Foldable Helicopter: Perfect for Urban Survival!

If you live in a high rise apartment, deep inside a large city, you may have wondered how you could escape the unruly urban jungle, should the fecal matter hit the fan. Here is your answer: the Hummel Helicopter, which can be folded up and kept in a closet until it is needed. Simply roll the folded vehicle down the hallway to the elevator, go up to roof level, unfold the machine, and fly off to your retreat. Having a birds-eye view of miles of vehicles backed-up on the panic clogged freeways below, is an added bonus.

The “Hummel” (”bumble bee”) is a light helicopter for [a total of] two passengers. It can be used for passenger transport (air taxi), as well as for e.g. emergency transports like organs or units of stored blood and of course for conventional tasks of a helicopter like monitoring (e.g. coast guard, police, army, scientists) and to be mobile. The tandem rotor design guarantees a more efficient aircraft performance as the main-tail rotor design, without wasting fuel. _ImpactLab_via_dVice_via_Zoobota_via_DesignBlog

Terrafugia's Transition "driveable airplane" is another possibility, if you can find a long enough open stretch of pavement to use for a runway. Another alternative for those who live near a river, lake, or bay, is to keep an amphibious plane handy that can take off and land on either water or solid surface.

If you have ever been caught up in a large-scale evacuation of a large city, you will immediately understand the seriousness behind the silliness. In the past, such an evacuation might have been prompted by the approach of a hurricane. In the future, growing numbers of potentially predictable and emergent threats might trigger such an outrush of people.

Imagine if the current Swine Flu had been genengineered for maximum contagion and lethality? Just a few cases in the local emergency room might have been enough to trigger wide-scale panic and impromptu evacuation. A simple radioactive "dirty bomb" could accomplish the same mindless stampede without so much as a single fatality. As earthquakes and volcanoes become more predictable, evacuation plans will grow apace. Face it: getting out of a city in the midst of full-scale panic would not be easy or risk-free.

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