Cosmos Magazine

Why drive when you could fly?

In what is one of the most delightful examples of life imitating art, Tatooine’s Boonta Eve Classic is coming to Australia. If all goes to plan, we’ve finally reached that moment in history when Star Wars and F1 fans can unite in the South Australian desert, for the world’s first racing series for electric flying cars: Airspeeder.

While flying cars have been creeping closer to reality (see “Dude, where’s my flying car?”, Cosmos 91) they still sound like something out of science fiction. But they’re exactly what Alauda Aeronautics is promising: “Flying cars that anyone can own and anyone can fly.”

Founded by Matt Pearson in 2016, Alauda is Airspeeder’s engineering arm and is responsible for developing and building the performance electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) vehicles for this ambitious racing series.

Air racing has a

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