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Comment by cpeterso | Hacker News Reader

I find this jetpack story unlikely. I would imagine anyone with the means and knowledge to use a jet pack would know to respect the airspace near an airport (even if just for their own safety!).

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LAX, the area around the airport is full of the combination of people who both have a lot of spare money (just to be able to rent around there) and have a bit of a thrillseaking / extreme sport bent (surfers, skateboarders, kiteboarders so on) if anyone is likely to own a jetpack it's people living in that area. if anyone is likely to be bored enough to fly around IN a jetpack (when quarantined) it's people in that area.

I'm highly unsurprised (I live not too far from that area)

If the theory is that it is someone living around there - it seems very unlikely they could take off or land without being spotted. From 1000ft to 0ft they would be in the view of tens of thousands of people.

yeah in today's world of dashcams and cell phone cams i am surprised there isn't footage of it if it were one.

There were two independent pilots who reported it previously. This is the third sighting around the same area.

Is there a pilot conspiracy?

Human beings don't need to conspire to be mistaken, especially when primed. Were the pilots truly independent, or did the second one hear someone say "jetpack" on the radio first?

>> Is there a pilot conspiracy?

Groupthink. Pilots see strange things, strange things very quickly moving past their aircraft. If they have "jet man" in their minds, they will see jetman.

Similar things have happened with drones. Brief every pilots about small drones and for the next couple weeks ever paper bag or large bird whipping past them on approach will be identified as a drone. They aren't tell lies. They actually believe they saw the drone. The human brain is just very good at filling in blurry images with known things.

The first two sighting were in a usual jet pack height (800m). This one was now way too high. Technically possible for a few seconds, but incredibly stupid if so. But never underestimate the stupidity of rich Los Angeles folks, you see it weekly in the movies.

800m is still grossly out of class G unregulated airspace. Anyone with enough guts to fly in a jet pack has a high chance of at least having a private pilot’s license. They’d know it is against FAA policy and can result in fines or imprisonments. This in addition to local laws.

What is so unlikely / surprising to you about someone with apparent wealth and aviation knowledge doing something illegal / selfish?

It is surprising that someone with aviation knowledge, wealth, and technical skill would greatly increase the risk of their own death by flying their jetpack into the approach path of a major airport. The only thing to be gained is anonymous notoriety.

Could it be some kind of marketing stunt to drum up attention around jetpacks ahead of an official announcement? It's irresponsible, unsafe and illegal, but you can't deny that it works - they've made the news.

To poke the bear that is the federal government in such a loud and aggressive way is a good way to bring the full weight of the federal government down on such a company. Air travel is vital to our modern economy. To weaken its perceived safety and security in the name of profit would not end well for them.

Absolutely, but you write like we don't have startup CEOs doing stupid immature things [1] frequently...

[1] https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1026872652290379776

Elon Musk's immaturity may affect the perceived legitimacy of his own company, but his actions don't affect the perceived legitimacy of an entire category of the economy like such a jetpack exploit would.

It seems extremely likely that the market cap of Tesla is larger than the market cap of all jetpack companies combined. In any case you assume that any such CEO is concerned with the fate of other companies in the same space, an assumption for which the proof is extremely lacking.

Car in Mars orbit.

worth ninety-seven billion.

his tweets hurt my butt.

It would be less dangerous if they had ADS-B so that other planes could actually see them. There are small units that are not so expensive, so no excuse to not have one in such a dense controlled air space.

But then everyone would know who it was and exactly where it was, is, and is going.

Presumably, the person flying a freaking jet pack around the LA Area has enough money and smarts to know these things... and I doubt they want to be found.

I look at it this way. If I was going to pull this stunt, I know I am going to get into a lot of trouble as is. So with ADS-B, I can at least let other planes see my GPS/Altitude and I can leave all the other data empty. This does not provide who I am, but shows at least some attempt to mitigate risk. The FAA are all about mitigating risk. Also less likely I would get a face full of prop. The person doing this could turn it back off at lower altitude to avoid people seeing where they landed.

A startup that waited until they had a high-functioning product doing what it's actually supposed to do, and then launched their PR campaign? unlikely.

If your scenario was accurate they would have registered a domain and put up a bunch of staged photos and doctored video footage, then initiated a media blitz about how they've solved the biggest challenges and are taking investment.

this is the second time in a couple months a jetpack has been reported flying at LAX though, and nobody has claimed credit. If it only happened once and then we all learned who it was during the initial press cycle, i could see it being a marketing stunt. but violating restricted airspace multiple times without anybody finding out who you are is a pretty bad marketing stunt.

it might be some startup testing their experimental aircraft, but if it is they're either bad at marketing, bad at navigating, or both.

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