Flying car start-up, backed by Google founder Larry Page, starts offering test flights

A flying car project backed by Google co-founder Larry Page was closer to take-off on Wednesday, with a model being offered for test flights by aspiring buyers.

Kitty Hawk, funded by Page, unveiled a “Flyer” model it described as “an exciting first step to sharing the freedom of flight.”

The company was created last year in Google’s hometown of Mountain View, California, and has been testing a prototype in New Zealand.

Images and details were available at a freshly launched website at flyer.aero, and CNN posted coverage of a reporter taking to the air in a Flyer over a lake at a test site near Las Vegas.

Kitty Hawk chief executive Sebastian Thrun, who founded the Google X lab devoted to “moonshots” such as self-driving cars and internet-synched eyewear, was quoted by CNN as saying piloting Flyer was as easy playing the video game “Minecraft.”

“Making Flyer accessible, which is what we do at our Lake Las Vegas training facility, helps more people experience the freedom and possibilities of vehicles of the future,” a Kitty Hawk spokeswoman told Agence France-Presse.