Who WOULDN'T want a flying bike!

When I was a kid, one of my favorite books was The Flying Sandbox. I imagined myself in our sandbox, zooming over the rooftops. Our house! Susan's house! Bernadette's house! Nanny's house!

Gates Lane School, where I went to kindergarten. My grammar school, Our Lady of the Angels. Our church. (Ditto.)

I imagined flying over Henderson Pond (a.k.a., Hendy's). Parson's Cider Mill. The abandoned reservoir (a.k.a., The Little Res). Bennett Field. Hixon's Hollow. Hadwen Park. The Lucky Bakery. Maury's Delicatessen. McEarchern's Shoes, where we got our PF Flyers. The place that sold the gravestones. 

I was no more adventurous in the imaginary flying sandbox than I was in real life, and never gave a thought to flying over any place other than the neighborhood. Never even gave a thought to flying down city (which was Worcester for downtown, way back when). I only ever got as far in my dreams as Webster Square.

I always had one little problem with trying to reconcile our sandbox as the flying sandbox: our sandbox had no bottom.

My father had made ours by knocking together four long boards he got at Stone & Berg Lumber, with triangle pieces in every corner to provide seating and to keep the whole thing stable. He'd annually slap a new coat of whatever paint he had lying around on it. (One color I remember was a ghastly pinky-purple. There was nothing in our house of that color, so I'm guessing he got a pint on the cheap at Aubuchon's hardware store.) And each spring, he'd cart in a new load of sand to refresh the supply. 

And that was that. 

Despite the fact that our sandbox had no bottom IRL, in my imagination I gave it one before I took off. I wasn't going to take flight with nothing under my feet, just me dangling into thin air from the seat of our almost-a-sandbox.

Well, the flying  sandbox of my childhood can take a backseat to theXTURISMO hoverbike from AERWINS Technologies that was on display at the recent North American Auto Show in - where else! - Detroit.

Based in Delaware, AERWINS Technologies is an air mobility company that makes dro[nes and unmanned aerial vehicles. [CEO Shuhei] Komatsu said his company will make its public offering of stock on the NASDAQ exchange in November.

The hoverbike is being sold in Japan, the CEO also said. Japan doesn't classify the vehicle as an aircraft and doesn't require a license to pilot it, he added.

He said he's hoping the U.S. government classifies its XTURISMO as a non-aircraft. (Source: Detroit News)

And if you're worried about the likelihood of midair collisions:

It has myriad of safety features and sensors to keep riders safe, such as collision avoidance and radar.

That's a relief.

AERWINS plans on releasing a scaled down version of the hover bike in the US next year.

The estimated price for the current vehicle is $777,000. He said by 2025, he hopes to be able to get the cost down for a smaller, electric hoverbike to about $50,000.

They anticipate that there'll be both a recreational consumer market, and a market for law enforcement. 

I don't know if I like the idea of the police patrolling the skies in these things. Looks more Darth Vader-ish than Officer Friendly. 

And I don't know if I'm all that wild about the idea of our skies filled with all sorts of folks gunning around in these babies. 

Bad enough we're plagued by the bands of kids who rev around town on unlicensed electric bikes, running red lights, making way too much noise, and terrorizing pedestrians and drivers. The thought of these kids taking to the skies... Shudder, shudder.

Anyway, any problems will be moot until they get the price down. The average consumer is probably not going to spring for a $50K hover bike, let alone one that costs $777K. 

But if the price gets down from the stratosphere. And the safety issues really are resolved. Who WOULDN'T want a flying bike?

I haven't been on a bike in years, but this kid who flew all over Main South Worcester in her flying sandbox would love to take flight in an XTURISMO. Bring it!