Flying cars are widely seen as a next-generation mode of transport. They came a step nearer to reality on Friday when a manned test flight was conducted in Oita Prefecture, southwestern Japan.

The trial was carried out by Okayama-based research group, Masc, using a two-seater flying car that was built in China based on drone technology.

It flew a pre-programmed route without a pilot at the controls.

After rising vertically to a height of 30 meters, the vehicle circled over the sea at a speed of 36 kilometers per hour. The flight lasted about three and a half minutes.

"We are aiming to turn flying cars into a commercial proposition," Masc's chairman Kirino Hiroshi says. "I think that possibility is growing."

The Transport Ministry says this was the first test flight of a manned flying car in an open space in Japan that it is aware of.