My Wet Coast Life

Link: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=nasa-one-man-stealth-plane

Every week day, i get into my car at o'dark o'clock for the daily commute to work. Depending on traffic and weather, it can be as quick as 15 minutes or take over 1 hour +. 90% of the commute is highway driving but there are still people that drive well below the speed limit in the fast lane or are to fearful to pass a big rig and in turn hold everyone up.

How do i get around this? Well, i looked into teleporting but the idea of being split up into tiny molecules and essentially "faxed" to your location has drawbacks...if you ever sent a fax, you would know and the movie Timeline has a good example of what could be achieved, but this is a movie magic example and i am not even touching Star Trek...

Now today i came across NASA's new personal flying suit called "Puffin". The Puffin has a cruising speed of 240km/h and the ability to get up to 480km/h and a range of about 80km/h. They have plans to bump that up to 240km range in the next couple years. Well, that suits my commute distance and would make for a much quicker, and more enjoyable commute. Plus, being powered by electric motors, it is also environmentally friendly.

Follow up:

This VTOL (Vertical Take Off and Landing) craft would eliminate the need for for commuter airports and would also allow for people to live farther away while still having a relatively short commute.

At up to 95 percent efficiency, electric motors are far more efficient than internal combustion engines, which only rate some 18 to 23 percent. This means electric aircraft are much quieter than regular planes—at some 150 meters, it is as loud as 50 decibels, or roughly the volume of a conversation, making it roughly 10 times quieter than current low-noise helicopters.

Now there are currently flying cars out there like Moller International's M400X Skycar and Terrafugia's Street legal airplane but this appears to be one of the best logical designs with the only a couple drawback for the Puffin being it can carry only one passenger and cannot drive around once it is on the ground.

A clip of the Puffin in action shows the VTOL in

Now the military is interested as well (go figure) in the as the electric motors produce less noise and heat and small size which in turn will give it stealth-like capabilities for low heat signature and radar cross section. I guess it won't be long before these are used for small recon missions or small specific targeted attacks (assuming they can arm it and supports the weight).

This is something i will be following in terms of development as this technology can only get better. Now if this became commercially available and the US Federal Aviation Administration and other countries aviation authorities allow this type of small craft to fly over city centers.

Do you think you will trade in your car for one of these?

I know my commutes will be a lot more enjoyable (and fun) with a Puffin. So NASA, if you are reading this and need someone to field test the commuting aspect or just taking it for a rip around the skies, let me know where and when to be.

If you want to read the full article, you can go to www.scientificamerican.com