27 September 2017
Boeing has launched a worldwide, two-year competition to encourage the design of a “safe, compact and quiet personal flying machine capable of being flown by anyone, anywhere”.
It’s called the GoFly Prize. Boeing says revolutionary design is welcome and has issued Technical Rules as guidelines. The photo above shows David Mayman flying the Jet Pack Aviation suit, just one of the existing designs which has prompted the competition.
This is Boeing’s video about the competition:
Financial awards — about $400,000 at two interim phases and $1.6 million in prizes at the end of the competition in late 2019 — will be given. Prizes at the end of the competition include a $1 million grand prize. Other prizes will be awarded to teams that design and build devices that comply with all award criteria, have the smallest size and demonstrate the least amount of noise and greatest speed.
“Boeing is proud to support the GoFly Prize because this competition aligns with our company’s goals of inspiring people across the globe and changing the world through aerospace innovation,” said Greg Hyslop, Boeing’s chief technology officer. “We look forward to seeing how the visionaries of the future will take on this ambitious and exciting challenge.”
Boeing Senior Technical Fellow Dan Newman and a team of Boeing employees have helped the GoFly Group develop the challenge by providing technical advice and counsel.
“We think that continuing advances in propulsion, energy, lightweight materials and control-and-stability systems, as well as other technologies, are combining to offer possibilities that didn’t exist even a few years ago,” said Newman.
