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The new aircraft has been in development for nearly two years, according to TechCrunch, which first reported on the prototype. Based on the altitude and flight characteristics demonstrated in a short video, Kitty Hawk appears to be relatively far along with the aircraft, compared with other electric vertical-lift aircraft (aka flying car ) efforts, many of which have showed concepts and prototypes but haven’t flown much. A company spokesperson says all of Heaviside’s flights so far have been remotely controlled.
Kitty Hawk is funded by Page and led by Sebastian Thrun , who at Google launched Google X and the self-driving effort that’s now Waymo . Thrun has placed considerable emphasis on that acoustic signature, which promises to be one of the greatest challenges in terms of public acceptance of urban air mobility.