Where's my flying car!

[hootinholler]

The engineers at NASA have combined every one of our geeky transportation dreams into a single little vehicle called the Puffin. It takes off like a helicopter and flies like a plane. It can cruise at 140 mph and, with a boost mode, hit about twice that. Oh — and it’s electric.

If that sounds too good to be true, it is — for the moment. But give it time. NASA unveiled the concept today at the American Helicopter Society meeting in San Francisco.

The tilt-rotor Puffin has a flight system similar to the V-22 Osprey, but instead of carrying a bunch of Marines and their gear, the Puffin carries one person in the prone position. The rotors are nearly 7.5 feet in diameter and the aircraft has a wingspan just over 13 feet. Thanks to carbon composite construction, the Puffin weighs in at less than 400 pounds including the lithium phosphate batteries.

The Puffin is designed to stand on its tail, which serves as the landing gear (check out the video). Once the Puffin transitions to horizontal flight, the pilot can cruise at more than 140 miles per hour. Hit the boost mode and this bird will do nearly 300 mph. The projected range is 50 miles on a charge. Yeah, that’s not much, but using electricity means the Puffin’s powerplant won’t be limited by air density. NASA says it should be able to climb under full power to around 30,000 feet before the battery pack would be depleted enough to require coming back down.

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I'm not sure what to make of it, but it looks cool. Parking these is gonna be a bitch.

-Hoot

[slackmaster]

1. Walt Disney was telling us, back in the '60s, that we'd have them by 2000

Along with clean, safe nuclear power, picture phones, robot servants, and a 30-hour work week.

It's 2010, and we've got Skype.

One out of five isn't very impressive.

[Phoonzang]

2. Well that certainly looks like a deathtrap.

Landing on its tail? That's been tried many times in the history of aviation. It's never worked out very well...

[hootinholler]

4. Considering the, um, difficulties, yeah that's the word, the marines have had with the osprey...

I don't think this would end well.

-Hoot

[abelenkpe]

3. no room for car seats?

:(


I so want a flying car.

[Orsino]

5. The Supreme Court has just mandated that only limos will fly.

But this is fascinating--I had figured that battery-powered flight must be impractical.

[ddeclue]

6. I doubt it will actually be able to do what is advertised..

there is a guy in Lakeland Florida whoever who DOES have an electric motor glider/aircraft that will go about 100 miles on a charge at about 100mph- uses LiOn batteries and a 20kW motor.

[damntexdem]

7. My flying monkey stole it.

Sorry, I never was able to control that nasty little flying monkey.

- W.W. of the West