Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Puffin Flies

The design for an electric-battery powered Vertical Take-Off and Landing (VTOL) airplane is supposed to be displayed today at an American Helicopter Society meeting today in San Francisco. According to Scientific American, the Puffin shows great stealth potential due to its small size and extremely low noise and thermal signatures, despite very limited range and low speed. Evidently not well understood by Scientific American is that large rotors and propellers reflect a disproportionately high amount of radar energy, because they're spinning.

A 1/3 scale hover-capable model is expected by March.

HallowE09