This is a good example of how every decade or so someone decides to reinvent the wheel. It seems every engineer I have ever known has gotten sick and tired of his work commute and sketched out his idea of a George Jetson aircar. Most never made it as far at this one did. However, these concepts seem to all share the same design flaw in the eyes of the FAA: They are multiple-engined aircraft that would become unstable and uncontrollable should any of thier engines fail.
I have seen some concept craft that had as many as 8 lifting fans, all driven by their own engines. Looks great on paper, but god help the occupants of it and anyone underneath them should even one engine fail. These concept machines would simply tumble from the sky if that ever happened. Because of it, they cannot meet basic FAA certification standards for aircraft with more than one engine and are all doomed to the dustbin eventually.
There is a reason helicopters are so expensive. Meeting the FAA's certification standards requires a great deal more than backyard engineering and home-shop tooling. So far, only the military's Osprey is even close to being the first powered-lift category aircraft, and it required decades of development and huge cost overruns before it came into service. Shoot, I remember reading about that machine when I was in the military over 25 years ago! It was supposed to initially enter service in the late 1980's, so it only took an extra 15 years to work out all the kinks in it.
