puffinVTOL

NASA’s experimental personal aircraft looks more like a plane costume than a real plane, and I want to be inside it.

The Puffin is something of a personal V-22 Osprey, complete with vertical-takeoff and landing capability (but minus the squad of Marines). But rather than tilting the rotors forward for horizontal flight, the whole craft — cockpit and all — pitches forward, meaning the pilot flies from a prone position. During takeoff and landing the tail splits into four legs that serve as landing gear, and flaps on the wings deploy to keep the aircraft stable as it lifts and descends. [Gizmodo]

More specs:

  • It only needs 60 horsepower to take off.
  • It has a low thermal signature (great for military applications, and keeping your beer cool).
  • It can cruise at 150 mph and sprint at 300 mph.
  • It’s electrically-propelled with batteries (currently with a 50 mile range).
  • It’s 12 feet high with a 13.5 foot wingspan
  • It’s one-tenth as loud as current low-noise helicopters, which is also great for military applications, or for sneaking up on your neighbor when he’s doing yardwork and bumping him into some shrubbery.  That’s for using a leafblower to clean snow off your driveway at 7 AM.  Buy a shovel. They’re not expensive.

Be sure to check out the two videos below to see how this thing operates.

Okay, just kidding, that was a Japanese jetpack, not to be confused with the sex act “Japanese jetpack”, which I enjoy thoroughly. Here’s the real video:

[Japanese jetpack video via Geekologie]