He's been working on it at for years and years. Think he had the thing tethered in 2008? You'll note that the one people can get on is a whole helluvalot different from the one they're trying to get you to invest in. I'm pretty sure the two-rotor one never made it out of ground effect, and I think even those guys figured out that precession and aerodynamic interference were going to make the thing death on a stick. So what they're sort of going for now is yet another man-sized quadcopter with the pitch between port and starboard rotors greatly curtailed. It's interesting to me to see all these "mad scientists" scaling up RC aircraft to people-size, rather than taking functional aircraft and scaling them down to individual. Take the Volocopter: ...okay, 18 rotors and a bunch of batteries and you get 20 minutes duration for $338k. OR, for $270k you can buy a Robinson R22 which will go for 2 hours at 120mph on 17 gallons of avgas and has done since 1973. It's like they're afraid of gasoline or something. Here's the Hiller Pawnee in 1955: Here's the Williams X-Jet in 1969: But people put ridonkulous soundtracks behind things like this: (Did you see that thing get out of ground effect? I didn't) But here: check it out. Mosquito XE, $38k USD with engine, all you gotta do is put it together (and get at least 10 hours of training to get the discount... probably not a bad idea...)
Big enough to overcome the 20 min. projected dwell time? The thing I hate about these projects is they're never developed by anyone with any experience in aviation or aeronautical design. They're always dudes that fucked around with quadcopters and thought "shit, this stuff is simple, let's scale it up." I mean, not even the RC Heli guys bother. The private pilots don't bother. The RC fixed wing guys don't bother. And while there are fits and starts in electric light aircraft, they're generally from within the aviation industry and wholly unnoticed by the general public. Did you know, for example, that Cessna has been flying an electric 172 since 2011? I didn't.
Here's another crazy-ass Kiwi - he's been working on his flying machine for years. In spite of the name, it's a not a jetpack at all, it's a kind of personal helicopter; but at least he had the sense to go with IC engines for power.
Yeah I dunno, man. I still don't think you can beat the simplicity and elegance of the Williams X-Jet. The mill in that thing is in about 4,000 cruise missiles... there may come a day when they're cheap military surplus. Problem with the X-Jet is it'd only lift about 190 lbs... and since my ass is 200 without clothes onthat just doesn't fly (literally). Still - you replace the aluminum with carbon fiber, you do some latter-day weight reduction on the mill and... ...you're still staring down a 600 lbft thrust turbojet engine eager to suck you through. I have simpler tastes.
I think I'd enjoy the lack of noise in a glider more than anything else - all the small aircraft I've ever been in have been noisy as hell. Free as a bird.
Non-sequitur - I don't know if it's just me, but for the last day or two, I haven't seen any notifications on the website. I get email notifications, but my hubwheel-thingy doesn't turn orange, or show them - mk ?