Slashdot Mirror
Flying Cars Ready To Take Off
Ant writes "CBS News has an article, images, and a free streaming video clip of Elwood (Woody) Norris' invention of a working flying machine, AirScooter. He asked one of his test pilots to demonstrate it for 60 Minutes on a hilltop outside San Diego, California. It can fly for 2 hours at 55 mph, and go up to 10,000 feet above sea level. This week, he will receive America's top prize for invention. It's called the Lemelson-MIT award -- a half-million dollar cash prize to honor his life's work, which includes a brand new personal flying machine.
Woody Norris' and others' inventions are for NASA's 'The Highway in the Sky.' It is a computer system designed to let millions of people fly whenever they please, and take off and land from wherever they please, in their very own vehicles."
Should say:-
Flying cars to be made available in fifteen years time
This is just a sickening attempt to get our hopes up.
Moller Skycar Info.
More
Each person having their own flying machine....can you imagine the waste of fossil fuels and danger involved? It's bad enough with cars!!
Homeland Security will have a fit!
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
I'm still waiting for my hoverboard...
Fooget Flyin Cars!
Im fairly sure these device wont be valid road going vehicals for a while atleast. .
I am wonder (fairly sure they will)if they will need to introduce a new license scheme for them and a whole new set of transit laws
The potential problems that machines like this could cause is immense if this is not as tightly regulated as standerd aircraft not to mention the cross with auto mobiles
However if these things are avaliable for 50k from people like Mr Morris then I will definantly be rather tempted to get when if i ever have money like that laying around(Lets hope some unknown rich relative dies).
The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though
wonder if it looks like that hover car on the Simpsons last night... hmm...
If this thing is "real", we're going to need 15 years to get things straightened out so people aren't flying drunk, teenagers aren't racing their air scooters in public air corridors, and Starbucks has a chance to start opening outlets at 10,000 feet.
Yeah? Well I think you're overrated too.
So, will you get a speeding ticket flying 55mph on a 35mph road if you don't touch the ground?
Buy one now before the air commute becomes congested as well.
So long and thanks for all the fish . . . !!!
Norris says you won't need a pilot's license if you fly it under 400 feet in non-restricted air space. And he's going to sell it for $50,000.
But the car will fly to 10k feet right and it will sell for $50k right? That means that a lot of idiots will be flying one of these things and they will have the ability to go over the 400 foot limit.
Looks like a serious issue.
I can't wait for the first accident report to come in because someone forget to fill it up...
I'll turn into a supernova and burn up everything. Well I'll turn into a black little hole and you'll turn into string.
Damn...and I thought people were finally getting the idea that we have to conserve energy. Imagine how much oil/jet fuel that flying car would go through? It has four sets of rotary engines! I'd much rather see people driving an electric vehicle like this Reva NXG that can go 200km after a 6 hour charge.
Yeah, I know. If the guy was really so smart he should have invented a decent web server!
....can it fold up into a briefcase after you land at work?
Did you read the article? Stay under 400 feet in non-restricted airspace = no pilots license
Ever feel like you are driving the getaway car?
He does a good job at getting the press attention every year or so yet no real advances are made. the Moller skycar is still the same point it was 5 years ago. he still has not flown it (tied to a crane is not flying it) or anything else other than his PR stunt shows.
Lots of promises are made but nothing solid or real is ever shown or demonstrated, it always feels like the snake oil or perpetual energy people. Look at what I did! no you cant see how it works or it actually work in real tests.
how about he untether it and fly it across the country? Experimental aircraft licensing is really easy to get.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Hey, timothy, get your act together! April 1st was two weeks ago!
Sheesh... Flying cars... As if...
+1 Insightful, -1 Troll. What can I say, I'm an Insightful Troll.
Hover technology has been around for over a decade. The basic principle was used for the hoverboards in Back To the Future, but unforunately the hoverboards were not made avaialable because of safety concerns.
But still - The technology is there. It shouldn't require a lot of extra work to have these hovering much higher. I'm surprised there isn't more inniovation in this area. I suspect that the rubber manufacturers have been suppressing the technology, because they know it will put an end to their business.
It depends on what you commute is like. If traffic and an out of the way route are part of your daily commute, it might be more efficient.
Ever feel like you are driving the getaway car?
From TFA
"...But if we sold say a couple thousand, $50,000 a piece, that's a billion dollars."
If that's how this guy does math, I think I'll wait for some other manufacturer to create these things before I buy...
Schrodinger's cat is either dead or really pissed off...
Why'd they give him an award for that? It's a virtual copy of the Hiller XH-44 invented in 1944...that's sixty years ago. http://www.hiller.org/hillerXH44.shtml Someone needs to get a clue.
Everybody assumes that everybody will start flying these things as soon as they will hit the market. That's scary.
The only way I see these things being actually safe for use is if the license can only be gotten through intensive training, akin to a private pilot certificate. Pilot training is expensive, but maybe it'll come down in price as methods of effective mass teaching are invented.
I know of a place where you can sit in one Starbucks and look out the window across the street at guess what... Another Starbucks!
Just curious, this Starbucks doesn't contain remarkably similar looking people to the one you are currently in?
I'm just looking for a webserver that can withstand 50 minutes of Slashdotting!
Buy a piece of land. And wait.
"Waste not one watt!" - CZ
As though idiots on cell phones weren't bad enough on the ground...
About this "car".
It's a one seater.
The driver/pilot position is open to the elements.
It has no cargo carrying capacity (as far as I could tell.)
Max speed 55mph, 2 hours of flight per tank.
Skids only (no wheels), so you can't park it in a ramp/underground garage, so can't fly it to the city...
Cool toy? H3ll yeah. If I ever win the lottery (unlikely, as I don't play it) I'll be all over one of these. Replacement for a car? Bah.
Having looked at the thing I recommend the following:
"AirScooter, the Segway of the air!"
Deleted
Woody Norris' company invented a device to aim sound, something like a laser does light. There was a good article in the NY Times about it a couple years back. This Popular Science article appears to cover it as well. http://www.popsci.com/popsci/bown/article/0,16106, 388134,00.html
Looking at the AirScooter video, and at thinking about the motorcycle handle and the lack of foot pedals, how does the pilot correct for uncommanded roll, as might occur in turbulence, or thermals, encountering wake turbulence, ...?
"'You get in this vehicle, there's no vibration, takes you up and what's most exciting is your kind of being lifted up from below [...]'"
And:
"But he thought he'd ask anyways."
Gotta love that rigorous editing at CBS. I wasn't sure whether or not I had left Slashdot until I double-checked the address bar. Then I had to check again to make sure I hadn't wandered into a Limp Bizkit forum somewhere.
"Well, I've done the math. I think it's a modest number if you could sell a couple thousand, when you look at snowmobiles and quads and those things -- not cars," says Norris. "That's a big market. But if we sold say a couple thousand, $50,000 a piece, that's a billion dollars." [emphasis added]
2*10^3 * 5*10^4 = 10*10^7 = 100,000,000 != a billion
And this guy, Woody Norris, is the chief inventor? "Self-taught"?
I'd rather ride the bus. Or a flying car created by Woody from Cheers.
From the article, the engine is only 65hp, so fuel consumption may be better than some cars.
It also says 2hrs flight time, 55knots (approx 60mph), on 5 gallons. That is >20mpg, which would definitely be better than the worst SUVs.
This is not a flying car. It's just another plane!
A small plane, but still just a plane.
There has to be another way of beating gravity than blowing air over a wing shaped objects at high speed.
------- Look mum! I have posted another Slashdot comment! --------
First, it doesn't say anything about using rotary engines, their website shows a 2 piston 4-stroke engine.
Second, the reliability of many rotary engines was shortened by idiot owners who didn't know how to treat them. This was really only an issue with the 3rd generation RX-7. Heat generated by twin-turbo charging caused a lot of the 1993-1995 cars to have premature engine failure. However this is not the case for other rotary cars which without the turbos last hundreds of thousands of miles. Even many 3rd gen cars have gone well over 100,000 miles without rebuild which is roughly equal to running 1700 hours on an airplane. Check out the recommended rebuild schedules for airplane motors and many range from 1200-2000 hours. Really sounds like reliability is an issue doesn't it?
Third, check out http://www.rotaryaviation.com/ and http://www.atkinsrotary.com to see why you are so wrong to judge what happened in your brother's car and jump to the conclusion they are not good for airplane use. The mazda rotary is probably the most used auto engine in aviation BECAUSE IT IS RELIABLE.
Do really dense people warp space more than others?
That's just the inventors speculation. Currently there is no such exemption.
The next Cmdr Taco duplicate will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and see it early!
""Well, I've done the math. I think it's a modest number if you could sell a couple thousand, when you look at snowmobiles and quads and those things -- not cars," says Norris. "That's a big market. But if we sold say a couple thousand, $50,000 a piece, that's a billion dollars." "
Uh no that would be 100 million dollars.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
So how long before I hear about a small squadron of explosives- and fuel-laden flying cars take out the Empire State Building hmm?
The Lemelson-MIT award does not have a very good track record, at least not from my POW. One example is the text on their web-page about Wilson Greatbatch, another lifetime award winner, which is seriously lacking in accuracy.
(It talks about designing the first sucessful pacemaker implant, which is true only if "sucessful" is taken as "working for more than 9 months." If the time limit is set to anything less, the inventor is suddenly swedish...)
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Flying cars have been a Popular Science wet dream for 50 years - maybe more. Personal jet backs fall into the same category. The issues have always been more than technical.
Flying an airplane, even a small one, is not a trivial task. The general population is incapable of taking on that kind of responsibility.
Plus, who will fund and build landing pads or landing strips? Who will agree to the noise from the "airports" or backyard landing pads?
Self awareness - try it!
When I was a little kid I used to read all the time about these neat flying cars that were only a few years away, once the designers worked out a few kinks and the government figured out the regulatory side. As I've grown up I've continued to see these stories coming along, always promising that these guys have a new flying car that will be ready for consumers at some time right around the bend...
It ain't happening, folks. Now and then these guys might pick up an award or snowball another big team of journalists into reporting on their work, but safe, reliable, affordable flying cars that get reasonable fuel economy aren't going to happen any time soon. And when they do, they'll be tied up in regulatory and insurance messes for years, continuing to prevent wide adoption. At the rate this stuff is moving, by the these designs are ready for the market and the market is ready, the fossil fuels needed to run them will cost so much that people won't want them, and we'll get to wait another twenty years for hydrogen-powered models to arrive.
DIY surface to air missile systems
http://xs4.xs.to/pics/04481/p556222.gif
I can't wait to see the elderly drive flying cars. Mayhem, disaster, flames! I'm so excited. S>
For the same $50,000 you can buy a "flying-car" that won't fall out of the sky if the motor stops working.
American Autogyro
Better safe than sorry.
At the present rate of oil consumption, which is increasing by the way, the crude oil reserves will be exhausted in about 20 years.
It's a physics based fact that keeping a mass, such as an air car, airborne consumes more energy than a ground based rolling car. So unless they can figure out how to make an air car run on a renewable energy source, which has less energy than oil based fuels, it'll never happen, or at best, it'll happen as the last of oil reserves are used up, and it'll use them up faster yet on top of that.
I think this is a pretty astute observation.
Every time a new transportation technology gains widespread adoption the legal regime has to incorporate the fact that people are injuring one another in novel, previously unforeseen ways.
Much of US tort law http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tort_law was developed from litigation regarding railroads. Early railroads were always either injuring people directly, or sparking off and causing fires here and there.
We've got a massive compulsory insurance scheme for cars but that doesn't prevent all the litigation as anyone who's seen a lawyer commercial can attest.
I'd bet that there'll initially be some higher legal standard of care one would need to exercise since flying is inherently more dangerous than driving. If the tech improves so that it's mostly autopilot, then that might not be the case.
Although not necessarily efficient to produce, you could run the vehicle, with probably few modifications, on alcohol. ... And if you crash, you could pop open the tank for a swig to help kill the pain ...
O=='=++
That would only be true for a given mass. There are diesel powered airplanes in production that get the equivalent of 20-30 mpg (US). Compare this to a Ford Excursion or Chevy Suburban and you will see that the airplane is actually more economical in fuel usage. It may well be more economical in total energy picture, factoring in manufacturing as well.
In addition, the DA40TDI runs on diesel. It is not currently certified to operate on biodiesel, but there is probably no technical reason it could not do so. (Yeah, yeah, the standard arguments against biodiesel like supposedly taking up all of our farmland to grow fuel, blah blah blah)
So your blanket statement does not hold up even with present technology.
I think you're a little off. The British use 'billions' where an American would use 'trillion.' The British use things like 'thousand-million.'
For both British and American counters a 'couple' thousand multiplied by $50,000 would be roughly one-hundred-million dollars depending on how strict or loose the person was being with a 'couple.'
About the use of fuel, from http://www.moller.com/skycar/
The Rotapower engine produces little NOx, the most difficult pollutant to eliminate. In addition, using a stratified charge combustion process greatly reduces the unburned hydrocarbons and carbon monoxide emitted....The Skycar's fuel-efficient engines and ability to run on regular automotive gasoline result in low fuel costs. The Skycar is significantly more fuel efficient in passenger miles per gallon than the tilt-rotor V22 Osprey, helicopters or many commercial jet airplanes.
I remember when this first came out, and the inventor claimed on a TV program also that these engines (unmanned versions already in use by municipalities working on bridges and such) can also run on extremely alternative fuels. I remember he specifically said that it could even run on "used McDonald's fry vat grease". In my opinion, this kind of rubust and effecient engine (in terms of flying engine effeciency) is exactly what the world needs. If someone can link to the alternative fuel use information from long ago, I would enjoy reading it again.
Cleaning the net one sed at a time! s/sex/sermons/; s/hot/holy/; s/goats/thebible/; www.holysermonswiththebible.com
Going "point to point" and not having traffic congestion, you might get much further in two hours flying 55mph, than four hours driving.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
This is kind of like saying "I need to continue to grow my per day spending. I need to find new and more plentiful ways to make money. Having lots of money has change my life, where I live, etc... I'm not sure I can afford a yacht any time soon, but If could, wouldn't that be cool?"
It's true; spending energy is fun and has many positive benefits, but at the moment our primary energy source is oil, and it isn't renewable. One day, maybe we'll have some new, safe, and more plentiful energy "income" sources, but right now we don't. When you're out of work, spending all your cash reserves is a dumb thing to do, and that's what we're doing with oil, right now. There's no "energy Visa company" we can borrow from while we're out of oil and waiting for fusion or high-altitude wind generation, either.
It is, in fact, even worse than the cash analogy; development of new energy technologies requires energy. If we let our energy reserves drop low enough, eventually we won't have the resources required to invest in new energy technology. It's like driving down the highway, and being close to empty. It's nice that there's a gas station 40 miles up the road, but if you keep the pedal to the metal, and burn up all your gas in 20 miles, you're still fscked.
Last year the story ran about a $30k personal helicopter.
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
Oh, what's this "peak oil" I'm talking about? A quote from Wikipedia's "Hubbert peak" entry:
"The Hubbert peak theory, also known as peak oil, is an influential theory concerning the long-term rate of conventional oil and other fossil fuels production and depletion. It predicts that future world oil production will soon reach a peak and then rapidly decline. The actual peak year will only be known after it has passed. Based on available production data, proponents have predicted the peak years to be 1989, 1995, 1995-2000, or, according to one influential group, 2007 for oil and somewhat later for natural gas. This may lead to either minor economic or major catastrophic consequences for the world since modern civilization is dependent on cheap and abundant fossil fuels, especially for transportation. The Hubbert peak theory, while controversial, is increasingly influencing policy makers both within the oil industry and government."
It's a physics based fact that keeping a mass, such as an air car, airborne consumes more energy than a ground based rolling car.
No, it isn't.
There are far too many variables involved to make such a blanket statement: L/D ratio of the aircraft, mass, rolling resistance and air drag of the ground vehicle, terrain, speeds, stopping and starting, etc, etc.
As an extreme example, consider what kind of gas mileage a glider gets, even counting whatever gas is used to tow (or propel, for a motor-glider) it to altitude. Compare that to an SUV with under-inflated tires. Even a (non-gliding) Cessna gets better gas mileage than an SUV (I don't recall the exact numbers of the top of my head, aircraft fuel consumption is listed in gallons (or sometimes pounds) per hour.)
Now, something that relies on a fan instead of a wing for lift probably will have higher consumption, but you're blanket statement is simply false.
-- Alastair
People have been predicting the end of oil for as long as we've known about oil... At some point it might happen but you're not the first to claim it'll 'run out in 20 yrs'. In reality, we continue to improve efficiencies in extracting oil and even ways of making oil that fundamentally challenge the historical thought that oil takes millions of years at extreme temp and pressure to produce. And, we continue to find new sources of oil. My point is, if the new sources dry up (Canada Oil Sand are a 'new' source that alone can keep the entire world supplied for decades)- If/When the 'new sources' don't materialize, we'll be working on improving extraction through efficiencis and conservation - more drastically than we are now (which isn't too drastic at all). So, Oil running out - not likely in 20 yrs even at current levels of use and extraction.
I was talking to someone at work about this a week or two ago. People have known how to make flying cars for a while now. If the field were viable, it would be fairly easy for an automobile/aerospace corporation to design and build one in the next couple of years.
The problem is and has always been the infrastructure and regulation required to make it anywhere near safe for average citizens to fly. This Highway in the Sky program sounds neat, but it still doesn't address many of the major problems involved. I'd hate to see a flying car stall in New York, for instance, or a drunk teenager crash one into a building.
Give most people a plane and tell them they have to keep steering it in this little box on a screen and see how long they'll stick with it before going off on a joyride. The only way these things wouldn't endanger innocents would be if police installed anti-air missiles at every street corner to blow anyone that veers from their flight path to pieces. I'm not sure that too many people would line up to buy a flying car once that went into effect, though.
[insert witty quote here]
Some are sloppier than others - depends on which one. No one will argue what a dozen means, most people ar clueless about a peck... couple, & few depend on who you are talking to. Not to mention some words have always had two meanings... one being ambiguous
1/10 = gry1 = single
2 = couple
3 = few
4 = gang
5 = punch
6 = half dozen
7 = several
8 = peck / basket
9 = bunch
10 = carton / minyan
11 = short dozen
12 = dozen
13 = long dozen / baker's dozen
14 = fort
16 = kenning / half bushel
20 = score
24 = case
32 = bushel
144 = gross
1728 = great gross
See the Pictures of the Flood of '08
It might seem cool the first time you see a shiny new sky car zipping over top of your house. Lets fast-forward 40 years into the future.
The second generation of sky-cars are out on the market, and the first generation are nearing the end of their lifespan. Finally, the average citizen can afford to go out to the used sky-car lot and pick up an old beater. Now, you've got some guy who barely has the cash to buy the thing in the first place, let alone pay for gas, maintenence and insurance.
He's flying over your house with the tank on empty, and he doesn't have the insurance to pay for the damage when he breaks down and crashes into your house. Doesn't seem quite as cool anymore. It's bound to happen.
Although this is a great advancement in helicopter design it's not going to become a flying car. You still have to deal with engine outages and auto-rotation so you'll need to be a pilot to fly it. I can but a Robinson R22 2-person chopper and do everything that this unit can do, although it takes more skill. It's a great achievement but it's not a car. It's a hobbyists toy. Even if they enclose it, it will face the same issues as modern small choppers.
"For all you folks headed into downtown, the pigeon index is 72, and be on the look out for a flock of low flying geese."
"we will run out oil eventually... this running out will happen relatively abruptly, leading to something of a crisis in our society on account of our dependance on private transportation."
This is very much NOT true. We will not suddenly wake up one day and find all the oil gone. What will happen is that price of oil will slowly continue to rise for decades. This will facilitate a smooth transition from oil to alternative energy sources.
What most people don't understand about oil is that we dig up very little of the blackstuff. When we drop a well down and start sucking up reservoirs of this oil, we are really only dragging up the easiest to reach oil that is just sitting there. Most oil is left untouched due to the fact that it would be very expensive to remove it.
Three things are going to happen to make the cost of oil slowly rise as it is depleted.
1) Speculators will make sure that it rises slowly. Speculators watch the supply of oil and basically bet on how much it is going to cost in the future. While they do drive the price of the oil up by buying out supply, they also ensure a more even distribution over time of its distribution. For instance, if suddenly the oil companies were to announce that HOLY SHIT we are out of oil in a year, speculators would quickly buy up the supply and start parceling it away. The price absolutely would go up, but we wouldn't go from oil gushing out of our ears to being bone dry.
2) As the cost of oil is driven up, oil companies will naturally start digging up more expensive to extract oil. At $30 a barrel it makes no sense to go to an old oil well and start extracting all that stuff that takes $50 a barrel to extract. However, once the price of oil hits $100 per barrel, that $50 per barrel oil will make a tidy profit. So, as the cost for oil goes up, more and more expensive oil will be introduced to the market. The oil will not suddenly run out. Instead, more expensive oil will be introduced to the market that will slowly drive the price up.
3) As the cost of oil goes up, the demand for oil will go down. This is economics 101 supply and demand. Oil is the energy source of choice simply because it is relatively clean (compared to some thing), a very dense energy source, and extremely cheap. Today oil is cheap for the amount of energy you can make from it. The stuff is plentiful enough to fuel the world, and cheap enough for almost everyone to be able to buy it. This will not always be true. As the price goes up, more people will start to spend a few extra dollars to avoid having to shell out so much at the pump. Alternative energy sources will be comparatively cheaper then oil. People will move naturally away from oil. You can see a perfect of this by looking at Europe and the US. The US, where this is almost no taxation on oil, people own big ugly fuel hungry cars. In Europe, where the taxes on oil account for a full ¾ of the costs, people use significantly more fuel efficient cars and in general burn much less oil. Up the price of oil by 500% and even Americans will find it in their hearts (or more likely wallets) to be more fuel efficient.
The net result is that as the price of oil goes up, the consumption of the stuff goes down. As consumption goes down, the price slows its upward slope. The result is that you have a gradual increase in oil prices and a gradual move away from using it.
While I think your analysis is fairly insightful, I disagree with your assertion that the price of oil will slowly rise for decades.
History has shown that when the demand for a critical resource such as electricity or oil exceeds the supply, the price does not rise "slowly". When California experienced electricity shortages, the spot market price went up by a factor of 10 in a matter of months. This is not a slow increase - this is a spike. Crude oil futures were trading on the NYMEX last year at $35/barrel; this year it is $50/barrel. That is an increase of 50% in one year - not what I would call "slow". The problem that many are worried about is that the price of this essential commodity will rise much faster than our ability to replace our cheap-oil-dependent infrastructure with some alternative. This will lead to recession, depression, and possibly crash.
The only thing that can make the price of oil go down is for the demand to decrease faster than the supply is decreasing. However, unless we suddenly come up with some way to make our economy run on something other than petroleum, this means our economy will also decrease as our energy usage decreases. The problem with that scenario is that our economy is not geared to decrease - it can either grow (increase) or crash. There is no middle ground.
It is different from a traditional tiny helicopter in its much simplified controls (and in the way the flight surfaces are actuated). And since it can legally only hold a maximum of 5 gallons of fuel, they have squeezed some good performance out of it.
I don't know what the vehicle's failure modes and safety features are. If you lose the engine, I am not sure if you can autorotate (or whether you just plummet to your death and have rotor blades flying apart and mincing nearby people and cows).
The sales hype is that since it's an Ultralight aircraft, you can fly it in unrestricted airspace without a pilot's license.
You can't commute in the AirScooter. Ultralight aircraft can only be operated in the daylight (between official sunrise/sunset), by VFR, and in decent weather (no clouds, one mile visibility minimum) -- and only for limited purposes. The regulations say "recreation or sport purposes only". I don't know if, for example, commuting to work would be considered "sport" by the FAA, but I suppose that would depend on how many other AirScooters you were competing with for the airspace. Not what they had in mind, though.
It's worth noting that there is not actually much uncontrolled airspace, unless you live in pretty rural locations. (Never mind class G airspace: you can't operate Ultralights within even the lateral boundaries of class E, which most pilots don't even notice is all over the place.) And in no case can you fly (at any altitude) over towns where people live ("congested area") or over any open-air assembly of people. So unless you have a really huge back yard, you'll have to go out in the country a little bit.
It has floats and apparently you can land it on the water. Maybe we can get the AirScooter pilots together with the WaveRunner pilots for some real action. (I expect to see this on some Amazingly Stupid Stunts video.)
Despite all the limitations, it looks like a pretty darn fun toy. I want one!