Dispatches from the Dream of Personal Flight

A handful of inventors could be contenders if Vetter jumpstarts his contest, most of them taking advantage of recent advances in lightweight composite materials and computer-aided design. Along with Norris, former Navy combat pilot Michael Moshier leads the pack. Mosh-ier's brashly conceived SoloTrek XFV (short for Exo-Skeletor Flying Vehicle) has made dozens of short, tethered flights at the Sunnyvale, California-based headquarters of his company Millennium Jet. (This magazine described the SoloTrek last October.) If the AirScooter is like an ultralight airborne ATV, Mosh-ier's machine-which is supposed to have a range of 150 miles and a top speed of 80 mph-resembles a strap-on, flying, high-performance superbike.


Moshier says his preoccupation with personal flight began when he saw the U.S. Army-funded rocket pack that was featured in the 1965 James Bond film Thunderball. The device, a backpack powered by rocket fuel, was real and powerful, but terribly impractical-it ran out of fuel in about 20 seconds.


Today's SoloTrek has a 120-horsepower engine; two ducted, turbine-like fans are positioned on either side of the pilot and spin in opposite directions. A joystick in each of the pilot's hands communicates with a computerized stability system: One controls speed, the other steers. Because it's compact and has no exposed blades, the SoloTrek could allow users to land in cramped spaces. But since the housed rotors sit side by side, rather than on top of one another, the machine is potentially less stable than the AirScooter: If the flaps on the SoloTrek's two fans get out of sync, the machine could become unbalanced.


At 500 pounds, the SoloTrek doesn't meet the FAA's ultralight designation, so you'd need a pilot's license to fly it. If you could afford to buy it, that is: The complex avionics could push its price tag well past $100,000. For now, Moshier envisions soldiers, not civilians, strapping on his rig. Despite millions in Pentagon funding, money has been a chronic problem, but Moshier says he devotes "150 percent of his time" to his invention.


Moshier's devotion pales beside that of maverick inventor Paul Moller. Moller's M400 Skycar (which this magazine covered in March 2000) features four horizontally mounted ducted fans, each powered by two Wankel-style rotary engines, that together produce 720 horsepower. Moller intends his Skycar to take off like a helicopter, fly much the way a car is driven, and navigate on autopilot using the satellite-based Global Positioning System: Clearly, he's reaching for the full realization of the personal flying machine. He intends to deliver a working version of the sort of craft depicted in films like The Fifth Element, in which urban flyers that resemble old, round-edge Chevy Caprices zip about on invisible aerial roadways. Problem is, though Moller claims his Skycar made a few-seconds hop last year, no one outside his Davis, California-based company has yet to witness the feat. The project has sapped his energies and at least $200 million of his and his investors' fortunes for some 40 years. He hasn't lost faith. "We've had our dark days," he says. "But I know in my heart that this technology is coming."