Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!rutgers!ucla-cs!zen!ucbvax!KL.SRI.COM!MANDEL
From: MANDEL@KL.SRI.COM (Thomas F. Mandel)
Newsgroups: comp.society.futures
Subject: Re: Forecasts '87 and beyond ("Flying Boom")
Message-ID: <12359290000.18.MANDEL@KL.SRI.COM>
Date: 17 Dec 87 22:47:40 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The ARPA Internet
Lines: 23


Steve Hix (concertina!fiddler@sun.com) critisizes the forecast
of an inexpensive airplane in every garage...

This is not so far-fetched or absurd as it might seem.  If you
interpret such airplanes to include all sorts of new kinds of
flying craft from hot air balloons to hang gliders to low-powered
aircraft (derived from hang gliders), it is entirely possible
to see widespread existence of such personal recreational
technology within the foreseeable future.

In every garage, no.  But as commonplace as, say, recreational
vehicles, yes.

In a futures study I did for the Bureau of Land Management
in the 1970s, we identified new kinds of personal flying
equipment as very likely to boom during the then-next 20 years.
I'm still quite comfortable with that projection.

--Tom Mandel	mandel@kl.sri.com

[My views, of course, and not necessarily my employers...]
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