The dream: Pull out of the driveway, engage the afterburners and fly to the city in minutes.

The reality: Flying cars have been around for nearly a century, but no one wants them.

Many of the models today look like a Cessna, but with folding wings and blinkers. And they offer the flight qualities of a small plane -- slow, loud, and bumpy -- combined with the road handling of, well, a Cessna with blinkers. Plus, you have to take off and land from an airport. And have a pilot's license.

It would be quite an engineering feat to make an easy-to-operate vehicle that flew like a jet, drove like a BMW, and took off from any road.

"People are asking for a lot more than they realize," said Frey. "My thinking is we never get to an era of flying cars."