NASA Puffin is a Real Jetpack. The engineers at NASA have combined every one of our geeky transportation dreams into a single little vehicle called the Puffin. It takes off like a helicopter and flies like a plane. It can cruise at 140 mph and, with a boost mode, hit about twice that.

If that sounds too good to be true, it is – for the moment. But give it time. NASA unveiled the concept today at the American Helicopter Society meeting in San Francisco.

Conceptual design focusing on the ability of a redundant electric propulsion system to provide new capabilities for Vertical Takeoff and Landing aircraft. Specifically utilizing electric motor variable rpm to accomplish a low tipspeed prop-rotor (400 ft/sec tip speed at hover and 200 ft/sec at cruise) to accomplish an order of magnitude reduction in community noise for close proximity operations (30-40 db reduction). The variable rpm capability also achieves a 25% improvement in prop-rotor efficiency through operation at optimal advance ratios.

NASA Puffin Video Simulation

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