flying cars/cycle & "new" VTOL engine
What would the wife say if you bought on of these home?
would you care?
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2011/...on-helicopter/
"This is the Hoverbike, a flying machine that is terrifying and awesome in equal measure. Unlike a flying car, which puts the rider in a relatively safe cocoon before firing him off into the sky, the Australian Hoverbike is a flying equivalent of a regular motorbike.
If you were to flip the wheels 90-degrees so they lay parallel to the ground, and then swapped out those wheels for rotor blades, you’d have the Hoverbike. You still sit between the wheels, and you still have a pair of handlebars to grab on to.
Otherwise, not much is different. The engine is an air-cooled 1170cc model that outputs 80kw, and almost everything else is made from carbon fiber or kevlar for strength and lightness (the propellers are Tasmanian Oak).
According to the makers, the Hoverbike is remarkably stable, and all parts are designed with triple redundancy should something go wrong. There is one other big advantage over a regular helicopter, too: you can wear a parachute (the bike also has a pair built in).
To control the Hoverbike, you use flaps to tip forward and back, twist the handgrips to control the flaps for yaw (twisting left and right around the axis of your spin), and just shove the handlebars down to roll and steer.
So far only tethered testing has been carried out, but only through caution. Apparently the thing “does not want to tip over.” This prototype took two and a half years to perfect, so you’ll have to wait a while longer before you can buy one.""
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Originally Posted by Gaffer
