First Fully Electric Manned Helicopter Flight

cylonlover writes "On August 12, electrical/aerospace engineer and helicopter pilot Pascal Chretien took to the sky in the world's first untethered, fully electric manned helicopter flight in a prototype machine that he designed and built almost entirely by himself within a 12-month development period. In his 2-minute, 10-second test flight, Chretien beat aviation giant Sikorsky into the record books — but it was not without significant risk. As the man himself puts it: 'in case of crash I stand good chances to end up in kebab form.'"

Comments

Tax him

[udachny]

And what about taxes, how will he pay for the privilege of using his vehicle flying around in the government protected skies? I don't understand how this can be taxed yet, but it must be taxed. He is not using aviation kerosene, right? So what about all the expenses that the FAA will have to incur because of him that will not be covered by him paying taxes? Probably the way is to install a GPS on this thing and to have it monitored for the miles flown and tax based on distance. Other than that - this is good stuff. Let's have government subsidies and all sorts of money go this way, build an industry around it, stop the wars and spend the money on these machines. Obviously this will require more engineers and all sorts of stimulus can be done and obviously that's how we fix the economy.