There is always a dark side to mega cooperations like Chiquita. I just read an article in Forbes that their profit jumped 46% the second quarter of 2009. Of course that makes sense when most families are buying more of this cheap fruit to make it on a limited budget.

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I'm interested to see how this works out in the Los Angeles area. It seems that someone would try to find a way to steal them or could even accidentally wreck one. It sure would be great on our smog in this area. Except, driving a shopping cart doesn't sound fun to me?

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Looking forward to the snow machine to make an appearance again out here in Los Angeles. It look like it's going to be another scorcher out here and snow would bring me happiness. James

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I was running the math on megabus and it comes out to about 8 cents a mile to travel with them from Chicago to Kansas City. ($41 one way) That's an amazing deal. I checked for routes in the Los Angeles area and it doesn't seem to operate anymore out west anymore. I'm sure many former customers will miss them. Another victim of the down economy I'm sure.

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Found some more information on this:

Hummel 2004 // The „Hummel“ („bumble bee“) is a light helicopter for maximum 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.

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I think the Focus 21 France has just as much of a chance of succeeding as this. Not enough commercial interest in this concept to "get it off the ground".

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Sometimes I miss seing that guy.

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This you would also enjoy the top 10 scariest airports over at WA today. Some more great pics like this.

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Look forward to them perfecting coaxial rotors on the real commercial helicopters. Will increase speed significantly and increase efficiency.

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This scares me, it reminds me of an old Alien movie when the Alien ripped out from the inside.....creepy..

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It looks like a trash compactor for people, is it just me? I think ole Pete is throwing away the odd single charter helicopter concept for something that doesn't need air anymore. Just a few days ago I read this:

Pete Bitar, the president and CEO of Anderson-based Air Buoyant, said he has assembled a team to pursue the $30 million Lunar X Prize.“I am only leading the team and pulling together funding,” Bitar was quoted as saying.

Google Inc. is bankrolling the $30 million contest. The bulk of the prize will go to the first private company that can land a robotic rover on the moon and beam back a gigabyte of images and video to Earth.

Contest rules require that all teams be at least 90 percent privately financed to compete. The first team to complete the mission before 2012 will be awarded $20 million.

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Isn't it kind of funny that you're flying in a helicopter (3 miles to the gallon) to find your "ecological self". It would be like driving a hummer to a Earth Day event. Did they fully think through this concept??

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It's good to know that the media helicopters were there for us, otherwise we might have missed some momentous piece of history. Thank you media for covering today what will be written in the history books of tomorrow....oops, wrong article I am commenting on.

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I prefer flying helicopter prototypes any day to just concept vehicles. Of course, it opens up our mind to the possible future of flight and what can happen if we allow our imagination to translate from our ind onto paper. Hope he can come up with something of practical use.

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How do you get injured people onto an unmanned aircraft? This seems as smart as bringing a unmanned ambulance to someone's house to pick them up in case of an emergency. Maybe that's good if they are trying to save their insurance company some money??

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I've come to the conclusion this hotel is out of business. They have no website and Google Maps can't seem to locate it. If this just me or has this place disappeared like the island in the show Lost?

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When I look at this it reminds me more of the Statue of Liberty then blades on a helicopter. A standard helicopter only has 2 blades while the preferred charter helicopter has 3 blades for less vibration. Never seen a helicopter with 10 blades, doesn't work.

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Sunbather is at 4:46 and it is totally staged. This helicopter concept seems like it would be good for NFL stadium games (cheaper than the blimp). If they can get a better video camera on here with 70x optical zoom with solid image stabilization (like the Panasonic SDR-H80) then the Secret Service and FBI would be interested in this product. Of course you also need a flying time for this helicopter of at least 1 hour to make this feasible for military applications.

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People are naturally lazy. Why pedal when you can just hop in a car and have it take you somewhere. The cost of fuel is going to have to get to about $8 a gallon before people will really think about human powered transportation. Read the latest edition of Popular Science discussing this concept. CEO's will continue to choose whatever transportation takes the least amount of time (charter helicopter, charter jets, etc...). WHen you put it into perspective, CEO's that make $5,000 an hour can afford something that cost $500 an hour (like a helicopter charter) because it is more beneficial overall for the company for them to use their brain then be stuck in traffic.

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I heard that CimatronE partnered up with the original owners of this in 2008 and it seems to have disappeared off the radar since then. Anyone know the current status of this helicopter/taxi/ambulance concept? Would love to see if they've ever developed a real prototype and improved upon this original concept.

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