Let’s Go Fly a Trike: Awesome Scooter/Glider Concept

One of the reasons that activities like skydiving and paragliding are so popular is that humankind has been trying to fly since the first time one of us saw a bird take off. What an amazing feeling it is to zoom through the air, heart pounding, while watching the ground so far away below. The ParaMoto Trike concept is a whimsical kind of vehicle that would let you zip through the sky and then zip around on the streets once you land.

Designed by motorcycle and flying enthusiast Zvezdan Nedeljković, the ParaMoto Trike is part scooter and part ultralight paraglider. Imagine zooming toward a cliff in your scooter as fast as it will go, then speeding up rather than slowing down as you get closer to the edge. As your wheels leave the ground, an updraft catches your canopy and you go sailing, enjoying the view and your comfortable seat.

A scooter like this may or may not be possible in reality, but the designer’s renderings make us hopeful that someone will figure it out one day. Fitting an engine, even a small electric one, into a vehicle this tiny would probably mean that its top speed wouldn’t be fast enough for a really heart-stopping launch. But it’s bound to be at least as fast as a human, so it’ll do for paragliding and then slowly making your way home on the road after you land.

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See more in Bikes & Cycles or under Transportation. November, 2011.