Dubai Police have started training officers to fly hoverbikes, which are expected to enter service in 2020 and be specifically used to track suspects and patrol tourist destinations. With a price tag of $150,000 each, hoverbikes don't require a pilot's license to fly.
"Currently we have two crews already training [to pilot the hoverbikes] and we're increasing the number," Brigadier Khalid Nasser Alrazooqi, general director of Dubai Police's artificial intelligence department, told CNN.
He described the electric vertical take-off and landing (EVTOL) bikes as a first responder unit used to access hard-to-reach areas.
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For his part, Joseph Segura-Conn, chief operating officer of Hoversurf, a Russian-owned California-based company which delivered the hoverbikes to Dubai, told CNN that Dubai Police have the exclusive right to order as many EVTOLs as they want.
"They're going to let us know in the next month or two if they'd like any more. […] If they would like 30 or 40, we'll make it happen for them," Segura-Conn said.
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Tim Robinson, editor-in-chief of Aerospace magazine, has meanwhile argued that the EVTOL vehicle is "pretty limited" in terms of possible police work, but added that a hoverbike "looks bags of fun".
