Why, Yes, This Is a Star Wars-Style Hover Bike

It sounds like science fiction, and it looks like something straight out of Star Wars, but a California-based company called Aerofex has produced an honest-to-goodness hover bike that can be flown without any training—and it's based on a 1960s design. Back then the vehicle, which is powered by two giant fans, was deemed too unstable and prone to rolling over, Innovation Daily News explains. Aerofex's novel solution: Add knee control bars, so the craft would respond to the pilot's instinctive balancing movements.

"Think of it as lowering the threshold of flight, down to the domain of ATVs," Aerofex's founder says. "Since the pilot's balancing movements are instinctive and constant, it plays out quite effortlessly to him." The bad news: Aerofex doesn't actually intend to mass-produce the device for manned use, so you're not going to get your hands on one. Instead, it's a test platform for an eventual unmanned drone version for military use. (More Aerofex stories.)