MOVED by appalling images of people leaping from New York鈥檚 World Trade Center on 11 September, investors have decided to fund an innovative skyscraper rescue platform described by New 杏吧原创 earlier this year (5 May, p 18).
Designed by Israel-based Russian 茅migr茅 David Metreveli, the rotor-powered, vertical take-off platform is designed to fly up and down alongside the walls of a burning skyscraper, picking up groups of trapped people from floors beyond the reach of fire ladders or escape baskets slung beneath rescue helicopters.
Until last week, Metreveli was struggling to pursue his idea without development funding. A small flight-capable scale model was all he had built. But following huge encouragement and moral support since the attacks on the US, Metreveli says he has now secured enough investment to begin building a prototype machine. 鈥淲e鈥檒l complete it in the next 12 to 18 months,鈥� he says. 鈥淚t will be a 4-metre by 4-metre flying concept demonstrator.鈥�
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If the demonstrator works, his Israeli investors are set to pump more money into the project. An American investor is also interested.
After the attacks, Metreveli received reams of e-mails offering encouragement from people who had read about his project-including staff at Boeing, who urged Metreveli to 鈥渒eep pushing ahead鈥� with what they called his 鈥渁mazing machine鈥�.
鈥淔ortunately, our prospects have started to change a little bit, but unfortunately it鈥檚 only happened after the tragedy of September 11th,鈥� Metreveli says.
