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Personal Air Vehicles:
The Second Century of Flight
Personal Air Vehicles (PAVs) are a new generation of small aircraft that can extend personal air travel to a much larger segment of the American population. As a solution to America's future mobility needs, NASA aeronautics developed the PAV concept to provide a more distributed and less centralized system of air travel. Near all-weather STOL PAVs will be able to transport people to within just a few miles of their doorstep destination at trip speeds three to four times faster than airlines or cars. NASA predicts that up to 45% of all miles traveled in the future may be in PAVs. This will relieve congestion at metropolitan hub airports and the freeways that surround them, reduce the need to build new highways and save much of the 6.8 billion gallons of fuel wasted in surface gridlock each year.
Some key features of PAVs are:
- 150-200 mph car that flies above gridlock without traffic delays
- Quiet, safe, comfortable and reliable
- Simplified operation akin to driving a car
- As affordable as travel by car or airliner
- Near all-weather, on-demand travel enabled by synthetic vision
- Highly energy-efficient and non-polluting
- Up to 800 mile range
- Short runway use--Walk to grandma's from small residential airfields
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Electric Aircraft 