To say nothing of the bright souls who decide to turn off their guidance system and fly by the seat of their pants. While chatting with a buddy or fourteen via text.
"If all the world's a stage and all the people merely players, who in bloody hell hired the director?" -- Charles L Grant http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQUxw9aUVik To: scifinoir2@yahoogroups.com From: hellomahog...@gmail.com Date: Fri, 22 Jan 2010 14:22:40 -0800 Subject: Re: [scifinoir2] NASA unveils personal flying suit named ‘Puffin’; flies at 150 mph One of the things that the flying car / suit people have been working on is a replacement for the current air traffic control system. This would use a gps (gps is going away) like control system in the flying car that would be part of a collision avoidance system. However, I'm not sure what they will do about people that do things that they aren't supposed to do like flying peeping toms or drunk flying. On Fri, Jan 22, 2010 at 2:17 PM, Martin Baxter <truthseeker...@hotmail.com> wrote: I'd love to see this in reality as well, but today out on the road proved to me that people are dangerous enough with vehicles that stay on the ground. Add in flight, and all of its vector components... it would get ugly. "If all the world's a stage and all the people merely players, who in bloody hell hired the director?" -- Charles L Grant http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQUxw9aUVik To: scifinoir2@yahoogroups.com From: hellomahog...@gmail.com Date: Fri, 22 Jan 2010 13:32:55 -0800 Subject: [scifinoir2] NASA unveils personal flying suit named ‘Puffin’; flies at 150 mph NASA unveils personal flying suit named ‘Puffin’; flies at 150 mph By Andrew Nusca | Jan 22, 2010 | 2 Comments ShareEmail DiggFacebookTwitterGoogle DeliciousStumbleUponNewsvineLinkedIn My YahooTechnoratiReddit PrintRecommend4 NASA on Wednesday said that it is working on a personal flying suit. Called “Puffin,” the conceptual and highly experimental project is part one-man stealth plane, part personal jet pack. Unveiled at a San Francisco meeting of the American Helicopter Society on Jan. 20 by Mark D. Moore, an aerospace engineer at NASA’s Langley Research Center, the Puffin promises — on paper at least — a self-contained design with proper “cockpit” and helicopter-style blades that allow for high-altitude flying up to 30,000 ft. The Puffin is intended to be 12 feet in length, with a total wingspan of 14.5 ft., and would tip the scales at 300 pounds, empty. It will be powered by a 60 horsepower electric motor for simplicity, reliability and low environmental impact. The reason for this conceptual device? Covert military missions (”swoop and shoot,” if I may) or rescue operations. Take a look at the video: Why the name “Puffin,” by the way? “If you’ve ever seen a puffin on the ground, it looks very awkward, with wings too small to fly, and that’s exactly what our vehicle looks like,” said Mark Moore, an aerospace engineer at NASA Langley Research Center, in an article in Scientific American. According to that article, the Puffin can cruise at 240 kilometers per hour — that’s 149 mph — and dash at more than 480 kph, or almost 300 mph. NASA plans to finish a test mule at one-third-size by March to see how it transitions from cruising to hovering. But you never know how such technology could eventually manifest itself in the consumer space. If you ask me, I may have found a whole new way to get to the office. -- Celebrating 10 years of bringing diversity to perversity! Mahogany at: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mahogany_pleasures_of_darkness/ Your E-mail and More On-the-Go. Get Windows Live Hotmail Free. Sign up now. -- Celebrating 10 years of bringing diversity to perversity! Mahogany at: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mahogany_pleasures_of_darkness/ _________________________________________________________________ Hotmail: Powerful Free email with security by Microsoft. http://clk.atdmt.com/GBL/go/196390710/direct/01/
