PAL-V, the first flying car to be allowed on the road in Europe, is now also the first flying car to complete full certification with the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA). The PAL-V Liberty (flying car) went through 10 years of testing, and now is in the final phase of compliance demonstration before becoming available to customers.
PAL-V CEO, Robert Dingemanse, said, “Although we are experienced entrepreneurs, we learned that in aviation everything is exponentially stricter. Next to the aircraft, all aspects of the organization, including suppliers and maintenance parties must be certified.”
In 2009, PAL-V worked with EASA to amend the Certification Specifications for Small Rotorcraft, CS-27, as a starting point for certification of its flying car. Ultimately, together they amended the complete list of more than 1,500 criteria to make it applicable for PAL-V. The final version of these criteria was published last week. Note that this development only occurred after more than 10 years of analysis, test data, flight tests, and drive tests.
This EASA certificate is valid in Europe AND is also accepted in about 80 percent of the world’s market, including the United States and China.