Then my thoughts wandered to I bet there is a military application for this device.
The US Army, more specifically the Marine Corps has been actively kicking the concept around since the 1950's. Hover platforms, single seat helicopters, jet packs, hover jeeps, NOTAR helicopters and the insane Project Ithacus all started with the dream of moving troops around faster. Testing of early prototypes quickly confirmed however what most engineers had said from the inception that the power to weight ratio sucked and flight times were going to be ridiculously short. The real kicker of course was that every soldier also needed to be a half decent pilot to fly the contraptions and Pentagon accountants soon had a fit. Remember fly-by-wire microcomputers that allow anybody to fly like a pro didn't come on the scene till the early eighties. (
Quite what the USAF thought about the Army potentially having more pilots than them is also anybody's guess )
Project Ithacus would of been the exception to this as all troopers needed was the guts to get in the thing. Thankfully its scaled down descendants exist only in Hollywood movies and the real thing never flew.
Most of these projects died by the late sixties but the success of helicopter medivac during the Korean & Vietnam conflicts kept a few alive and with modern warfare shifting to a more rapid tactical style there's been renewed interest in some of the old ideas. The logic being if a drone can evacuate wounded soldier then it can deliver a fresh one at the same time.
