They have long been a symbol of a future that never came. Now a variety of companies are building them—or something close. ![Image may contain: Outdoors, Windmill, Grass, Plant, Field, Grassland, Nature, Aircraft, Airplane, and Transportation]()
The first timethat a Canadian inventor named Marcus Leng offered a public demonstration of his “electric vertical takeoff and landing vehicle,” or eVTOL, things got a little dicey. AsGideon Lewis-Kraus writesin his story about the growing “advanced air mobility” industry from this week’s Innovation & Tech Issue, Leng’s device, called the BlackFly, “came online with a whine, then a purr, and it lifted into a hover about a metre off the ground. He pitched forward, in the direction of his guests. He’d thought that he would pivot into a skidding stop, in the manner of a skier. As he initiated a banking turn, though, the edge of one wing caught on the lawn. . . . But the craft held steady, dug a curving divot through thirty feet of grass, and came to rest. The trip lasted about twenty seconds.” That was longer than the early flights of the Wright brothers, though, and, in the years since, Leng has worked out many of the bugs. But what would happen when Lewis-Kraus himself took the craft up for a spin? SupportThe New Yorker’saward-winning journalism.Subscribe today » | 
