This ''Personal Flying Vehicle'' is Equal Parts Astounding and Frightening

It sounds terrifying, but … well, it looks pretty terrifying.

The “personal flying vehicle” from multinational business conglomerate Alphabet is a pure-electric micro-craft that zips along at speeds up to 20 mph and performs dizzying maneuvers at flight ceilings of 10 feet – all without a license.

I’ll admit – the "Flyer" vehicle from Alphabet’s “Kitty Hawk” project looks friggin’ awesome, and if light jostling didn’t give me crippling motion sickness, I’d be all over this. But it looks astoundingly dangerous, even if it’s designed to operate over water, and the craft’s moderate speed and altitude probably couldn’t do much damage.

10 electrically-driven props propel the “Flyer”, and its battery can last 12-20 minutes. As an ultralight aircraft, the “Flyer” doesn’t require a license to operate, and its creators insist you can learn to fly it in minutes.

Their aspirations, though, are a bit loftier.

“Our mission is to make the dream of personal flight a reality,” they note on their website. “We believe when everyone has access to personal flight, a new, limitless world of opportunity will open up to them.”

But the “Flyer” is less a flying car than a flying waverunner, and you’ll probably find them both co-mingling at beaches and lakes. The craft actually resembles a giant quadcopter (a “decacopter”?), albeit with a living pilot that won’t shake off a pesky crash.

Kitty Hawk is currently taking pre-orders on their site, though other than saving $100, pricing wasn’t divulged.