The Jetpod gives vision to the future of flight
By Mike Hanlon
22:00 January 14, 2005 PST

The Jetpod gives vision to the future of flight
Image Gallery (7 images)The Jetpod can carry seven fare-paying passengers in the commuter/taxi role. With no noise and a short take-off distance, the Jetpod could become the future of fast inner-city air transport with incredible point-to-point times for distances over 20 kilometres.
Built for multiple daily sectors, the Jetpod can land on any flat piece of ground longer than 125 metres, and Avcen sees an ideal role for the Jetpod being low-cost, free-roaming, multi-sector, low-level, very quiet, city centre air-taxis.
Such taxis could take you 300 kilometres from the inner city to a country property or ski resort inside 30 minutes. Or from city centre to the airport in five minutes instead of an hour in an earthbound taxi. Avcen's new word for this class of aircraft is a "Transpeeder." Somewhere between Superman's "able to leap tall buildings in a single bound" and "Beam me up Scotty" the Jetpod will transpeed you from one place to another.
Such scenarios are a long way off as the development of a safe air safety infrastructure to cater for such a scenario is many years away, though NASA is working on a Personal Air Vehicle project designed to enable such a scenario.
As a boy's toy, the Jetpod will be a true prize. A personal, low-noise countryside Transpeeder capable of landing on grass or roughly prepared dirt strips anywhere you like. Once airborne it accelerates all the way to 350 mph in a few seconds.
There are many transport tasks at which a Jetpod would excel, from moving corporate staff to multiple localised destinations through to use as an all hours country-city courier.
Police, Emergency, Rescue, Ambulance And Coast Guard Usage
For this type of work, the Jetpod is immensely flexible in its capabilitieis. With advanced "eyesight", the Jetpod can fly all hours and all weather. As it can loiter at 45 knots, it is also suitable with those eyes for quiet night surveillance operations by Police, Customs and Coast Guard or as free-roaming police security over major cities. Should it lock onto a target, it will not be outrun by anything on the ground, Bugatti Veyron or not.
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John M
- November 25, 2009 @ 17:19 UTC