I want one

[dan_bgblue]

This is too cool

294931_aerofex-hover-desert-02.jpg

[elicat]

Very cool.

[CitizenBBN]

Oh yeah. I see this in military use very soon.

[suncat05]

Oh yeah. I see this in military use very soon.

Oh yeah, no doubt.

[CitizenBBN]

Oh yeah, no doubt.

If they're limiting it to 15' but can go higher without issue, as they claim, and it has that kind of mobility, this thing will be something.

Not as efficient as a helicopter but you can land it in an urban area on a street, really you can drive it in 5' off the ground. The rotors are enclosed which yes is a safety thing, but it also protects them from attack and makes it easy to deploy from them and work in very close range with them without being chopped up.

Sink that chair down if you can and put a kevlar skin on it and you've got an interesting prototype. Bring in supplies, close range air support, medivac (a HUGE potential there IMO), even small troop deployments if you can get 3-5 guys on it.

Think about this: it goes right over mines and IEDs made with trip wires. It doesn't have to use roads so you can have unpredictable routes like helicopters.

Lots to work out I'm sure, but that's a very interesting step forward in small manned aircraft. Like they said this has been a concept out there for a very long time. Mythbusters even tried to build one and the military has prototyped platform and pack based systems for decades. This looks like it may really work, and the military has put 100s of millions in it over the decades b/c they see the potential.

[CitizenBBN]

Oh, and there's that guy, he was on Mythbusters but I've heard of him elsewhere, who has put like $200 mil into trying to develop a personal aircraft, the Jetson's concept, and looks like these guys beat him to it, unless he's part of the group.

This really does have some potential, first one I've seen anywhere close to it. We won't all be flying one but I can see a lot of uses for it in all terrain situations.

[ShoesSwayedBlue]

The military applications are astounding. One can easily envision a Global Hawk or Reaper type of UAV carrying half a dozen or more of these armed with any kind of weapon that could fit on them. The obvious advantage being that they're reuseable and much more mobile and flexible for targetting than a JDAM. An incredible leap in anti terrorist operations.

Be nice to have one to fly over traffic after football games too.