Flying cars – landing at a humanitarian crisis near you soon?

Flying cars are being targeted at humanitarian organisations for use in a variety of missions, from delivering vaccines to transporting medics and patients.

Pégase, a flying car made by the French company Vaylon, is expected to be on the market next year, while a US-designed vehicle, the Maverick, is already on sale – both at about $100,000 (£60,000).

The cars are lightweight vehicles with a propeller at the back and an extendable parachute, rather than wings, which allow them to take off.

"The vehicle is a breakthrough technology," said Vaylon's co-founder, Jérémy Foiche, who is aiming for three main uses for the car: military, humanitarian and leisure. "We are interested in working with the humanitarian sector to determine exactly how it could be used in the field," he added.

Both cars can carry two people and an additional load of about 300kg, with a flying range of almost 200km on a single tank of fuel. They can fly up to 3-5km high and need less than 100m to take off and land.

"For the humanitarian sector, we could imagine such adaptations as replacing the passenger seat with a stretcher or putting in the front compartment a small camera for field reconnaissance, or a fridge to keep vaccines in, and the vehicle could also carry a doctor to give the vaccinations," Foiche said.

Laurence Herve from METIS-ID2, a company bridging the gap between small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and humanitarian organisations, talked about the car at the humanitarian innovation conference at the University of Oxford this month.

She cited the Pégase as an example of a useful innovation from an SME that her company is helping to market to humanitarian organisations, who may be wary of small companies and edgy ideas.

"This is a crazy idea, of course," says Herve. But what is considered "crazy" changes fast, she adds. Just five years ago, humanitarian organisations were not interested in using drones. Now they understand the potential and many want to use them.

A similar flying car has been designed by the Indigenous People's Technology and Education Centre (I-Tec), which is run by Christian missionaries in the US, with the needs of Ecuador's indigenous people in mind. "It'll do 80-90% of what a helicopter will do for pennies on the dollar," said Troy Townsend, I-Tec's chief executive, and design manager and test pilot for the Maverick.

"We're really excited about the potential of it now," said Jim Tingler, who is responsible for development and public relations at I-Tec. "I think we're right there, ready to go out and have it be used full time for the [missionary and humanitarian] purpose for which it was designed. Ultimately our heart and passion was to get this into places that need this, to save people and help them in practical ways."

But Amber Meikle, senior policy and practice adviser on technology justice at Practical Action, said: "For the flying car to become part of the humanitarian toolkit, it would have to better demonstrate it meets a need that other transport can't provide in an affordable and safe way."