It's 2010 - finally my jet pack is here | Hacker News Reader

It's 2010 - finally my jet pack is here

gizmag.com

38 pointselblanco21 comments

For the metric headed readers like me:

    Dry weight: 113 kg (250 lbs)
    Pilot weight: 64 - 109 kg (140 - 240 lbs)

    Measures: 152 cm high x 167 cm wide x 152 cm long (5 ft high x 5.5 ft wide x 5 ft long)

    Rotor size: 52 cm (1.7 ft)
    Maximum thrust: 272 kg (600 lbs)

    Fuel capacity: 19 liters (5 gallons)
    Fuel burn: 38 lph (10 gph)

    Can reach: 2500 m (8000 ft)
    Range: 51 km at max speed of 101 kph (31.5 miles at 63 mph)

I've always wondered why metric users call measurements in grams "weight" when it's really mass and measurements in Newtons is weight. Sorry, I'm an American befuddled by perfectly sensible decimal based measurement systems.

What is meant when using grams as force units is actually the gram-force (which is not part of the SI units). But the -force suffix is typically dropped in informal speech, so gram appears to be used as both a mass and force unit.

I also round 1 kilogram-force to 10 Neutons.

Unless you are trying to hit another planet, you'll be fine.

Can’t we have our own inconsistencies? Believe me, physics teachers hate the common informal use of gramms as weight but that’s what our parents told us :)

A friend of mine is the test pilot for them. He said their quite cool to fly, but scary as hell.

If it's not scary, it's not cutting edge.

When did we start to assume that strapping yourself to an engine-and-propellers (or ducted fans) gadget and flying around would be anything close to safe?

It's not really a jet pack. It's more a thing you strap yourself onto than something you could carry on your back.

Would an A380 qualify as a jetpack if I managed to strap myself to its underbelly?

What’s the human/jetthingie ratio that turns it into a jetpack? :)

If you can't walk a mile wearing it, it isn't a jetpack.

Who needs walking? I have a jetpack!

If you strap it to your back, not strap yourself into it. In other words, you can walk around with it.

And it's also not a jet, but a fan. A fan-strap?

Nomenclature aside, it's still cool though.

Don't get me wrong. I want one. A jet-pack. Although owning an A380 would be really cool.

Now I just have to convince my wife.

We Were Promised Jetpacks [1] will be delighted by the news.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_Were_Promised_Jetpacks

Looks more slick, but just as scary as the one shown in Arrested Development.

I think a water powered jet pack would be awesome. You could keep the pump and power source on the ground so it would be a very small apparatus. You'd be tied to the ground by a hose but it would still be fun.

In fact, I wonder if that could be an alternative to extension ladders. Imagine cleaning your gutters riding on a jet of water.

It exists; http://www.jetlev-flyer.com/

Cool! Just get the price down from ~100K to 1K and you have something that could help with housework and construction.

I wonder how hard it would be to build one of these myself.

I think you can buy this one now: www.jetlev-flyer.com

It's connected to a water source which limits about a 10M altitude, and the market seems to be focused towards a adventure tourist market.

Not to sound like a curmudgeon, but: let's solve these oil and CO2 problems before trying to popularize flying cars and jet packs.

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