Personal Jet Packs?

April 11, 2008

I’m hearing complaints that I tend to blog too much about bleak, scary hypothetical end of the world  scenarios.  As a result, I’m going to put aside my previously planned topic — the pros and cons of various strategies for dealing with a global onslaught of flesh-eating zombies — and instead focus on a subject that inspires a tad more bonhomie: The personal jet pack.

If your only familiarity with the personal jet pack comes from the James Bond flick Thunderball, in which Agent 007 relies upon the gadget to escape some pistol-wielding bad guys, you may be surprised to discover that the jet pack — or rocket belt, as it’s sometimes called — actually is a real, functioning technology that’s been around for more than 60 years. During World War II, German scientists developed the Himmelstürmer (in English, “sky stormer”), a pair of what essentially were miniature V1 missiles  attached to a harness. The device was designed to enable Wehrmacht combat engineers to leapfrog distances of up to 75 yards over minefields, barbed wire and bombed-out bridges. A prototype was captured by U.S. forces and sent back home for study. After the war, the Pentagon wanted to develop a more powerful version, which it dubbed the Small Rocket Lift Device, for use in reconnaissance and amphibious landings.

The first functional personal flying device was the Bell Rocket Belt, invented by engineer Wendell F. Moore in the 1950s and early 1960s, which used nitrogen and highly concentrated hydrogen peroxide to power twin jet nozzles that sprouted from behind the wearer’s shoulders like angel wings. In 1961, a week after Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin first orbited Earth, an extremely brave individual named Harold Graham made the first unassisted jet-pack flight at an airport near Niagara Falls. He reached an altitude of just 4 feet and traveled about 30 yards, but it was a start. Eventually, Graham managed to elevate to a height of 30 feet and cover slightly more than the length of a football field. That year, he gave a demonstration for President John F. Kennedy at Fort Bragg in North Carolina.

Nevertheless, the military was underwhelmed by the original Rocket Belt, because it had one severe limitation: users could only stay in the air for a maximum of 21 seconds. In the late 1960s, the Pentagon took another stab at the concept, investing $30 million to develop Bell’s Individual Mobility System, which employed a gas-turbine jet engine powered by kerosene fuel. The IMS could stay aloft for 20 minutes and cover much larger distances than the Rocket Belt, but it too had drawbacks. The system weighed a hefty 170 pounds and was loud enough to make it useless for surveillance. The project eventually became a victim of budget cuts.

From then on, other than the jet-pack pilot who made a spectacular landing at the opening ceremonies of the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles and an occasional appearance as a prop in science fiction movies, the concept was pretty much relegated to the dusty corner of oblivion occupied by the likes of the Amphibicar, the Dymaxion House and the Picturephone.

That is, until recently, when two companies — U.S.-based Jetpack International and a Mexican competitor, Tecnologia Aeroespacial Mexicana — began marketing personal flying devices to civilian thrill seekers who happen to have $150,000 or so to spend. Both are developing next-generation gadgets that promise to break through the previous time and distance limitations. According to a 2007 story in Popular Mechanics, Jetpack’s upcoming $200,000 T73 model, scheduled for release sometime in 2008, will burn jet fuel instead of using hydrogen peroxide, and will remain aloft for 19 minutes with an 11-mile travel range. Meanwhile, TAM is working to develop its own Jet Belt, whose single titanium jet engine will be capable of delivering 490 pounds of thrust.

So will jet packing become the next hot extreme sport? As this YouTube video suggests, it must be incredible fun. The downside: As the manufacturers readily admit, personal flying devices are pretty dangerous and require lots of careful training. Is the prospect of a careless adrenaline junkie running out of fuel and plummeting to Earth — or crash-landing on the roof of your house — simply too great of a risk? Express your opinion below.

Comments

[Moby]

Where can I get one of these jetpacks? Can you rent them?

[Astroboy]

ME TOO I WANT ONE NOW!!!!!!!!!

[Mothra]

I would love to have one of these. The only worry I would have is aggressive drivers--or actually flyers, I guess. It could be a kind of in your face kind of thing, you know, if everybody was out in their jetpacks, and they're like, "you're in my flight path." High-altitude spitting and littering might be a problem too. Nobody wants to get hit with a 20 oz plastic coke bottle dropped from 3,000 feet up.

[Carly]

I think jetpacks would be TERRIBLE for the environment, because of all the greenhouse gases that they undoubtedly spew out. Also, there's the risk that jetpackers will collide with birds or disrupt their migratory patterns, the way that motor boaters stress out whales and dolphins by chasing them around. If you want high altitude thrills, take up hang-gliding or cliff diving.

[Funlover]

I can't imagine that those teeny jet engines generate that much pollution. Lighten up, willya?

[Tom Hayden]

I agree. theres too much whinning on this blog about global warming, which is a HOAX anyway.

[Caffeine Driven Stress Magnet]

People like you are in the way as everybody else tries to solve the problem.

[Jetman]

Do you know if it's possible to get your body parallel to the ground (length-wise) and fly "superman" style with one of these jetpacks? That would be much more of a rush than hovering. I saw a youtube video of a guy doing that with a wingsuit and some sort of small rocket.

[squirrel boy]

its no fun if they have to come down right away. they should designn them to stay up in the air for longer, like they do in video games!

[Ben10]

I like Jetpacks. I would have a bucket of water balloons and fly over my school and drop them on people. And I would do other stuff, like i would get balloons that are stuck to the ceiling. Except that my mom says she wouldnt let me use it indoors cause I might hit my head.

[hawthorne wingo]

What about national security? Could jetpacks be utilized by terrorists?

[Joey]

If you wore waterskis and a jetpack, you could be totally amphibious!

[Obama for President]

You probably thought that I wouldnt' be able to find a Barack Obama angle on jetpacks, but I did!

http://wheresmyjetpack.blogspot.com/2008/02/barack-obama-is-your-new-bicycle.html

[Niall]

I don't see this invention as being even remotely practical for transportation. It's strictly for thrill-seekers with too much money in their pockets, the same people who would pay the Russians $20 million for a space flight.

[ronny]

"If you wore waterskis and a jetpack, you could be totally amphibious!"

HEHEHEHEEEHEHEHEHEH :D

the greenhouse effect is no hoax, or if it is, can you take the chance? its better to be safe than sorry.