Trust us, there's nothing we'd like more than to zoom around the skies in a personal, electric aircraft. Of course, we've never held our breath. Some aerospace engineers at
NASA, though, have given us reason to salivate.
According to DVICE, NASA has designed an experimental, one-man, electric
aircraft called Puffin. It's ten times quieter than a helicopter, can fly 300 mph, and has a range of 50 miles. (Engineers say that flight range could triple by 2017.) The Puffin is similar to a jetpack, but it has a cockpit, boasts dual propellers on each wing, and, we assume, is much safer. However, there's no word on how much experience you'd need to cruise the wild blue in one of these bad boys.
While we're still not quite ready to hold our breath until this aircraft hits the market, we do have one request for NASA, in hopes that it will become commercially available. Please, change the name. If the aircraft had to be named after a bird, why not something cool like hawk or vulture? A puffin, which is a small seabird, doesn't exactly jibe with the idea of flying through the sky at 300 mph in a prone position. After the break, check out a CG video demonstration of the Puffin in flight. [From:
DVICE, via:
Ubergizmo]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
lgnu said 8:11AM on 1-25-2010
Cool, but what are the possible uses. It would be nice to know since taxpayer dollars are being spent on development.
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MyKisa said 8:57AM on 1-25-2010
....and what happened to solo trek?
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Jacques said 6:14PM on 2-06-2010
...not sure if this one can fly solo for the future.
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