Boeing set out to encourage innovators to create a safe and easy-to-use personal flying device. In a competition called GoFly, over the next two years, $2 million will be awarded to innovative teams from around the world.

Teams will be challenged to create an ultra-compact, quiet, urban-compatible, personal flying device capable of carrying a person 20 miles without refuelling or recharging with vertical, or near vertical take-off and landing capability. Boeing will provide them with access to experienced mentors and masters in design, engineering, finance, law and marketing. However, the ultimate design and functionality of the device will be up to the imagination of the competitors.

Teams from Latvia, the Netherlands and UK are among ten Phase 1 winners of the GoFly Prize. This first of three phases of the competition saw more than 300 European creations from competitors in Austria, Belarus, Belgium, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Ukraine and the United Kingdom. All European competitors are listed on the GoFly Prize Innovator Map.

According to Gwen Lighter, CEO of The GoFly Prize:

‘GoFly is a shift towards embracing innovative solutions to expand the desire to explore the unknown and push ourselves to new heights. Today we look to the sky and say “look at that plane fly,” but two years from now we’ll look up and say ‘look at that person fly.’

GoFly will continue to award almost $2 million over the next 16 months: Phase II awards will include four $50,000 prizes awarded to teams with the best prototypes in March 2019; and Phase III will unveil the Grand Prize Winner, awarded at the Final Fly-Off in the fall of 2019. The final Fly-Off will be judged by a team of experts from Boeing and other leading organizations.

Read more:

• The GoFly Prize

• European GoFly Prize winners