1. LIGHT FLIGHT That’s right. It’s the plane you keep at the house. The amphibious, folding-wing Icon A5 is one of the first U.S. light aircraft designed after a 2004 FAA rules revision, which halved the time and expense required to get a flyboy badge鈥攏ow only 20 hours’ training and $2,500鈥$4,000. Just trailer it to your local airstrip, lake, or bay and it’s up, up, and away. Hit remote-as-hell fly-fishing spots, drop in on a surfside cabana, or take the lady on a real picnic in the woods. Just don’t leave it in your garage (which, at 28′ x 8.5′ x 8.3′ trailered, the A5 just might fit in). The two-seater has a 34-foot wingspan and lightweight carbon-fiber chassis, a 100-horsepower engine, and a top speed of 120 mph. FAA max altitude? 10,000 feet. Range? 350 miles. Miles per gallon? Around 18, and it runs on regular unleaded. The cockpit looks like a Porsche’s: racing-inspired gauges, bucket seats, in-dash GPS unit, and, of course, a digital-audio port. Bonus: A built-in parachute is available, to float the craft back to terra firma if you ever screw up. $139,000 (preorder for late-2010 delivery);
Airplane and Submarine
2. DEEP TRICKS It may look like something out of a James Bond film, but it’s real. Hawkes Ocean Technologies’ Deep Flight Super Falcon allows any ol’ multimillionaire to pull off undersea acrobatics 脿 la the deathless secret agent. The winged submersible鈥攆rom the company that designed the late Steve Fossett’s unfinished Mariana Trench expl鈥攄itches the old ballast system:With the two-ton, fixed-buoyancy Falcon, you just accelerate on the surface, dive via a joystick, and “fly” through le grande bleu.A battery-powered prop drives the craft at up to six knots, for several hours, and as far down as 1,000 feet. Only one hitch: No sexy Rus-sian spy riding shotgun. The Falcon seats two鈥攂ut in-line, Maverick-and-Goose style, with controls for each. Built of carbon fiber, Kevlar, aluminum, and titanium, it also features thick, unbreakable-glass cockpit canopies for panoramic views. And, like anything smacking of Q, she comes with wingtip laser beams, or “collision-avoidance feeler beams”鈥攆or safety, of course. From $1.7 million (est.);