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from the zoom!-zoom!-Whhirrrrrrr!-Oops!-Boom. dept.
While a number of inventors have brought the idea of a jetpack closer to reality, with one even flying around the Statue of Liberty in a demonstration, the idea of personal flight remains a pipe dream for most of us. Boeing has had enough of the dreaming, and is putting up US$2 million in prize money to encourage bright ideas around building and designing an easy-to-use personal flying device.
The GoFly prize follows a similar blueprint to the XPrize competitions and the Hyperloop Global Challenge, in that it tasks anyone who is willing and able to come up with technological concepts that would move humanity forward in a big way. But rather than moon landings, artificial intelligence or pods that travel at the speed of sound, Boeing is chasing a dream that has crossed most minds at some point – the ability to fly from point A to point B entirely on your own.
Why not a lighter-than-air solution? A lot less risk of catastrophic failure.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 29 2017, @11:38PM
I know you were half-joking, but if noise level isn't an issue, this has been a mostly solved problem since the 70s.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Williams_X-Jet [wikipedia.org]
The military didn't have a use for it so it was discontinued. There's a video of it flying on youtube somewhere, even though made from 70s tech it looks about as challenging to operate as a segway.