Just when you thought jetpacks had all the glory of gifting you with flying powers, now someone is making a flying bicycle. Four companies in the Czech Republic are collaborating on the F-Bike. It flew for the first time this summer.

The bike has four battery powered propellers and managed to stay in the air for five minutes in a test run. Check it out:



It weighs 187 pounds, and it carried only a dummy passenger during the test run. Companies are working on a more powerful version. Jindrich Vitu, a spokesperson for the F-Bike project, says Jules Verne and The Flying Airship, a Czech film, were inspirations for the idea.

Will people use flying bikes? There are already so many on the road, why not send some up in the air right?

Czech Republic aren't the only ones doing this. Two designers in the U.K. have come up with the Paravelo, a bike cum paraglider, capable of reaching 4,000 feet. It combines a normal bike attached with a trike carrying a huge biofuel powered fan.



In a Kickstarter pitch this August, designers John Foden and Yannick Read pointed to Paravelo's "pioneering ‘door-to-door’ concept". So far, the idea isn't really taking off. It could either be too expensive ($16,000), or too impractical.

What do you think?