Q:  What is the Gryphon?

 It weighs only 30 pounds and can be fully weaponized for assault and rescue. It has a 6-foot jet-wing that is steered with handheld rotary controls connected to its rudder.

 

And it can hide more than 100 pounds of combat gear in a built-in compartment.

Or, presumably, laptops, IPods, cell phones and lunch.

The Gryphon attack glider, designed to penetrate combat zones at 135 miles per hour, could revolutionize the art of parachuting. It has got to be at the top of James Bond’s Christmas list this year.

Oh, not just Bond.

A vision straight out of “Batman,” the carbon-fiber stealth glider quadruples the speed of similar craft — and there are quite a few special forces soldiers who would like to jump out of a plane at 30,000 feet and give it a whirl.

Its helmet has a heads-up display and provides on-board oxygen for the jump. To land, a soldier separates the wing from his pack and releases his parachute to slow his descent. The wing remains attached to the soldier by a cord and lands before him.

My morning commute would be cut from 30 minutes (by bike or bus) to about two.

Provided I could find a door on the top of my building…

This entry was posted by by Mitch Berg on Wednesday, April 30th, 2008 at 5:07 am and is filed under Geekery. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.