US military to develop Star Wars-style hoverbikes with British company

The Malloy Aeronautics prototype, powered by four bladed fans, is intended to do many of the jobs of a helicopter but will be safer and cheaper

Science fiction-obsessed children of the 1960s might have been disappointed to know that half a century later they would neither live in space nor get their meals in the form of pills. One thing that would have impressed them about 2015, though, is the ability to order your own personal hoverbike.

You can now do just that, even if it is currently a request for an order with the delivery date uncertain. Malloy Aeronautics, the UK-based firm developing the machine, has already had understandable interest in their creation from the US military.