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Personal Helicopter Available For $30,000
gsfprez writes "The question was recently asked on /., "will personal flight ever be viable?". The answer is "if you have $30,000 today, yes". They are looking to work with Americans who will be willing to help them with testing a few final steps of their GEN H-4 Personal Helicopter, such as ballistic parachutes. $30,000 to beta test a helicopter I can park in the garage? Honey, pass me 5 credit cards!"
Credit cards with limits as high as 6 grand? wow, that kinda makes my $200 limit seem less important... :(
They want people...to test parachutes...in a helicopter.
Let me think about that one.
From the faq:
Q : Does it fly?
A : Yes, This particular prototype has been flown continuously since 1999.
I pity the poor SOB who's been stuck flying that thing for 3 "continuous" years.
Looking at their site, it seems that while the frame and rotors are pretty simplistic, there's a lot of novel and expensive design/engineering work in the enginer/transmission part that's in that little backpack on the back of the thing. They have a cutaway view of the transmission with a breif description. Once the R&D costs are gone and they begin mass manufacturing I bet they could get the price down to $10k or so.
11*43+456^2
His what is what? I'm not trying to mock someone for communication skills in a second language. (My japanese is horrid, for example) but my earnest fear is that some critical safety information would be lost in the translation. ("Oh, so sorry. I meant to say DON'T press that button while in flight!")
--
Okay, so if you're quite a bit less fat than I am you can fly this thing at 55mph (top speed) for an hour. Let's be slightly conservative and call it a 25 mile range for a round trip for a skinny person. In rain or high winds forget it. So what are its practical uses?
1. Getting to that remote fishing hole the lazy way.
2. Getting home from the bar with no chance of being pulled over.
3. Getting that aerial shot of your neighbor's wife sunbathing.
4. ????
5. Profit???
Well maybe getting home from the bar + fun factor = worth it.
Operator, give me the number for 911!
The SoloTrek will likely be available commercially at some point: http://www.solotrek.com/
The Moller Air Car is less likely: http://www.moller.com/skycar/
Ever dream you could fly? Get up from the Flight Sim. I Fly
As a friend of mine once said "Helicopters don't fly. They beat themselves into submission." Since I heard that, I don't really want to ride in one.
From the FAQ:
Q : How much weight can it carry?
A : Currently with 40 horse power the max. pilot weight is about 190 lbs.
Larger engines are in the works.
"Honey, get off the treadmill, I have 50lbs to lose!"
Oh, wait, been there, done that, got a (X-large) T-shirt...
Aw, hell, I'll just wait for the bigger engine.
Maybe I could use that GM 3.8L engine from the car... 200hp should do the trick.
Have EVDO, will travel.
If you hop over to the Japanese section, you will see it feels much more up to date, and there is even a photo gallery.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
Check out Rotorway (http://www.rotorway.com/) which offers the Exec 162F as a kit helicopter. These things are supposedly a little bit more "twitchy" and not as forgiving as a bigger helicopter (less time to react and less angular momentum stored in the blades in the case of a power failure) but for $65k you get a well-tested and engineered system backed by a "real" company and not someone running an operation out of their garage. The system this article references seems to be the ultralight of the rotorcraft world and not the Cessna 162 or GlassAir...
Maybe the Canadian Air Force could replace their antiquated fleet of Sea Kings with these choppers.
How ya like dat?
Q : How much weight can it carry?
/. audience won't be able to ride. Get it... large.
A : Currently with 40 horse power the max. pilot weight is about 190 lbs.
Unfortunatly, a large portion of the
Ha ha ha ha.
*ducks and runs*
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