeTech mentions in its brief is that Aerofex has spent time overcoming what it refers to as the "coupling effect" between the two rotors. If you attempt to Google for "coupling effect" you’ll get back a lot of PDFs with scary-sounding names, so we turned to Casey Johnston, our resident physics expert, for a friendlier explanation.

"I believe this is what they’re referring to," she replied, linking to the Wikipedia entry on rotational-vibrational coupling. The Aero-X includes a pair of ducted fans to keep it hovering, and as Casey explains it: "Basically, having two kinds of forces acting on the same object can, in the worst case scenario, lead them to act on the object constructively (that is, building on each other) to the point that it gets out of control or destroys the object in question." She then tossed a link to a video of the famous Tacoma Narrows Bridge destroying itself as an example of an out-of-control coupling effect. "That video is set to Evanescence, so I’m sorry," she added.

"Picture the aerobike trying to bank around a turn while the blades that are hovering it are spinning," she continued. "The momentum of the whole body from the turn is one force, and the blades turning are another…as the blades spin, each turn of the blade might 'throw' the vehicle a little bit farther off the arc of the turn. So turning in a certain direction, the path of the turn might go from being a smooth curve to a scalloped sort of pattern with each spin of the blade winding the bike off the curve, or making it instead go in a straight line, or causing it to spin out—a number of things could happen, but the point is you would have to be careful to include damping systems to make sure the two types of force can be balanced with respect to each other."

Aerofex notes that it has come up with a patented solution to the rotor coupling effect that should make it so that the production bike doesn’t exhibit these problems. Indeed, in the linked video, there isn’t any evidence of wonky oscillations during flight.

But back to the subject of cost: at an estimated price of $85,000, it’s definitely true that the Aero-X is cheaper than a helicopter or plane—even a small new aircraft like a Cessna 172 Skyhawk can cost nearly $300,000 (though aspiring pilots wouldn’t be likely to own their own aircraft at first). However, the Aero-X also costs about seven to eight times more than a nice cruiser-type motorcycle (well, unless you’re wasting money on a Harley—then it’s only about two to three times). Coupled with the fact that it’s not intended to be used as a primary means of transportation, the Aero-X is priced out of the affordability range of most middle-class households, but it's likely well within impulse-buy territory for people with piles of disposable income. It's a hell of a lot cheaper than a one-man submersible!

On the other hand, how much is too much for a flying motorcycle? Aerofex is currently taking preorders—$5,000 will get you on the list for your own Aero-X, with an expected delivery of sometime in 2017.

Listing image by Aerofex