When planning trips shorter than about 500 miles, most people opt to drive rather than fly. Driving may be stressful, but at least it avoids the hassles, long lines, and frequent delays of modern air travel, not to mention the high ticket prices.

Imagine, then, if you could drive to a regional airport, walk onto a small hybrid-electric airplane with your luggage in hand, and be at your destination in half the time it takes to drive. And imagine a price up to 80 percent cheaper than current airfares. A small Washington state startup called Zunum Aero hopes to make such a transportation model a reality within 10 years.

In April Zunum Aero announced its ambitious goals of flying routes of up to 700 miles by the mid-2020s and up to 1,000 miles by 2030. It plans to build a fleet of 10- to 50-seat aircraft that will make better use of the country’s more than 5,000 airports. Just 140 of the largest airport hubs carry 97 percent of current domestic air traffic, the company said.

“The shift of the industry to large aircraft and long ranges driven by gas turbines has concentrated almost all air traffic to just 2 percent of our airports,” Zunum Aero co-founder and CEO Ashish Kumar said in a press release. “As a result, door-to-door times for most journeys are no better than they were 50 years ago. Hybrid propulsion is an industry-changing solution, enabling midsized aircraft on regional routes to have better cost efficiencies than airliners.”

Kumar believes small hybrid-electric airplanes (running on fuel and battery power) could have operating costs 40 to 80 percent lower than conventional aircraft. And because the Transportation Security Administration regulates smaller aircraft more lightly, passengers would likely be able to skip long security lines, according to The Washington Post. Eliminating baggage handling operations would save time on the ground as well.

Boeing and JetBlue Technology Ventures are financially backing Zunum Aero. “This technology and customer approach has the potential to transform the market for small, short-haul aircraft that can use smaller regional airports,” said Steve Nordlund, Boeing vice president for strategy.

Bonny Simi, president of JetBlue Technology Ventures, told the Post she believes the hybrid-electric aircraft model is as transformational as the change from propeller planes to jets.

Boost for the brain

The U.S. Navy SEALs are already among the world’s highest-performing warriors. Now the SEALs’ commander hopes new “cognitive enhancement” technologies can raise their already-elite mental and physical performance to new levels.

The SEALs have been testing a brain-stimulating headset for elite athletes developed by Halo Neuroscience, whose clients include the San Francisco Giants and the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Association. The company claims its device stimulates the brain to a state of hyperplasticity, in which muscle-controlling neurons fire more rapidly, improving performance.

The headset is designed to be worn just prior to, or during, training. Although the peak benefit comes in the 60- to 90-minute window after wearing it, the training benefits can last indefinitely, according to the company.

“We plan on using that in mission enhancement,” Rear Adm. Tim Szymanski, head of the Naval Special Warfare Command, told Military.com. “The performance piece is really critical to the life of our operators.” Testing is ongoing, but a Navy spokesman said the early results looked promising. —M.C.