NASA Develops 1-Person 'Flying Suit'

If Puffin aircraft works, welcome to the jetpack era
By John Johnson,  Newser Staff
Posted Jan 23, 2010 5:19 AM CST

It exists only on paper at the moment, but NASA's Puffin aircraft just might bring the jetpack age into reality. Engineers "have combined every one of our geeky transportation dreams into a single little vehicle," writes Jason Paur. "It takes off like a helicopter and flies like a plane. It can cruise at 140 mph and, with a boost mode, hit about twice that. Oh—and it’s electric," he writes for Wired.

NASA, which unveiled the concept this week, plans to have a demonstrator model working by March. It's like a "flying suit or a jetpack with a cockpit," notes Charles Q. Choi of Scientific American. Figure about 50 miles per charge and the ability to climb 30,000 feet. "It’s safe to say that if this bird flies—and that’s a very big if—we’ll no longer be dreaming of having our own jetpack," writes Paur.
(More NASA stories.)

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