The Blackfly EVTOL (1 Viewer)

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You know, just after WWII there were all these visions and expectations of vastly expanded private aviation and even people commuting in helicopters. Cessna even came out with a helicopter. There were advertisements that showed people taking off from their home driveway just like you'd drive a car. But aviation is at least an order of magnitude more challenging than automobile travel and most people could never learn to fly an aircraft, due to lack of self-discipline, as much as anything.

But with GPS and the technology of the Blackfly we may be approaching that 1945 vision. That thing is computer controlled, lands itself, does not need an airport, and while the idea of trusting yourself to a computer scares the hell out of me, and it probably has the power-off glide angle of a picnic table, it does offer a possible solution to the challenge of everyday personal air travel.

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This might be a good place to show this video I got several years ago.
Could those of you on this international forum listen to the language and the store signs and tell me where this is?



The flying bathtub.
 
A superb example of innovation uncontaminated by the excessively restrictive parameters associated with rational thought.

Impressive controllability. He was using an RC airplane controller? Yep, I'd bet my life on one of them things in a second!
 
When the USAF issued its RFP for a new long range rescue chopper, which to most people horror resulted in the H-47 being chosen, at that time I thought a combined manned/UAV approach would have been the way to go. Have smaller choppers, about the size of a H-60 and use a mix of manned and UAV versions as required by the mission set. Send the unmanned versions in to pick up the downed personnel if the LZ was hot and the crew to be recovered were mobile. If they needed medical help in the LZ, use the UAVs for RESCAP and fire support and send the manned one in for the pickup.

Instead they seem to have done the equivalent of a family saying, "Well, we move every 4 or 5 years so we need to buy a 18 wheeler to carry our household goods."
 
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