Martin Jet Pack

[Bob Kane]

Yep they have been trying since the '50s to do it. Spent tens of millions on it. No luck.

Remind me what the point of a jet-pack is again?
They want to give one man the ability to hover 100 metres in the air?
What for?
A helicopter can do that already.
"But James Bond would look cool doing it."
So it's just a big toy.
Steer clear of the Martin IPO.
It's a solution looking for a non-existent problem.
(I'm starting to write like eri. )

[Xav]

Won't happen. He's just looking for more money right now. it goes like this:

You forgot 5 semi-colons, can't capitalise "for" in the loop declaration and can't have commas in the number declarations . Pretty good effort though

Apart from that looks about right based on the companies some of my friends who are engineers work for.

[kapitibeanman]

Oh ye of little faith.

This is all about levitation. It will be irresistible to many people,
as long as there are not too many accidents. And Martins are
being very methodical and seem safety conscious.

As for uses, apart from entertainment, well I reckon it's a case
of build them and uses will be found. Must admit though, I can't
visualise how Search & Rescue could use them unless they have
a bigger range and lifting power than they appear to have just now.

[Davo36]

I think people would definitely buy them if they worked. Imagine flying to work in one!

They'd be like Segways, basically not needed, but really cool and fun to use.

Heck I could fly from here (West Auckland) over the Manukau harbour to Papakura, land on the roof and walk downstairs to check on the building! Or fly over to our family farm on the Manukau Heads. Totally cool!

Second crossing over the Waitemata Harbour? Forget it, just fly over! In fact imagine how many less roads we'd have to build...

Maybe I'm getting carried away but they'd be very very useful I reckon. Pity it won't happen.

Bob the US military wanted them for battle reasons of course. I remember seeing a platform version they had with a faring around the front and handlebars, so you would stand on it and fly off above people, and then the next step would be to mount guns etc. The idea was to have a flying army.

Xav, this is exactly what another programmer would say! We always criticise eachother's code. You were right on every count, I haven't been coding in C++ for a while, but playing around with Python which is really lax and lets you do anything.

[Perry]

I think people would definitely buy them if they worked. Imagine flying to work in one!

Imagine what CAA would have to say? I shudder
to think. They'd redefine red tape bureaucracy!!

[Bob Kane]

I think people would definitely buy them if they worked. Imagine flying to work in one!

They'd be like Segways, basically not needed, but really cool and fun to use.

Heck I could fly from here (West Auckland) over the Manukau harbour to Papakura, land on the roof and walk downstairs to check on the building! Or fly over to our family farm on the Manukau Heads. Totally cool!

Second crossing over the Waitemata Harbour? Forget it, just fly over! In fact imagine how many less roads we'd have to build...

Maybe I'm getting carried away but they'd be very very useful I reckon. Pity it won't happen.

Buy one of these:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nh2Ym7ehb8k

[Davo36]

Yep they look pretty cool. Wonder if they're licensed for use in NZ?

[Bob Kane]

On a more modest scale, how about this home built helicopter?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OM7HHB51WX8

[Davo36]

Man you'd have to have balls of steel to fly something like that! Cool tho!

[Bob Kane]

And rocks in your head in case you stood up too soon!


So we can hover around already at quite a cheap price.

[speights boy]

So we can hover around already at quite a cheap price.

The ground is the limit (pun intended) when you are talking IGE (in ground effect)
As opposed to OGE (out of ground effect)

[eri]

if you're going to talk ekranoplan
you got to show the video

From: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YSYmSnpQ360

[Bob Kane]

The Martin jet pack is now obsolete.
I read in the paper today that a Chinese drone maker has a large drone that can carry a person - 100 kg for 23 minutes.

[Perry]

The MJP was obsolete before it started. It epitomises the use of
a misnomer. As in - it isn't even propelled by a jetpack (or rocket).

If you want to see a real jet pack, look at this:


From: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gCYSWyHDpfU

The reason the test flights are almost always over water shows
the biggest drawback with such things. What happens when the
unit malfunctions, when ten storeys up in the concrete jungle?

[Perry]

And given the weirdness that passes for some form of common sense there,
these things will never get off the ground in NZ until CAA has a generation
change to people who are not quite so lost in the modern world.