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Watch four flying cars go toe-to-toe in new 'Formula One of the skies'
The Jetson One personal aircraft was recently demonstrated in a four-vehicle aerial race. The aircraft is designed for a single person, takes off and hovers like a helicopter, and can go up to 1,500 feet off the ground.
Flying car races are no longer science fiction following the first-ever Jetson Air Games event — which Jetson, the organizers, have described as "Formula One of the skies."
The event featured pilots flying four Jetson One vehicles, dubbed a "racing car for the sky" by the company that made them, each vying to cross the finish line. The personal aircraft, which faintly resembles a flying car from a science fiction movie, is designed to hold a single person and doesn't currently require a pilot's license to fly in the United States.
Footage from the event, which took place in mid-October at the 2025 UP.Summit event, a private gathering of investors in the transportation industry, shows four Jetson Ones hovering about 20 feet (6 meters) off the ground as they weave between cones and speed over a grassy field and tarmac.
The Jetson One is an electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft, which means it uses electrical power to hover, take off and land vertically like a helicopter. Yet once in the air, it flies more like a plane — with a maximum flight time of 20 minutes.
The vehicle weighs around 120 pounds (54 kilograms), can ascend up to 1,500 feet (457 meters) off the ground, and can fly up to 63 miles per hour (102 kilometers per hour), according to Jetson's specifications.
Flying a personal aircraft nonetheless carries some significant risks. Jetson claims to have addressed these with a radar-sensing automatic landing system, the ability to fly safely with the loss of one of its eight motors, and a ballistic parachute designed to open extremely fast.
eVTOLs have been in development since the NASA Puffin technology concept was released in 2009. A collaboration between NASA, MIT, Georgia Institute of Technology, the NASA Puffin was a proof-of-concept designed to show that small personal aircraft were possible. It was built and tested at a small scale in 2010 to assess if the aircraft performed as expected, but it was never manufactured to scale.
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Other companies across the globe have made recent strides in eVTOLs. Ehang, a vehicle manufacturer in China, received permission to mass-produce autonomous eVTOL taxis in April 2024. Supernal, a subsidiary company of Hyundai, started flight testing its four-passenger air taxi in April 2025. Honda and Airbus have also been developing eVTOLs over the last few years.
The Jetson One is currently available to order for almost $150,000 (not including taxes and fees), with new orders shipping in 2028.
Damien Pine (he/him) is a freelance writer, artist, and former NASA engineer. He writes about science, physics, tech, art, and other topics with a focus on making complicated ideas accessible. He has a degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Connecticut, and he gets really excited every time he sees a cat.
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