A manufacturer in Turkey has unveiled the nation’s
first flying car and is expected to be unveiled publicly at an aviation, space,
and technology fair held in Istanbul. Like so many others, the ‘flying
car’ in question isn’t really a flying car and instead a vertical take-off and
landing craft with seating for one occupant. It comes from Bayker Makina and
has been dubbed ‘Cezeri’, a name inspired by famous Muslim engineer Al Jazari
who lived between 1136 and 1206.
Bayker’s technical director is Selçuk Bayraktar, the
son-in-law of Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and it was Bayraktar who
first shared images of the vehicle on Twitter. Ahval News reports that Baykar
Makina is one of Turkey’s leading defense and technology companies with expertise
developing and manufacturing various unmanned aerial vehicles. No details are
available regarding Baykar’s plans for the Cezeri but we suspect there are
plans to put the vehicle into production once real-life testing has been
completed.
The vehicle receives lift from four huge,
quadcopter-like blades that sit above a small passenger compartment with a
single seat and surrounded in glass. There are no signs of any controls which
need to be operated by the occupant, leading us to believe that the Cezeri has
been designed to be fully autonomous. If it is to be put into production, it
would likely either be sold to private customers or, more likely, be part of a
fleet of autonomous flying vehicles that could be used in ride-hailing
endeavors.
