Monday, April 26, 2010

My next car is going to be a jetpack



For the last couple of years, personal jetpacks have been my Exhibit A for the way technology isn't yet where the twelve-year-old version of me expected it to be by now. Now I'm going to have to move on to flying cars.

James Bond fans may point out that jetpacks have been around since the '60s, but the one used in Thunderball was only able to stay in the air for about 26 seconds. This new one - developed by Martin Aircraft - flies for 30 minutes on a 5-gallon tank of regular premium gas. It'll go 8000 ft into the air and do more than 60 mph.

There's a weight restriction though (140-240 lbs) and of course the price tag is challenging ($86,000, but Martin expects that to drop as orders rise enough to streamline production), but the important thing is that they're here. And - according to this Gizmag article - the FAA is already working on the technology to create sky-highways. Which will also come in handy for our flying cars.

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