5 ms·
It cannot be a person, unless there is some incredible breakthrough in energy storage density. Whatever that object is, it's too small to hold enough batteries
by mabbo 6y ago
It cannot be a person, unless there is some incredible breakthrough in energy storage density.
Whatever that object is, it's too small to hold enough batteries to contain the energy needed to lift a human being for any serious length of time. Even using chemical storage like gasoline or kerosine, you'd need to bring a very large tank with you to stay airborne any length of time. There's no lifting body, like wings, to make staying aloft more efficient either, like an airplane uses.
My guess is that it's a prank. A fairly large drone loosely carrying a very light dummy. And as far as pranks go, they have succeeded.
- kurthr 6y agoYeah, and LA is full of people who like making realistic fakes/models and lots of time on their hands (pandemic really slowed model/prop making early on).
- m463 6y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yves_Rossy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yves_Rossy https://youtu.be/nj-Iwv5NJKg https://youtu.be/nj-Iwv5NJKg https://youtu.be/de_YJzKeGKU https://youtu.be/de_YJzKeGKU
- xref 6y agoYou might notice the enormous rigid wingsuit in those videos...
- ceejayoz 6y agoThe video in the linked article isn't high resolution enough to discount such a wingsuit in action, especially as it's taken side-on.
- vl 6y agoWith the wing they would fly in the horizontal orientation, but there are jetpacks that work without wings.
- imaginenore 6y agoHere's one without https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xL02e4L-RQo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xL02e4L-RQo Another one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4YnrJCHbxw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4YnrJCHbxw
- driverdan 6y agoThis is not true. There are jetpacks with 20min of flight time. They could have launched off a boat or the nearby shore.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- beenBoutIT 6y agoWhich jetpack gets 20min of flight time? Modern jetpacks get 30 seconds of flight time. The 20min flight sequences are actually lots of extremely short flights edited together to look like a single extended flight.
- driverdan 6y agoI believe Jetpack Aviation's current setup has a 20 min flight time. Their first jetpack was 10 min.
- tim333 6y agoDoesn't look much like a drone, more like a JetPack Aviation kit shown here. https://youtu.be/y9B7WdlRafc?t=128 https://youtu.be/y9B7WdlRafc?t=128 They quote endurance as 10 min and I presume it could go longer with an extra gas tank https://jetpackaviation.com/jetpacks/ https://jetpackaviation.com/jetpacks/ Fuel seems to be about 5 gal kerosene for 8 min flight. JetPack Aviation are located about 35 miles from the sighting so it seems a reasonable bet that it's one of their bits of kit.
- djsumdog 6y agoThe object in the video looked pretty high. With only eight minutes of fuel, if it was manned flight, that's got to be a pretty dangerous altitude to hit. The pilot would need a boat very close by.
- username90 6y ago3000 feet isn't that high, shouldn't take more than a minute to reach. And the info on those packs says their operating ceiling is 15000 feet, so going up to 3000 feet should be no problem.
- mabbo 6y ago> and I presume it could go longer with an extra gas tank There are limits to that. If you carry an extra gas tank, then you're lifting even more mass- fuel is heavy! There are significant diminishing returns on carrying more fuel. That said, you do make some great points- I could well be wrong. I suspect the FBI are over there asking a lot of questions too, lol.
- mapt 6y agoIt could easily be a drone. It's happened before - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tB8D2QZ9lA4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tB8D2QZ9lA4 It's unlikely to be an electric vehicle if it's carrying a full-sized human. You just need so much weight in batteries & swept area for props for more than a couple minutes of flight that it's difficult to pack it into a form factor anything like the size & shape of a human. Given the location and the current state of the technology, though, a liquid fueled jetpack is perfectly possible. It doesn't have to be very efficient if the flight is only a few minutes long. A typical helicopter may achieve 5 hours in the air without any lift to glide ratio. Jets are less efficient, but still efficient enough for short flights. You may infer a TWR limitation of jet aircraft. It's real, but it's not driven by technical limitations of the jet propulsion technology, but rather by maximizing the range using optimal amounts of lift & fuel for a fixed mass of engine. It doesn't make much sense to use engines so powerful & heavy as a fraction of aircraft mass that they can hover straight up to cruising altitude; If you had engines that powerful, you would be hanging a bigger fuel tank on the vehicle and launch it conventionally. VTOL at high subsonic or faster is an exceedingly range-limited means of flight.
- slg 6y agoIf one were doing this as a prank, why would they be flying it over the ocean and near the airport rather than in areas with lots of people who might see and record it? Both locations this was spotted in reduce the effectiveness of the prank and increase the potential penalties for executing the prank.
- xwdv 6y agoI am actually hoping it is some person who has discovered an energy density breakthrough and is testing it out. Such a discovery could kick off a new industrial revolution.
- hobby-coder-guy 6y agoI hope unicorns are real so we can eat them.
- beenBoutIT 6y agoSuch a discovery would be quickly whisked away by DARPA and never seen again outside of war footage.