The Best Personal Flying Vehicle Will Get $1 Million Sponsor From Boeing

The idea of a personal flying machine is an intriguing prospect and Boeing has done a lot to encourage development in this field.

GoFly, a tech incubator based in New York is part of this initiative of the company and it will offer $1 million to whoever wins the fly-off taking place at NASA’s Ames Research Center.

According to Boeing, it has had over 850 teams from 103 nations participated in GoFly. The company has chosen five finalists for the grand prize and 20 contestants competing for additional prizes, including $250,000 for the vehicle that is most compact and produces the least noise, and $100,000 for the best disruptor.

Boeing is not the sole sponsor of GoFly but it is the largest. Other companies that have participated in making the contest happens include Dell Technologies, Pratt & Whitney, and American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, which sponsors money and expertise.

According to Gwen Lighter, GoFly’s CEO and founder, the competition sees a wide range of designs as they have no limitation in terms of how the machines look and work.

To be considered legible for the prizes, the vehicles must be able to fly 32 kilometers at the speed of at least 55.5 kilometers/hour, carrying a total of 90 kilograms of equipment and pilot. The vehicle must not make noise louder than 87 decibels. Plus, it must not exceeds 2.5 meters in length.

That is not all. All vehicles participating in this contest must take off and touch down vertically. Anything that requires long runways to be able to run is not legible. In terms of fuel, the participators can choose anything from aviation fuel, electricity, or gasoline.

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