1982

Ridley Scott directed the science-fiction movie Blade Runner and brought the flying car back into the mainstream as the icon of the future. The vision was bleak: Self-piloting flying cars, called spinners, were available only to police. And the message was clear: The advances of the future may not reach everyone.

2000

The first designs of a vertical-takeoff-and-landing craft called X-Hawk began. The company Urban Aeronautics formed with the idea of selling flying cars to first responders and police in urban areas. Urban Aero maintains that a marketable vehicle will be ready in 2012.

2005

NASA dipped a toe into the flying-car world when it teamed up with the CAFE Foundation to create the Personal Air Vehicle Challenge. Instead of being a full-fledged competition for a flying car, the contest awarded participants for the development of enabling technologies like noise reduction (inside and outside the aircraft), fuel efficiency, and overall ease-of-use.

2008

Moller International announced it was taking orders for a new four-passenger personal air vehicle, its sixth in a procession of flying cars. This one will run like a hybrid electric car on the ground or, without any conversion, use redirected thrust to take off vertically and zip away at 150 mph.

2009

Further cementing that the age of the flying car might really be upon us, behold the PAL-V (Personal Air and Land Vehicle), a three-wheeled car with a single rotor and propeller that folds away like a bird’s wing. The craft is meant to be flown below 4,000 feet, an altitude that (according to most of the world’s regulators) allows fliers to operate under visual-flight rules. The Dutch company behind the vehicle also promises that the PAL-V’s noise will be kept to a relatively low 70 decibels because its main rotor spins slower than that of a conventional chopper.