After Building Drones for America, This Company Wants To Be Ready To Mass-Produce Flying Cars

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The following post was written and/or published as a collaboration between Benzinga’s in-house sponsored content team and a financial partner of Benzinga.

Many events have changed the course of history. These incidents have been said to have served as the defining moments that have shaped the world and altered the way people live today.

One such event occurred in 1903 when the Wright brothers — Orville and Wilbur — achieved the first powered, sustained, and controlled airplane flight. When the inventors surpassed their milestone two years later by building and flying the first fully practical airplane, they pioneered the aviation industry.

Since then, the industry has been in full flight, attaining feats beyond the stratosphere. Air travel is currently one of the most utilized and safest means of transport globally. Even as the coronavirus pandemic persists, the global airline industry ferried about 2.2 billion passengers in 2021 alone — although that represented a 50% loss in air passenger traffic compared to 2019.

Presently, the focus of aeronautics seems to have shifted toward space tourism, with companies like Tesla Inc. TSLA, Amazon.com Inc. AMZN, and Virgin Galactic Holdings Inc. SPCE investing billions to make that dream a reality.

The Next Frontier for Aviation?

But a question is: is space tourism really the next frontier for the aviation industry?

Human beings have been venturing into space since Oct. 4, 1957, when the Soviet Union (U.S.S.R.) launched Sputnik, the 1st artificial satellite to orbit Earth. But a significant milestone was marked when America’s Apollo 11 with Neil Armstrong and lunar module pilot Buzz Aldrin made history by landing on the moon on July 20, 1969.

Space travel is not new and, therefore, might not be the new frontier. Then what could possibly be next for the aviation industry? A small ambitious startup company — xCraft Enterprises Inc. — based in Idaho has been busy working on what it says is the next big innovation that could change the way people commute and travel.

Dubbed “America’s Drone Company,” xCraft designs and manufactures customized, unmanned aerial systems for enterprise and military markets.

JD Claridge, co-founder, and CEO of xCraft, is attempting to follow in the footsteps of the Wright brothers by also daring and charting a new path for the aviation industry. He says he is pioneering a new wave of flying mobility with flying cars.

But the concept of flying cars is not new. The history of roadable aircraft dates back to 1917 when aircraft designer Glenn Curtiss built his Autoplane. It had a pusher propeller for flight, with removable wings, canard foreplane, and twin tails. It was able to hop but not fly.

A lot of developers have been busy at work since then, actively trying to get their prototypes off the ground. In June 2021, a prototype flying car completed a 35-minute flight between international airports in Nitra and Bratislava in Slovakia. The hybrid car-aircraft — AirCar — was equipped with a BMW BMW engine and took 2 minutes and 15 seconds to transform from a car into aircraft.

Vision For the Future — Flying Cars

While such reports are good for the industry, flying car prototypes are currently not ready for mass production and adoption just yet. xCraft’s vision of Urban Air Mobility (UAM) is making sure the exciting space that people have dreamed about for decades is a reality soon.

Advancements in technologies developed for small drones have made it possible for companies to design a safe, simple, and inexpensive multi-rotor drone capable of human flight. Such advancements are propelling the growth of electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft.

Already, some startup companies are making headway to making eVTOL aircraft accessible to the consumer market.

Producing a commercially ready flying car was part of xCraft’s original vision to see the company’s technology used to help move people and things efficiently and autonomously through the vast open airspace.

The company states that it has developed the flying car concepts through a vehicle and logistical system design. These concepts have already been discussed with xCraft’s intellectual property (IP) attorneys and patent applications have been initiated although not yet submitted. 

America’s Drone Company

Before throwing the spotlight on flying cars, the company developed technologies that it says help power the future of autonomous flight. With a launch on ABC’s “Shark Tank,” xCraft became “America’s Drone Company,” creating an arsenal of patented drone systems.

The company believes the drone market lacks continuing innovation and improvement. Before entering the industry, xCraft observed a gap in the market for well-built drones that could fly extremely fast and even communicate with their counterparts. 

To solve these issues, the company designed the Panadrone, which also had better battery life.

The company says it is solving these challenges by building faster, more efficient drones built with unique patented technology to take the drone industry to new heights, improving safety, health, and quality of life for people all over the world.

Drones have benefited the human race. They have enhanced the quick delivery of life-saving medications, search for lost people more efficiently, safely spot wildfires and even communicate in areas without cellular reception.

The company in 2014 developed X PlusOne, a fast hybrid drone that incorporates 2 key features — vertical takeoff and landing with fast, efficient flight. It is a quadcopter combined with a flying wing. The quadcopter gives the user the ability of precision vertical takeoffs, landings, and hover capabilities, and a flying wing enables efficient forward flight.

xCraft states that what makes its drone better than what is on the market is that it uses aerodynamics to support the craft's weight, thereby giving users greater efficiency.

The company believes its technology and vision are ready for the future and could be something investors are looking for.

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The preceding post was written and/or published as a collaboration between Benzinga’s in-house sponsored content team and a financial partner of Benzinga. Although the piece is not and should not be construed as editorial content, the sponsored content team works to ensure that any and all information contained within is true and accurate to the best of their knowledge and research. This content is for informational purposes only and not intended to be investing advice.