US Air Force Prepares to Take Off with Flying Cars

F15 Eagle. F-22 Raptor. F-16 Fighting Falcon. Terrafugia? Pop.Up? The US Air Force has announced plans to develop its own flying car to add to its fleet of aircraft.

Called Agility Prime, Dr. Will Roper, assistant secretary of the Air Force for acquisition, technology and logistics, explained: “It was a low-hanging opportunity to broaden the team’s look into where commercial innovation is going in flying cars.”

According to Roper, flying cars might replace the CV-22 Osprey, which is a tilt-rotor aircraft used in special operations.  “It may not be able to do the full mission as an Osprey, but you could imagine there being a lot of compelling options, especially in logistics.”

US Air Force Timetable for Flying Cars

The program is set to begin in the fall of 2019. “The task that I gave the team was to prepare a series of challenges from things that would involve smaller vehicles — maybe moving a couple of special aviators around to moving smaller logistics sets, ammo, meals, that kind of thing, into harm’s way — up to moving heavy logistics, maybe weapons to reload on aircraft, all the way up to something that’s a bigger system.”

Roper continued to describe the Air Force’s decision as an opportunity to push flying car technologies further by incorporating the innovations being developed in the private sector to benefit the military and the public at large.

The effort is part of a broader focus on making logistics networks more resilient when facing adversaries with advanced military capabilities in combat environments.