What is this? A flying drone? Eight flying drones? One flying helicopter? A moving room? A truck? It’s a little bit of everything. Called the AT Black Knight Transformer, it combines the vertical take-off and landing of a helicopter with the off-road driving capabilities of a truck. So yes, that means it can fly and drive. Oh and it’s a drone.
You see, when the Black Knight Transformer, made by Advanced Tactics and spotted by Popular Science, is in its fly configuration, the rotors are sprayed out and ready for take off. But when the transformer is in drive mode, the rotors are tucked in to its side to make it look like a normal car. Like this:
Here’s how the transformer technology works:
You can see it shrink down its engines above to become slightly more drivable. And that’s the most promising thing about the Black Knight Transformer, its ability to fit into so many different situations. It can autonomously fly and land itself without risking a flight crew, it can be driven around by the people it picked up and flown again back to safety. So though maybe it’s not quite Optimus Prime yet as a transformer, it’s still a pretty sweet flying car.