Philippine Passenger Drone Inventor Partners With E-Vehicle Firm

A Filipino inventor Kyxz Mendiola has carried out a successful maiden test flight of what he calls a flying sports car in Batangas, Phillipines.

The former dancer and camera operator flew and hovered for a few minutes in a single-passenger contraption he invented himself, powered by the “multicopter” technology commonly used in small unmanned drones.

The ‘flying car’, named “Koncepto Milenya”, can fly as high as 6.1 m (20 ft) and speed up to 60 kph (37 mph), and its maiden flight lasted just a little over 10 minutes.

Mendiola used parts from drones to build a prototype electric flying vehicle that could carry one person.

The ultralight flying vehicle garnered quite some online attention when a video of its successful flight was posted on YouTube – it has so far been viewed more than 650,000 times.

The video also caught the attention CEO and President of innovative green tech company and maker of electric vehicles Star 8, Jacob Maimon, who immediately set up a meeting with Mendiola.

Mendiola self admittedly is an enthusiast tinkering with electronics and not an engineer with technical training.

He says the idea for the flying vehicle came to him 8 years ago stemming from his interest in remote-controlled planes and helicopters.

Maimon revealed he wanted to back out of the meeting after learning about Mendiola’s lack of technical background in engineering, and being in fact a hip-hop dancer.

Maimon went along with it however and took a liking to Mendiola quickly.

“What I like about him (is) he did everything by himself,” Maimon told ANC during an interview – the “flying car” was a match for what his company was doing.

Maimon said he was impressed with how well made the Koncepto Millenya was, considering that it was made by an enthusiast.

“It’s very hard when you have no funds, no support, it’s so hard to do it by yourself,” said Maimon, who added he was also an inventor himself.

“When drone technology started coming to the Philippines, I started building drones as a hobby” Mendiola told ANC’s Future Perfect Tech Shorts.

“Out of curiosity, I wondered if I could build something that’s big enough to carry me,” Mendiola said.

Their meeting led to a partnership between Star 8 International and Mendolia’s invention for commercially developing versions of his invention.

The planned “electric manned aerial vehicles” or EMAV will have a capacity of seating 2 passengers with a combined weight of 200 kilos and fly for up to an hour, said Maimon.

The EMAV will be called the Future 8 Maimon added.

The Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines (CAAP), has declared that it doesn’t have any regulations about manned aerial vehicles like the one demonstrated by Mendiola and being planned by Maimon at present.

But CAAP said they will look at possible regulations that will be made in other countries where similar aircraft are being developed.