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We have jetpacks and we do not care
- firexcy 5y agoAm I the only one clicked the linked post expecting a technical discussion on the security implications of using Wordpress, its plugins, and php…
- mikestew 5y agoIf you think leaf blowers are loud and blow shit everywhere, wait until folks have a leaf blower powerful enough to lift a human being with its output. Point being, we never wanted them in the first place, we just didn't know it.
- duxup 5y agoWhen the jetpack can fly for me for the most part, I'm down with it. Kinda like small drones. I own one, because it is easy to use.
- mrfusion 5y agoIt’s not that no one cares. We just want one that’s under 20K, has more than 45 minutes flight time, isn’t loud or bulky, and is extremely safe.
- petercooper 5y agoAnd legal. A lot of places can't even get their heads around a scooter that can go 15mph.. so I'm not sure jetpacks are going to fly.
- addaon 5y agoThe US has a truly incredible rule -- 14 CFR Part 103, usually shortened to Part 103 -- that basically deregulates ultralight aircraft, other than restricting their airspace usage. The logic behind this rule is that it defines ultralights tightly enough (low weight, low kinetic energy, restricted use over populated areas) that you're probably only going to kill yourself if something goes wrong; and what can be more American than allowing that? The main defining features of a Part 103 ultralight are empty weight (< 254 lbs, including battery but not including up to 5 gallons of fuel, and with additional credits for parachutes and floats), minimum flight speed (stall speed for a fixed wing aircraft) of <= 24 kts or calculated equivalent (see AC 103-7), and maximum horizontal flight speed of 55 kts (with electronic or other artificial restriction of speed being acceptable). Many of the "jetpacks" and other ultralight VTOL ideas being explored right now easily fit within Part 103, so in the US these certainly can fly, at least for very limited recreational usage.
- throwaway0a5e 5y agoThe hand wringers and spineless politicians looking to score a few cheap brownie points for advancing "safety" will go after jet-packs if they ever become seriously viable. Look at all the hand wringing over the unwashed masses getting their hands on cheap and fast ebikes. Right now nobody cares because they're just rare toys for rich people.
- brimble 5y agoNo-one's freaking out about those parachutes with a lawnmower engine & seat attached, and those have been around for many years and can be seen flying all over (at least) the rural Midwest. Now, flying them over other people's property or over a city is, and should be, another story.
- Dylan16807 5y ago> Now, flying them over other people's property or over a city is, and should be, another story. It's not "one of the most dreamed of forms of flight – jetpacks" if you can't fly around town.
- ashtonkem 5y agoRight, and that’s probably never going to happen because of noise issues alone.
- WJW 5y agoJetpacks are a little bit like the Elon Musk tunnel digging startup: it is something you dream about when stuck in traffic during your commute.
- Dylan16807 5y agoSort of, but a tunnel network of that type is never going to be able to handle many users, no matter how good the design gets, while improved and safe jetpacks probably could replace most of the cars on the road.
- saftamihai 5y ago"not sure jetpacks are going to fly." I lol'd
- pqdbr 5y agoNot a Jetpack per se, but take a look at a paramotor.
- titzer 5y agoI think society is exhausted from all the excitement. It feels like people would be excited by jetpacks for about 5 minutes and then return to their dopamine loops--primarily phones.
- SideburnsOfDoom 5y agoYou might be onto something. e.g. compare: A bored person in a car with the radio on, stuck in traffic, in 1970, imagines the freedom, the sheer dopamine rush of escaping by soaring away on a full-throttle personal jetpack, like "the right stuff" had finally trickled down. A bored person in a chair with a podcast on, stuck at home, in 2021, refreshing their social media. Watches a jetpack video on TikTok. Shrugs and moves on to the next distraction.
- SideburnsOfDoom 5y ago> under 20K, has more than 45 minutes flight time, isn’t loud or bulky, and is extremely safe. These are of course, impossibly contradictory requirements for a jet-engine device.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- paxys 5y agoI can assure you if all of those happened it still wouldn't get any significant adoption. What even is the use case beyond joyrides at fairs?
- mrfusion 5y agoI for one would commute with it! Fly by the lights and traffic jams.
- outworlder 5y ago> It’s not that no one cares. We just want one that’s under 20K, has more than 45 minutes flight time, isn’t loud or bulky, and is extremely safe. That's a paramotor. Still, not enough people care.
- snowgrove 5y agoParamotors are great, but they’re absolutely as bulky as a jetpack and at least as loud as a lawnmower.
- 3pt14159 5y agoYes. That's because they cost more than $300k and can only fly for ten or so minutes. If they costed 1/10th that and could fly at the very least 4x that then people would be losing their minds over these things. They are fast enough. Cool looking enough. Etc. Just bring down the price and up the range.
- jakear 5y agoA bit like a hang glider? Article claims interest in them has declined as well.
- HALtheWise 5y agoA major reason for the decline in interest in hang gliding is dramatic technical improvements in paragliders, which are quite a bit more portable and cheaper for an increasingly small performance hit. Combined interest in paragliders and hang gliders is at an all time high.
- seafoam 5y agoIt would be good to understand the failure characteristics. Is the risk comparable to a wing suit, or a helicopter, or a single-engine plane ?
- lordnacho 5y agoThere might be a missing scenario in your list: bag of potatoes.
- mh- 5y agoI think the failure characteristics are pretty easy to understand. They'd fall into two categories: - Sudden loss of power - Mechanical failure that results in unscheduled disassembly As these crafts have no aerodynamic surfaces like the 3 other things you compared them to, the first category would result in the rider falling from whatever height. (Minimum altitudes to successfully deploy even a BASE parachute are higher than one might think.) And well, the second category should be self explanatory. An explosive failure of the stuff strapped to your back would just create extra excitement or death before proceeding reverting to the first failure mode.
- jpswade 5y agoThis comes up every so often and I think the reality is, yes people would like jet packs but they would prefer to be safe. Reminds me of this sketch. https://youtu.be/vDIojhOkV4w https://youtu.be/vDIojhOkV4w
- BatFastard 5y agothat was perfect!
- jodrellblank 5y agoI love the quiet commentary of this Mitchell and Webb "Jump off a cliff" sketch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTcBWo4Aj0g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTcBWo4Aj0g Compared to all the killer theme park attractions and extreme sports. "It's all fine though?" "Yeah it's all fine". That's enough.
- jon-wood 5y agoThey’re completely impractical, that jet pack does indeed exist, but there are approximately two people in the world who can safely fly it untethered. Every now and again they’ll pop again with “mountain rescue experiment with jet pack” or “Marines demonstrate boarding with jet pack”, and every time it’s just the creator cosplaying as whatever service he’s trying to sell it to this time.
- mirekrusin 5y agoExactly, we had "smartphones" before iphone as well and nobody did care.
- rhino369 5y agoBlackberries were huge and growing. iPhone definitely expanded the market faster than anyone dreamed. But it was easy to see where the market would go before iPhone.
- mirekrusin 5y agoIf it was "easy to see" we wouldn't have iphone dominance.
- WJW 5y agoI just want to point out that global iPhone market share has been hovering between 15% and 20% for years. Android has almost all of the rest. Iphones are not dominant.
- ajb92 5y agoGlobal market share is one kind of dominance, there are others
- rhino369 5y agoEasy to see at a high level--phones with web, multimedia support, and app support. Near impossible to guess what exactly what would look like and when.
- citizenpaul 5y agoJetpacks are only useful if there is no infrastructure. You can get a motorcycle for <$500 that is infinity more useful than a $500,000 jetpack. Hop on the road and get where you want in a moment. Plus a jetpack requires special licensing and pre approved flight plans, ect. Jetpacks are only a toy, a very, very expensive toy as they are now.
- byw 5y agoOr even a light helicopter. You can get a Robinson R22 (2-seat) for around $300k new, or R44 (4-seat) for around $500k.
- hirako2000 5y agoit's rather $300,000, but at the burning rate of several litres of kerosene per minute, your budget isn't far off reality of actually owning one and using it.
- twobitshifter 5y agoA Honda Grom is still $3500, but I don’t think that weakens your point about cost. However, similarly to jet packs, autogyros, ultralights, and paramotors, motorcycles are not as popular in the USA, due to safety concerns. So even though motorcycles are very useful and cheap, people don’t ride them much. I think the same would be true of a $3500 jet pack.
- capableweb 5y ago> They can’t hold enough fuel for more than eight minutes of flight – and even that’s the upper end. Kerosene is heavy, burns quickly, and a human can only carry so much. A battery would be far better, but they’re much heavier – at least for now. Someday someone might invent a battery light and energy-efficient enough to do better than kerosene, but, for now, you can only use what you can carry, and that’s not much. Seems there are good enough reasons for people to not really care about jetpacks (yet). But it does seem like the military/law enforcement could have some use for it, mainly for boarding moving vehicles and/or scaling walls/barriers.
- nexuist 5y agoIt seems like some militaries are toying around with the concept: https://www.businessinsider.com/video-royal-marines-board-ship-at-sea-with-jet-packs-2021-5 https://www.businessinsider.com/video-royal-marines-board-sh...
- pqdbr 5y agoNobody cares because we have something better. It’s called paramotoring. Saying it changed my life wouldn’t be an overstatement. The ability to store it inside my sedan, travel anywhere, take off with my own feet, fly anywhere for around 4 hours, and land basically anywhere… is just magical.
- jedberg 5y agoTIL about paramotoring. I'd seen the rigs before but didn't know the name. I googled it and the first thing that came up was a YouTube video about the 5 most dangerous things about paramotoring. :)
- mtinkerhess 5y agoI found the same video it looks like all those dangers are preventable? Don't do acrobatics at low altitude, don't fly over water, don't start the engine on the ground, don't buzz trees or other obstacles, don't get close to other paramotors in flight.
- petre 5y agoI wouldn't try paramotoring without doing at least a 6 month paragliding course first. Which in fact I did when I was 21. After I saw a colleague make a judgement error, fall from 30ft, hit the ground and jump like a soft ball I became stressed during flight. He had flown a DHV3¹ paraglider though and was not experienced enough to fly that wing. Current DHV1 wings are much more safer and very performant compared to 2000 era wings that we've flown. Shortly after the fall incident a guy I became acquainted with died during a competition. I just gave up because it stopped being fun. My instructor had an accident with a powered hang glider few years afterwards. He still has a bad limp to this day. He has always been very safety conscious and had at least 25 years of prior aviation experience, parachuting and paragliding, when his accident occured. Anyway, I find paramotors quite offensive because they make an awful lot of noise and smoke and the pilot's position is quite unnatural compared to normal paragliding because the motor pushes him or her forward. Maybe when we'll have electric paramotors under 10 kilos things will change for the better. 1. https://www.dhv.de/en/testing/dhv-classification-of-paragliders/ https://www.dhv.de/en/testing/dhv-classification-of-paraglid...
- zdw 5y agoIt's basic physics - anything that can rapidly accumulates potential energy in terms of gravity without a safe way to slowly dissipate that energy as it is turned to kinetic can be dangerous. See also how people get killed by falling tree limbs and coconuts.
- jeffreyrogers 5y agoSkydivers solved that problem with parachutes.
- jonathankoren 5y agoKinetic energy. Potential energy is perfectly safe. :)
- TimTheTinker 5y ago> For decades, humans have said they want jetpacks, and for thousands of years we have said we want to fly, but do we really? Look up. The sky is empty. I have wanted to become a small plane or ultralight pilot since I was in high school (I'm nearly 40 now)... it's just that with a single income and kids, life is expensive and busy. I was astonished recently while watching The Spirit of St Louis (the 1957 Jimmy Stewart movie) - how as a young man Charles Lindbergh drove into Souther Field, bought an army surplus Jenny biplane for $500 cash (about $8000 in today's dollars), and took off immediately without any bureaucracy. Oh for that kind of freedom! Maybe I'll do paramotor training with my kids when they're in their late teens - but for now, I can only stare up at the sky and dream (and occasionally watch YouTube videos of others living that dream).
- ashtonkem 5y agoFlying has gotten more expensive, but not that much more expensive if you’re really motivated. Kit airplanes can be fairly cheap, $30k for a kitfox, and often can be maintained by the owner because they’re amateur built. The issue is the same as Lindbergh’s day though. Amateur built airplanes are not safe.
- Stevvo 5y ago$30k for a Kitfox, doesn't include an engine or avionics which is another 40k or more. You will be 3+ years on the waiting list to get your hands on the kit, then spend 1000+ hours building it. 2nd hand Kitfoxes have not been available for 30k for the last 5 years. In the current market you're looking at 60k+ for an old model with a high time engine.
- bener 5y agoYou'll get there! Initial "trial" flying lessons can be relatively cheap, and in my case the tutor was letting me take off and land on my second lesson (with dual controls of course, I wasn't very good)
- qayxc 5y ago> Oh for that kind of freedom! Oh for that kind of recklessness, rather. Not only was it incredibly dangerous and many pioneers died back in Lindbergh's days, but the world was a completely different one as well. From much more infrastructure today, higher population density, more built-up areas to incredibly busy skies (45,000 average daily flights in the US alone - and that's just the FAA handled ones). Regulations and bureaucracy w.r.t. aviation has mostly been written in blood and substantial financial losses - something to always keep in mind.
- friendlydog 5y agoHoverbikes seem more in reach for price and safety.
- didip 5y agoIn the Jetson, a jetpack doesn't have to care about fuel capacity, safety of the pilot, regulations, and cost of production. But in real life these are legitimate engineering constraints. Also, if you can scale up a drone to be a 1-person vehicle, I bet it will be safer than jetpack.
- stavros 5y agoWe have, and as for safety, well... If you think a jetpack is unsafe, wait until you see the blades on a drone.
- darau1 5y agoIf I could afford it I'd buy it and learn how to use it to commute to work and back (safely, of course).
- sevenf0ur 5y agoMy brother has flown one of these on a tether. They are deafeningly loud and put out tons of heat so you need special clothing and it needs to be cool downed after use. Have to fly low to the ground or over water where you are better off with other means of transportation. Not to mention this thing runs out of kerosene in 10 minutes. Not practical for consumers in the slightest.
- dcchambers 5y agoPeople would love to fly, but in the magic carpet sense. When you look at the dirty and dangerous physical reality of what a jetpack is it's obvious why no one wants one.
- Borrible 5y agoYes, why don't we care? Inquiring minds need to know! https://qz.com/1667783/why-doesnt-the-military-have-jetpacks-like-the-bastille-day-flier/ https://qz.com/1667783/why-doesnt-the-military-have-jetpacks...
- spaetzleesser 5y agoWe also have supersports cars that can go 200 miles an hour and accelerate 0-60 in 2 seconds but not many people have one. Current jetpacks are certainly interesting but almost useless besides maybe a few very specialized things. As are supersports cars. And both are prohibitively expensive for most people.
- m1117 5y agoIt's like the NFT of aviation
- mrleinad 5y agoSounds a lot like that quote from the 70s "there is no reason for any individual to have a computer in their home." That held true until prices dropped and computers were actually useful to individuals and not room-sized machines.
- Animats 5y agoAs usual, flying is easy, but landing is hard. Someone commented on a previous generation of jetpacks that "knees are terrible landing gear". What are they using for a turbojet engine? One of the great frustrations of light aircraft is that nobody has been able to make a cheap and reliable jet aircraft engine. It's possible to make one small and light enough, but they don't seem to get any cheaper below 6-passenger bizjet size. NASA put some effort into this in the 1990s, and Williams tried, but all that happened was that bizjets got a bit better.
- chipsa 5y agoRC aircraft jet engines like: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JetCat_P400 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JetCat_P400
- Animats 5y ago"It is with unimaginable sadness that we announce the passing of Jetman Pilot, Vincent (Vince) Reffet, who died on the morning of 17 November during training in Dubai." Mfgr: (via Google Translate) "The CAT JetCat model jet turbines are designed exclusively for model flying and are not suitable for any other purpose. Definitely not for people or use goods or by any other means, except exclusively for model aircraft, because any other uses lead to personal injury or death can." There are low cost (well, US $10,000) jet engines, but they are not human-rated.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- irjustin 5y agoNot with these jetpacks, these jetpacks are really hard to even fly.
- arduinomancer 5y agoIsn't it a huge problem that a jetpack is not fail-safe? With an airplane/paramotor you can still glide safely down if your engine dies. What would happen if the jetpack engine fails mid air?
- wutbrodo 5y agoWouldn't a parachute work? I know very little about flying/aerodynamics, so I might be missing something obvious.
- gs17 5y agoIt would work in some cases, but if you're too low it won't necessarily have time to slow you down enough. The record for the lowest BASE jump is about 100 ft, and that wasn't a surprise equipment failure. Parachutes would help in a lot of situations, but you would still easily die in a lot of other situations.
- wutbrodo 5y agoHm I was thinking that, but that would be just as true for airplanes and paramotors going at high horizontal speeds at low altitude. Or perhaps the issue is that, given the lack of protection in a jetpack, the lowest altitude at which you can be hurt from a fall is much lower?
- gs17 5y agoI believe that's part of it. A jetpack gives you a lot less protection and the near guarantee of an uncontrolled fall if it fails. Airplanes with engine failures can still attempt to glide to a landing.
- jonathankoren 5y agoBallistic parachutes exist for light aircraft. Seems like they'd work here as well. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballistic_parachute https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballistic_parachute
- JasonFruit 5y agoUltralights and hang gliders are nowhere near as dead as this article seems determined to assert, using anecdotes without data. (How do I know? Also anecdotes, unfortunately, as their deregulated nature makes data hard to come by.) But this article paints the bleakest picture of personal flight possible, and I'm not convinced they have the facts straight — except about jet packs, which are about as practical as a human cannonball.
- jeffreyrogers 5y agoIn Salt Lake City lots of people flew paragliders. But they also have a great place to fly from that's close by.
- AcerbicZero 5y agoWe have shitty jet packs and we do not care.
- mschuster91 5y ago> With smaller aircraft, the trends are similar. Hang-gliding has all but disappeared. Ultralight aircraft makers are barely staying afloat. (One manufacturer, Air Création, sold only one vehicle in the US last year.) With every successive year, we have more passengers and fewer pilots. Yeah, no surprise given that - planes are expensive to buy - even small ones are in the upper five figures range - planes are expensive to operate: ~150-200$ in fuel per hour IIRC, plus insurance, maintenance costs, hangar and airport/landing strip fees - getting a license is expensive: even a basic private pilot license will set you back ~7500-10000€, and on top of that come type ratings and other extras (instrument flight, radio, ...) - maintaining that license is expensive: you need to keep up flight hours either in real flight or in (only a bit less expensive) simulators, and there are severe restrictions on passengers if you're not on a commercial license
- ramesh31 5y agoNot to mention dangerous. Commercial aviation is exceedingly safe -- safer than riding a train by passenger-incidents/mile. But general aviation is about on par with motorcycle riding. There was a big push in 60s/70s/80s to market general aviation to the public as being the same as driving a car. But the reality is that most people cannot and will not ever be able to safely operate an aircraft without full automation.
- ultra_nick 5y agoI had a project idea for a hoverpack instead of a jetpack. It would only cancel gravity in short busts to enable people to super jump over things. The reduced power needs lowered the total price to around $5,000. No time to build it though.
- schleck8 5y agoIt's so annoying how first generation technology is trashed by a community that should know better. Of course it will be inaccessible and inefficient. Where is the spirit of innovation?
- Ekaros 5y agoCursory understanding of physics and chemistry. Fighting against gravity by exhausting anything is energy inefficient. And there isn't really anything to fix that. It is just fact of universe.
- todd8 5y agoThe real problem is the potential energy one has at even a low altitude is enough to kill you, even without a jet powered velocity towards the ground. A fall from just 100ft (~ 30m) is like being hit by a train traveling at 54mph (87kph). Any malfunction at this height would in a couple of seconds likely result in death. Without some sort of anti-gravity belt I don’t see jetpacks as being useful.
- Toutouxc 5y agoEven helicopters burn fuel like crazy when hovering out of ground effect, and the only reason we use them are their huge main rotors that get some of that efficiency back when actually moving at speed, and also because they're the only thing available. Anything fighting gravity with pure thrust is basically DOA at this point, and double that for inherently inefficient propulsion methods like jets. Ducted fans, maybe, but most likely not. And that's still allowing for fossil fuels and huge fuel consumption. Bring batteries into the equation and you can forget about personal VTOL for anything longer than five minute hops.
- csours 5y agoNo mention of TikTok yet. How long until a motivated teenager gets ahold of one of these and starts a trend?
- dukeofdoom 5y agoFlying skateboards is what we are waiting for
- msie 5y agoI hate that particular jetpack design where the arms are tied to maneuvering thrusters. I like the other one by jetpack aviation. https://jetpackaviation.com/ https://jetpackaviation.com/
- taubek 5y agoI remember jetpack from opening of Olympic games in L. A. in 1984. I was surprised to learn that jetpack used in James Bond movie Thuderball from 1965 was a real jetpack.
- hooby 5y agoPeople have always dreamed of flying... in highly varying intensity. At the one extreme we got people afraid of flying and never wanting to leave the ground at all - and at the other extreme we have people absolutely obsessed with flying. But I think we have a reached a point where everyone along that spectrum can get their fill of flying more or less easily. For a lot of people, taking a commercial flight and getting a window seat might already be enough to scratch that flying itch. Those who want a bit more than that can easily book a flight in a small propeller plane, or a helicopter or a hot air balloon. People who want even more can go paragliding, or hang gliding, or sky diving. And those who want the most extreme flying package they can possibly get - well those people no longer dream of jetpacks - those people do fly wing-suits now. There's no niche left for the jetpack to fill - every type of flying desire is already being served. And instead of going with a jetpack, you could also choose something that's just as exciting but a lot safer and cheaper - or something that's just as dangerous but a lot more exciting and still cheaper. The jetpack was more fascinating while it was the most exciting option imaginable, and more longed for, during a time when any kind of flying was just out of reach for most people.
- trgn 5y agoI sincerely hope we will never care. That in the US, our mentality gets past this infantile fetish for powertools and convenience. It's a vestige of high modernism, an adolescent ideology that life must be mediated by technology. Scraping food of a plate in the trash beget flushing food down the drain through a garbage disposer. Athletics beget motorsports. It crystalized in the 50s, oddly a decade where adults began to watch cartoons like the Jetsons, like children. Jetpacks are the perfect example. It conflates the ability to fly anywhere anytime with freedom. It is a toddler fantasy. Similar to how cars for personal transport have not increased freedom, but instead delivered obesity, fossil fuel dependence, and a polluted, and threatening public realm. The aspirational city life of the future will be one of sophistication and maturity. It will be the an improved version of the city life of the pre-industrial age. Where the only sound is the chatter of passerbys and their footsteps. At night, it is quiet. Everything degenerate (human waste, cars, metros, ...) will be pushed underground. The sky will be as pristine as in the wilderness. In other words, it will be an environment where flying a jetpack is sociopathic. This is not a personal fantasy. This kind of urban environment is where people with means are moving to _today_. It is the main program of every European city. The US is slow to shake these destructive 50s ideals of transportation. But it is happening. Hopeful to see it in my lifetime still.
- analog31 5y agoIn my hometown the city code said the garbage disposer was a measure against rats.
- jokoon 5y agoSeems like using 4 rotors or jet engines around the pilot might be a better solution.
- jonathankoren 5y agoI keep thinking about about the Hiller VZ-1. Like standing on a blender. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiller_VZ-1_Pawnee https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiller_VZ-1_Pawnee Which coincidentally, kind of makes an appearance in the opening of Jonny Quest https://youtu.be/7gNBFmlNUfM?t=38 https://youtu.be/7gNBFmlNUfM?t=38
- JoeAltmaier 5y ago" And this is the tragedy of jetpack technology. They can’t hold enough fuel for more than eight minutes of flight "
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- Johnny555 5y agoIt's not so much that we don't care, but that the current jetpacks are so expensive, hard to operate, low runtime, and so unsafe that they just aren't relevant to most people. I'm not sure that the technology will ever improve enough to make the sci-fi style jetpack that anyone can use. The only jetpack I've seen that I'd actually be willing to use is the kind that's more like a hose tethered to a water pump that lifts you a few feet above the water, that one looks like it'd be fun, with little chance of injury if it fails. https://www.jetpackamerica.com/ https://www.jetpackamerica.com/
- Avlin67 5y agoI had an opportunity to see it in action… well the guy took at least 20min to set up and event 100meters away i was hooked by the strong smell of unburnt kerozene…. in france you can barely put a sticker on your car legaly - forget any idea of even pseudo tuning - yet we are excited about gogo gadgeto burning flying man. it is so startup nation…
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- MomoXenosaga 5y agoWe have flying cars and nobody cares (unless you're a bored millionaire).
- danboarder 5y agoWith sufficient flight controller integration and sensors & software the jetpack form factor could be as easy to fly as a self balancing Segway is to ride around. Current semi- autonomous drone software like what we see in the Skydio 2 would be an interesting direction for this tech, one would end up basically riding a drone around at low altitude. I am optimistic for near-future electric implementations and practical progression in this type of e-mobility development.
- dieselerator 5y agoI find the article interesting in that it provides us a first person view of operating the machine. We get a perspective about the current state of jetpack development. We become aware a timer (ie, fuel gauge) is the primary flight instrument. I am happy to read about this rather than needing to have the experience myself.
- zxcvbn4038 5y agoWe have ray guns too but the batteries need a fork lift which takes away all the fun! I guess in the mean time all the would-be Buck Rogers can save the world by running over the aliens with their fork lift and dropping heavy batteries on them. Board with a nail not included.
- mettamage 5y agoFor the people suggesting paramotors as the actual jetpacks of our time (in terms of promise), there never has been a paramotor topic at the frontpage! I found this submission quite fun [1, 2]. It was submitted to HN twice and only got 4 upvotes (I used the HN searchbar and typed: paramotor). [1] https://www.justine-haupt.com/blimpdrive/index.html https://www.justine-haupt.com/blimpdrive/index.html [2] https://youtu.be/5pPJ-Z4vVyI https://youtu.be/5pPJ-Z4vVyI
- imgabe 5y agoI'm not really on board with letting the general public fly around wherever they want. People have enough difficulty maneuvering in 2 dimensions to the extent that 30,000+ people die every year in car accidents. Flying would be much worse.
- rubyfan 5y agoIt’s right there in TFA When he returns and begins pouring the fuel into the jetpack, only then does it register just how dicey this seems, and why jetpacks have been slow to be developed and adopted. Yeah, no thanks.
- pfdietz 5y agoJetpacks could be quite practical... ...in a space habitat with maybe 0.1g acceleration.
- WalterBright 5y agoWouldn't you love to run out of fuel at 250 feet? Oops. That's why they only fly over water.
- jcun4128 5y agoI like the standing snowboard style Side note with regard to the jet bikes I hope they make ones that take advantage of ground effect and you hug it like a crotch rocket, that would be crazy to ride high speed over like salt flats.
- reilly3000 5y agoI’m such a fan of Dave Eggers. I can’t say I’ve read everything he’s published, but I can say I hang on every word of his I read. He’s quite right that the thrill of flight has left our collective imagination, but he didn’t go on to speculate as to why that is. I suspect if drugs, traversing the tubes, or some combination of them can provide enough thrill from an arm chair, perhaps there is nothing incrementally gained by leaving the ground. Perhaps we are content to have drones as a proxy. Or maybe the cost and carnage factors haven’t come within reason. In any case, this woke something up in me, as Dave usually manages to do.
- dathinab 5y agoIf we think about it jetpacks, jet-wingsuites and similar are all expensive, hard and dangerous to use technology with very little practical use. So if you are not in a super hero movie where even heros with a supposedly normal human body tend to have an absurdly sturdy body there is just but much rain why we should care. Which isn't that people aren't trying, I mean France parades a hoverboard based scout, looks impressive, but I dubt the practical use of it (loud, due to instability can't hit anything, wind kills it, can probably be killed by any random camera drone, camera drone do the job better)
- nullc 5y agoWe can transmute lead into gold and we do not care.
- midjji 5y agoThey are absolutely awesome, and I would get one right now if I could afford it, and didnt expect customs to seize it on the way in. I'd use it to go to work if I could. People are mostly cowards about crashing, and they are illegal for pretty much every common use. Arguably the latter is partly for the same reason escooters are hated, except taken to eleven.
- zriha 5y agoWell, I don’s see any future in jetpacks, as they don’t have a decent use case. Just imagine, every food delivery or parcel delivery with a man driving a jetpack. It would be crowded in cities over the ground, and if they fell? A person of around 80kg with jetpack fall from the sky, that’s crazy. That’s why drone parcel delivery never see the day, as it is also very impractical and dangerous. It can be only good for unpopulated areas and long deliveries like islands or remote places. Maybe, and just maybe, there will be a new kind of sport, in arena, with people racing in jetpacks, like drones.
- amne 5y agoWe have hovercrafts that can go over almost any kind of terrain and we do not care.
- ada1981 5y ago“Man seeks attention to feel existential void, comes up empty.”
- peterbraden 5y agoThe article mentions the death of hang gliding as a sport, but doesn’t mention that the reason isn’t that people stopped wanting to fly, but rather that paragliding has dominated due to rapid improvements in the technology, and the vastly simpler logistics required to go fly (they fit in a backpack). Paragliding as a sport is exploding.