The Braunschweig-based company, Carplane hopes to square the circle with a twin-fuselage roadable monoplane that made its first public appearance in prototype form at the recent AERO show in Friedrichshafen, Germany.

A regular fixture on science fiction and engineering magazine covers, the flying car is more than just an escape fantasy for frustrated commuters trapped in the sixth traffic jam of the week. There's also a business case for such vehicles, which would make private plane travel more practical for greater numbers of business people.

Small planes operating from local airports can greatly speed up business travel, but it often isn't practical because of the problem of getting to and from remote airfields, which aren't noted for being booming markets for taxi services or hire car agencies. A flying car could fill this gap, but there's a catch; cars make poor aircraft, and aircraft make poor cars. This is a problem that has plagued what Carplane puts at the over 2,000 flying car projects of the past century.