Štefan Klein Inducted into the Living Legends of Aviation Hall of Fame

Announcements Studio of Transport Design

At a gala evening held at Scalaria in Austria, our colleague Prof. Ing. Štefan Klein, akad. soch., Head of the Transport Design Studio, was inducted into the Hall of Fame in recognition of his flying car project

Designer and professor at the Department of Design at VŠVU Štefan Klein has achieved another major international success: he was inducted into the Living Legends of Aviation Hall of Fame at a prestigious gala in Austria, joining internationally renowned aviation figures and visionaries such as Buzz Aldrin, Jeff Bezos, Harrison Ford, Sir Richard Branson, and Bertrand Piccard. The event was hosted by actor and aviator Morgan Freeman, who praised Klein’s perseverance and ability to turn a seemingly impossible dream into a working reality.

Three men in black formal suits stand side by side on a lit stage, with their arms around one another, looking at the camera. Each wears a gold medal on a red, white and blue ribbon.

The award recognises Klein’s career spanning more than 30 years, during which he has worked in engineering, transportation design, and aviation. Its culmination is AirCar—a roadable aircraft capable of transforming from road mode into flight mode in under two minutes. “For me, a flying car was never a fantasy. It was a design and engineering problem,” said Štefan Klein. “I wanted to prove that it was possible to build one that would be safe, reliable, practical, and beautiful at the same time.”

Unlike most other concepts, which are essentially electric helicopters (VTOL aircraft), AirCar is a true hybrid. It can travel on ordinary roads and transform into an aircraft within minutes. The research prototype has completed more than 170 flight hours and over 500 landings. It also attracted international attention when it appeared on The Grand Tour, whose presenters drove it on a motorway before taking off.

Klein has worked in automotive and transportation design, engineering, and aviation for more than 30 years. He founded the Transport Design Studio at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Bratislava and has undertaken research and design projects with major car manufacturers, including Audi, Volkswagen, BMW, Ford, Renault, and Škoda.

He has designed more than 20 types of vehicles, including motorcycles, buses, locomotives, electric vehicles, and specialised machinery. His aviation experience includes more than 1,200 flight hours in powered aircraft, over 3,000 hours in gliders, and hundreds of hours as a test pilot. He holds 12 patents related to AirCar’s transformation technology.

The project now faces its most important step. While its focus to date has primarily been technological development, the key milestone ahead is obtaining aviation certification under the stringent CS-23 standards, followed by market launch. The inventor and the Klein Vision team are also working on future innovations, including an AI-controlled cockpit, fully autonomous flight, and a ballistic recovery parachute. Štefan Klein is thus demonstrating that the flying car is not an unattainable fantasy, but a realistic future for personal transportation.

More information is available on the Klein Vision website.