How are close are we to zipping through the trees of Endor on speeder bikes Return of the Jedi style? Pretty mother flipping close people. I was impressed and slightly terrified a year ago when I read about Australian amateur inventor and engineer Chris Malloy and his backyard hover bike, who claims his bike can do well over 100km an hour and cruise up to 10,000 feet (see more here http://www.hover-bike.com). But Malloy’s prototype has serious competition in the form of the Aerofox.

The draw of the American Aerofox are two knee level pars that intuitively control the pitch and yaw of the bike based on the pilots leaning keeping the hover bike stable. Unfortunately the company don’t have the creation and commercial sale of this vehicle lined up. They see it more as a prototype for the development of boring unmanned drones to airlift equipment.

Laaaame.

I want something for zipping over terrain. Where I live there are few roads and plenty of beautiful but difficult to access locations. We actually have an almost impassable offroad trail called The Jump where dozens of people literally wreck their four wheel drives trying to get out the isolated beaches. A vehicle like this would be ideal in regional and rural areas for getting around. Fingers crossed Chris Malloy can get the corporate backing to get a commercial version of his hover bike available soon.