On April 24, Kitty Hawk zoomed down the runway and took off. Destination: The public’s imagination. The company rolled out its new product (the Kitty Hawk Flyer), launched a new website, and got front-and-center treatment on The New York Times homepage and throughout the tech blogosphere.
The Times story described how a Kitty Hawk aerospace engineer maneuvered the vehicle about 15 feet above a lake, circling 20 to 30 yards from shore before stopping on a landing pad at the end of a dock.
The Flyer is one of several prototypes that Kitty Hawk is designing. The company also says the final commercial product will look different from and be notably quieter than the test model.
Some other nuggets of note about the Flyer prototype: