ISRAELI COMPANY DEVELOPING FLYING CAR

Israeli Company Working on Flying Car for Military, Rescue (FoxNews)
YAVNE, Israel — Rafi Yoeli has an unconventional solution to saving people from burning high-rises or rescuing soldiers trapped behind enemy lines: a flying car. Yoeli already has gotten a rudimentary vehicle off the ground — about three feet — and hopes to see a marketable version of his X-Hawk flying car by 2010.

Although his dream might seem far-fetched, Textron Inc.'s (TXT) Bell Helicopters is taking a serious look, teaming with Yoeli's privately held Urban Aeronautics to explore X-Hawk's potential....

-Hawk — for now just a full-size mold in Urban Aeronautics' headquarters in the central Israeli town of Yavne — looks like a futuristic space car, with its streamlined design, two fans rising from the rear and cockpit-style driver's seat.

But Yoeli envisions X-Hawk and Mule as more of a truck, pulling up to dangerous combat or terror arenas to ferry in personnel and supplies and ferry out people at risk.

Like a similarly sized helicopter, X-Hawk will be able to take off vertically, fly up to 155 miles an hour and as high as 12,000 feet and remain aloft about two hours, Urban Aeronautics says.