“The good stuff is coming.”
Flying cars are back in the news this week, thanks to Nevada inventor Woody Norris, who is working on an ultralight helicopter called the AirScooter. Norris has won a prestigious inventors’ award — for his work in acoustics, not aviation — and he and his flying machine were featured in Sunday night’s “60 Minutes” show on CBS. Norris has developed a new four-stroke engine for his AirScooter, which has two counter-rotating rotors, and he says it is stable and easy to control. A video clip at his Web site shows the single-seat AirScooter taking off vertically, maneuvering just a few feet above the ground and returning to its launch site. An unmanned version is also in the works. Norris says AirScooters will be available for sale later this year at $50,000 apiece. “This stuff that we’re surrounded by, that we think is so cool is caveman. The good stuff is coming. The really good stuff is coming,” Norris told 60 Minutes. Norris, who has 47 patents to his name, was awarded the $500,000 Lemelson-MIT Prize this week for his work on focusing sound waves. He’ll receive the award on Friday, during a ceremony at the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry in Portland.
