A flying car could allow us to get from point A to B, exploring the skies while never sitting in traffic.

This technology is no longer the stuff of fantasy. Numerous companies around the world are racing to make theirs available.

Canada’s Marcus Leng leads one of them.

“I think we’ve all had dreams of complete three-dimensional freedom,” said Leng, who is the CEO of Opener, a company developing a personal aerial vehicle.

As a young boy walking to school, he would wonder if there would ever be an aircraft that you could just jump in “and be able to take off vertically and fly wherever you wanted.”

He started designing and building prototypes in his basement in the small community of Warkworth, Ont.

“I think our house became a factory,” he recalls.

“The basement was used for basically doing all the structure work … and the kitchen was basically used for manufacturing motors,” he told Global’s current affairs show, The New Reality. “We used to bake the motors in the oven. Boy, would that stink.”

It took over a year for him to fly his first proof-of-concept vehicle in his front yard.

“I found myself eventually at the end of our driveway and my friends and neighbours … were behind a barrier of cars that we had set up,” Leng said.

“And I figure, just like in skiing, I’ll do a skidding turn in front of them. All went very well, except during the skidding turn, the edge of the wing made contact with the lawn … but the propulsion systems reacted so fast that it basically created this long divot as it scraped through grass without the aircraft losing any control.”

Using eVTOL, which stands for electric-powered vertical takeoff and landing, Leng said he was able to produce a vehicle that doesn’t need a runway to get off the ground.

It’s called BlackFly. Some people often refer to it as a flying car. Leng calls it a personal aerial vehicle designed to fit one person.

Anyone up to six feet six inches and weighing 200 pounds or less can use it.

It has a joystick, can fly in -20 Celsius weather, and operate in about 32 km/h winds.

“In the United States, which is our primary market, we have very serious weight restrictions. So, the American vehicles have a 20-plus mile (32 km) range for an operator that’s 200 pounds,” Leng said.

“In Canada, we don’t have those weight constraints and also we don’t have speed constraints,” said Leng, who in 2014 relocated the majority of his operations to Palo Alto, Calif.

One of the key features about BlackFly is you don’t need a pilot’s licence to fly it.

According to Leng, a potential owner would have to complete a training course and be at least 18 years old.

“The nice thing about our vehicle is (that in) both the United States and Canada (it’s) classified as an ultralight aircraft,” he said. “In Canada, you require an ultralight licence, which is relatively easy and straightforward to obtain.”

In order to fly it, you need to take a short training course.

“I think the most unique thing is that I can be an operator, you can be an operator … in the course of about two days and a few hours of simulation how to safely fly this aircraft,” said Kristina Menton, who is the director of operations, flight testing and propulsion lead at Opener.

“That is something that is exceptionally novel and really incredible — to be able to give that type of experience of three-dimensional flight to regular people.”  

She said the aircraft is almost exclusively made from carbon fibre, including the wings, fuselage and propellers. It’s electric, and therefore emissions-free.

“We have autoland features. So basically, when you get close to the ground, the aircraft will take over,” Menton said.

Canadians who help make BlackFly … fly

Menton has been working on BlackFly for years. When she first signed on with the company, she had no idea what product she’d be working on.

“I first met Marcus on a phone call the day before my last exam of university. He was looking to hire two mechanical engineers. At the time, the company was completely in stealth mode and he wasn’t able to say what the product was, who the investors were, really any of the technical details,” Menton told Global News.

“But I could get from the phone call that it was a pretty exciting and innovative opportunity and decided to take the leap to jump on board.”

She wasn’t the only one who took the leap. Eleanor Li, Menton’s classmate at the University of Toronto in mechanical engineering, did too. She joined Opener and moved to Silicon Valley without knowing the project she was hired to work on.

“Marcus basically came along and said, ‘Oh, we’re making this huge carbon epoxy part. Do you want to be part of our team?’ And I just said, ‘Yes, yes, here I am,’” said Li, who is now the plant manager at Opener.

For years, Leng had been secretly working on his invention while recruiting.

It wasn’t until 2018 that he started letting the world get a glimpse of BlackFly.

In July 2021, Li, Menton and Leng flew Blackfly at the Experimental Aircraft Association AirVenture show in Oshkosh, Wisc. The annual event can bring in hundreds of thousands of spectators.

“The flight is incredible. You have a panoramic view of anywhere,” said Li. “I told this to a few people at Oshkosh: when you’re in the aircraft, you feel like you are the aircraft and the aircraft is you.”

The team is working hard to make the aircraft available to consumers soon.

But first adopters will only be able to fly in rural areas. BlackFly is not allowed to go over built-up areas.

Leng is keeping the price tag to himself, but he believes as the industry advances, BlackFly will become more accessible to people.

“Our objective for next year is to produce 260 vehicles. But the ultimate goal is to be producing tens of thousands of these at a price that would be in line with an SUV,” he said.

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See this and other original stories about our world on The New Reality airing Saturday nights on Global TV, and online.

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Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy – The Definitive Edition getting official release details, along with a trailer and lots of screens, was certainly the standout and dominant news item at the end of the week. Perhaps counter to expectations the visual overhaul is a bit more than a simple upscale, with the footage looking rather familiar but undoubtedly fresh. That’s not to say it would be mistaken for footage of games developed from scratch in the 2020s, as characters in particular still have that angular look familiar from past generations.

The official information does point to key gameplay changes, such as controls more in tune with what players know from GTA V. Yet we’d suggest those control updates will need to be good; you may have fond memories of the original ‘3D’ GTA trilogy, but they’re of their time and don’t necessarily feel particularly smooth to play now. Perhaps The Trilogy will fix that, it’s certainly one of the big tests it’ll face.

Another question will be how it’ll stack up on Switch. We don’t think it’s a particularly outrageous suggestion to say we’ll be looking at it targeting 30fps on Nintendo’s system, at best, and if previous reports were accurate and Unreal Engine has been used, that makes some caution advisable. While Unreal games can certainly run on Switch, the system’s library is also full of dodgy ports where the different iterations of the engine simply don’t play nice with the hardware. Here’s hoping that the sheer volume of resources at Rockstar’s disposal – and the knowledge that the release could be a big seller on Switch – will ensure that a carefully optimised version arrives on the hybrid.

As for the release details, it’s split up between eShop and retail. The digital / eShop version isn’t far away on 11th November, while those that want the physical edition need to wait until 7th December. It’ll cost £49.99 / $59.99, though that is three games in the package of course, while the file size is 25.4GB; we’ll need to wait and see whether Rockstar will opt for a Switch cartridge big enough to hold the full package or force mandatory downloads. We’ll keep an eye out for updates.

For some this trilogy release will be revisiting old classics, and no doubt for many it’ll represent their first playthroughs of these iconic games. We’re curious where you fall in these categories, so by all means pitch in with the polls and comments below – is this a November (eShop) or December (physical) pick-up for you?

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Smartphone with Epic Games logo is seen in front of Apple logo in this illustration taken, May 2, 2021. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo

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