The Top 10 Personal Flying Devices from the GoFly Prize’s First Phase

Hummingbuzz, Blue Sparrow, and Silverwing are among the 10 winners of Phase I of the GoFly Prize competition, a three-part, $2 million contest challenging designers, engineers, inventors, and other innovators from around the world to create a safe and easy-to-use personal flying device. The competition, which is sponsored by Boeing, was announced last September at the SAE 2017 AeroTech Congress & Exhibition in Fort Worth, Texas. It will culminate in the fall of 2019 with a Fly-Off.

The GoFly Prize guidelines call for a craft that is ultra-compact, quiet, urban-compatible, and capable of carrying one person 20 miles without refueling or recharging. The device also must have vertical or nearly vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) capability.

Phase I involved written technical specifications. The winning teams, which come from Latvia, the Netherlands, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States, will receive $20,000 apiece in prize money. Phase II will include four $50,000 prizes for the best prototypes and revised Phase I material. The Phase II registration deadline is December 8. (Teams that were not Phase I winners can still compete in Phase II.)

During the Fly-Off, teams will compete for a $100,000 prize “for disruptive advancement of the state-of-the-art aviation technology,” a $250,000 prize for the quietest entry, and a $250,000 prize for the smallest entry. The $1 million grand prize will be awarded to the team that creates the device with the best combined score for speed, noise, and size.

Continue on to see the Phase I winners.