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This topic is offered for NewMars members who might wish to share discovery of new products or discoveries that relate to personal flight.
This topic has a lot of potential, since no technology is excluded.
We will open Post 3 with a report on one of many entries in the electric drone category.
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Post #3: Report on 43 MPH Personal Flying Machine shown at Oshkosh in 2026
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This report is about demonstration of a small personal flying vehicle shown at the 2026 Oshkosh air show:
Men's Journal
This 43-MPH Personal Aircraft Wants to Make Flying as Easy as Driving
Tudor Serban
Mon, July 27, 2026 at 11:27 AM EDTFlying cars have spent decades occupying that awkward space between science fiction and technology that's supposedly "just a few years away." CoolFly is taking a slightly different route. Instead of trying to build another airborne taxi, the company wants to put one person in a small electric aircraft and let them fly it themselves.
CoolFly recently brought its Dream ST personal eVTOL to EAA AirVenture Oshkosh 2026, giving the aircraft its first appearance at the massive Wisconsin aviation gathering. More importantly, the company says it is developing Dream ST with the goal of meeting the definition of an ultralight vehicle under FAA Part 103.
That does not mean it qualifies yet. Dream ST's final configuration will determine whether it can actually operate under those rules. Still, that goal could be considerably more important than its futuristic looks.
The CoolFly Dream ST Is Built for OneUnlike many eVTOL projects designed around several passengers and an eventual air-taxi business, Dream ST is unapologetically personal. It has a single seat, vertical takeoff and landing capability, and an all-electric propulsion system. Its top speed is currently limited by software to approximately 43 mph, while CoolFly estimates between 20 and 30 minutes of flight time depending on pilot weight, weather, and how the aircraft is flown. Both figures could change as development continues.
Twenty to 30 minutes of flight time won't replace United Airlines anytime soon, but it should be plenty for making your neighbors seriously reconsider their weekend hobbies. Fly one to your favorite campground, and suddenly the question of whether the TSA allows tents on planes becomes somebody else's problem. Of course, flying there means missing out on the massaging seats of a Mercedes-Maybach GLS, but every transportation revolution requires sacrifice.
Part 103 Could Be the Really Interesting PartDream ST uses CoolFly's proprietary NA80 flight-control system. The setup incorporates two redundant flight-control units, with each using three aviation-grade inertial measurement units. According to the company, that allows the system to detect failures within milliseconds and switch to its backup hardware.
CoolFly's real trick, however, isn't making the thing fly. Plenty of companies can do that. It's trying to make personal flight legally uncomplicated enough that ordinary people might actually consider owning one. We're still a long way from The Jetsons, but apparently not quite as far as we used to be.
FAA Part 103 covers certain single-occupant ultralight vehicles used for recreation or sport. Among other restrictions, a powered vehicle must remain below specified weight and performance limits. CoolFly says Dream ST is being developed with those requirements in mind, but stresses that eligibility will depend on the final production configuration.
In other words, nobody should start clearing a helipad next to the backyard grill just yet.
More Details Are Coming August 10Dream ST also isn't CoolFly's only idea for personal aviation. The company is developing Urban, another single-person electric aircraft that places its pilot in a standing position and uses body movement as a control input. CoolFly used its Oshkosh appearance to meet potential U.S. dealers, distributors, and aviation partners as it explores sales, training, servicing, and owner support in America.
The next important date is August 10. CoolFly says it will hold a product event then and reveal additional information about its personal aircraft lineup and flight-control technology. For now, Dream ST remains a developing machine rather than the airborne commuter vehicle parked in your garage. But if CoolFly can turn a 43-mph electric eVTOL into something ordinary recreational flyers can realistically own and operate, The Jetsons comparisons might stop sounding like jokes sooner than expected.
This story was originally published by Men's Journal on Jul 27, 2026, where it first appeared in the News section. A
There are images available in the original article:
https://www.yahoo.com/tech/transportati … 05752.html
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For lighter than air craft, lift is proportional to volume, but drag is proportional to surface area. For this reason, energy efficiency improves roughly linearly with increasing size. Historically, larger craft have also been structurally more efficient, reducing the proportion of total lift consumed by structure. But total lift is fixed by the volume of lifting gas and the density difference between the lifting gas and the outside air. There is no means whatever of increasing lift without increasing lifting gas volume, or making the ship larger.
Another awkward fact of life is that non-payload structural mass will always be a large fraction of total mass, for a structurally stable airship. This is why the Hindenburg, with a volume as large as a transatlantic cruise ship, could carry only 40 passengers over long distances. As big as it was, it just didn't have enough lift to carry any more than that along with the supplies they needed. Modern materials could reduce structural mass, allowing for greater passenger loads. But there are clearly limits to how far we can take this.
Up to this point, the only commercially successful lifting gas has been hydrogen. Helium has never been useful as a lifting gas beyond novalty applications. The reasons are many. Firstly, hydrogen is the lightest gas, with density of just 88 grams per cubic metre under standard conditions. Air has density of 1.1kg/m3 under standard conditions. Each cubic metre of hydrogen will therefore provide ~1kg of lift. The second reason is cost. Hydrogen can be manufactured from coal, natural gas or even electrolysis. Helium is a trace gas in limited supply. Zeppelin Airships would vent hydrogen during flight to trim their buoyancy as fuel was consumed. That isn't economically possible with helium. One solution was to attempt to gather water vapour to balance the mass loss of fuel consumed. But adding a condenser to engines adds weight. Another was to tilt the airship downwards, allowing aerodynamics to counteract unwanted lift. But helium is inevitably lost from airships due to diffusion through the envelope. The airship isn't a viable solution for mass transit if helium is required for lifting gas. The draw on global supplies will be unsustainable.
Other lifting gases like methane, neon and carbon monoxide face a different problem. Methane has molar mass of 16, compared to 2 for hydrogen and 29 for air. Compared to hydrogen, it provides only half as much lift per unit volume. If we consider a hydrogen filled airship in which half of lift is taken up by structure, fuel, crew, ballast and vituals. The other half is useful payload. Filling the ship with methane would reduce payload mass to zero. Even helium as lifting gas woukd reduce payload markedly. Perhaps the best alternative lifting gas is hot air. In this case, we do not need any gas impermeable materials to contain the lifting gas as it is being continually regenerated, with colder gas falling out of the bottom. But the lift provided is much poorer than hydrogen. At 150°C, hot air will generate 0.39kg of lift per cubic metre - just one third of the lift of hydrogen. To carry a meaningful payload, our hot airship must weigh almost nothing. We can increase lift by increasing temperature. But doing so starts to challenge polymer envelope materials. The higher the gas temperature, the more rapid the energy loss to the outside and the more fuel consumed.
Last edited by Calliban (2026-07-28 18:10:13)
"Plan and prepare for every possibility, and you will never act. It is nobler to have courage as we stumble into half the things we fear than to analyse every possible obstacle and begin nothing. Great things are achieved by embracing great dangers."
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Ammonia and ethane are under discussed. Not as lifting gases, but as means to alter buoyancy. A ballonet filled with ammonia is lighter than air; compress and condense that ammonia into a tank to collapse it, and it becomes heavier than air. Ethane is slightly heavier than air, so the range of possible lift would be less. Methane would I think be too tricky to condense to be viable.
Use what is abundant and build to last
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