Jetpack Aviation’s flying motorcycle prototype aces first tests

After spending 18 months building an entirely new form of flight control software, California’s Jetpack Aviation has completed flight testing on its first prototype of the Speeder, a jet turbine-powered flying motorcycle. Top speeds on the final versio… Continue reading Jetpack Aviation’s flying motorcycle prototype aces first tests

Laser-Powered Flying Machine Weighs Milligrams

We’ve become used to seeing some beautiful hand-made creations at the smaller end of the flying machine scale, tiny aircraft both fixed and rotary wing. An aircraft that weighs a few grams is entirely possible to build, such have been the incredible advances in component availability.

But how much smaller can a working aircraft be made? Given a suitable team and budget, how about into the milligrams? [Dr. Sawyer Fuller] and his team at the University of Washington have made an ornithopter which may be the lightest aircraft yet made, using a piezoelectric drive to flap flexible wings. That in …read more

Continue reading Laser-Powered Flying Machine Weighs Milligrams