View source for The Personal Airship

Another of my crazy inspirations struck the other day: The Personal Airship.

Being stuck in traffic is a stupid way to spend time and contribute to global warming.  Being able to travel through the air is the obvious solution.  The major problem with personal aircraft is safety.  This is a solvable problem.  How do you minimize the risk of air travel?  Make yourself lighter than air.  How do you still achieve useful speed and agility?  Supplement with jets.  Can this be a sustainable method of travel?  Yes, through fuel cell power.

As with my [[Geothermal Steam]] brainstorming, a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airships#Prototypes_and_experimental_models little research] revealed that this idea is not new, but [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrid_airship not yet fully realized].  Once again, perfect fertile ground for further exploration...

[http://www.selsam.com/ This guy] has done amazing work with his wind turbines and has mentioned that personal flying is the next frontier.

[http://www.archinode.com/ Mitchell Joachim] touches on it [http://archinode.blogspot.com/2009/06/jet-pack-packing-soft-mobility-in-sky.html here].  He has covered the safety factor well: "You can bump into grandma just to say hello".

[http://www.martinjetpack.com/ The Martin Jetpack] is "nearly ready".  They are on the other end of the spectrum and the thing looks deadly!  :>  But safety was a strong design factor.