The Skyacht Personal Blimp brings affordable, albeit slow, air travel within reach of everyone. Well everyone that likes floating around underneath a very bulbous hot air balloon thing painted like a demented goldfish. Mind you, one nice feature is the fact that it can be deflated and stored in a cupboard. A large cupboard. [Via Metafilter]
The Personal Blimp uses hot air (rather than Helium) for lift and virtually silent electric motors for propulsion. To put it another way: the Personal Blimp is a hot air balloon that can be maneuvered about in nearly perfect quiet. Passengers in a Personal Blimp have a serene experience of flight unavailable in any other type of aircraft. (Note: Initial flight tests are using a conventional gas-powered motor. Electric motors will be added once these initial tests are complete. Similarly, the initial flight tests are being made with conventional — i.e. loud — hot air balloon burners. Quiet burners will be added later.)
I have been on the Good Year Blimp, I loved it! I certainly wouldn’t mind having my very own blimp, too cool.