Very interesting but of course not practical until the Battery Power Density is much
better.  In the article they mention that they only need 60 HP... I think this is woefully
inaccurate.  What do you guys think?


http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/01/20/nasas-puffin-crazy-personal-aircraft/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%253A+foxnews%252Fscitech+%2528Text+-+SciTech%2529

Mike C.

Waco stuff. Same category  as global warming.
VERY prone to ring vortex state.
http://www.rotaryeng.net/VTOL.html

Paul Lamar


Fantasy stuff.  The wing area is too small to support lift. It might work in an atmosphere 1,000 times denser than the air we breathe. It might work as a personal submarine (ie, the denser atmosphere) moving at a rate of a few feet per second. The Air Force tried VTOL designs like this in the 1950's. They gave up even after very moderate success. AirVenture 2009 did have an electric motor airplane that actually did fly repeatedly. But its wingspan was much larger.

Michael A. Jerger

You don't need a lot of wing area for VTOL cruise. In fact large wing area is
a draw back in terms of drag and weight. Once you have enough thrust to take off
vertically the wing can be very very small. Look at the payload of the Osprey
and compare it to its wing area. The problem was landing for the Air Force VTOLs
but that was was before tiny computers and ground vicinity detectors.

Paul Lamar