Sky High: The Self-Launching Glider for Date Night
Take your missus on a journey up with the TST-14J BonusJet, a two-seat glider with its own retractable jet engine.
Mumbai-ites like to complain that the city is a wet blanket for romantics. There’s jack to do other than your usual movie and dinners – and they’re right. What can you do on date night? Hop along the LRT line? Photograph road bullies on Western Highway? Reverse cowgirl?
What we would give to tell Princess Fussypots: ride my glider and I’ll show you my rolls. Not the casual romp, mind you. We’re talking about a trip in a TST-14J BonusJet, a two-seat, self-launching glider from New Mexico-company Desert Aerospace. Gliders are usually a pain in the butt for lift-off – they need to catch the tow of a Boeing 747 to soar off ground – but the company has outfitted this sailplane with a small jet engine. At just 20kg, the engine sits snugly on top of the vehicle, and retracts automatically into the fuselage once the pilot ascends into higher altitude.
And after, it’s all about the wind beneath your wings. You have around 91 litres to play with, translating to one-and-a-half hours of airtime. Desert Aerospace projects a climb performance of 305m per minute, which leaves you plenty of height for some sight-seeing and mid-air tongue jousting. You’ll be the Casanova of the Lavasa Valley, lady folk lining up for your brand of a walk in the clouds.
Fuel tank: 91 litres. Climb performance: 305m/minute. Cruise speed: 185km/h. Price (estimated): RM550,000. Website: desertaerospace.com
From the April 2011 issue of FHM India.
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