The first commercial jetpack is about to hit the market! It costs more than $100,000 and can only carry enough fuel for a 30-minute/30-mile flight, but, dammit! IT’S A JETPACK! [cue shaft of light and angelic choir]
[“I’m going to write a story set after the Singularity, a million years hence, when we are all intergalactically-empowered immortal sentiences in the Beyond, and people will STILL BE COMPLAINING ABOUT NOT HAVING SODDING JETPACKS.”
— Patrick Nielsen Hayden](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/IWantMyJetpack )
Too much work. I want my flying car!
Sweeeeeet! It would get me to work in 5 minutes, max. I could land on the roof of the parking garage that I already use across the street from my office.
Sounded great until I read this:
Damn - can’t fly past Houston traffic jams quite yet…
So, they got past that whole set-fire-to-your-own-feet issue finally?
Who needs feet if you’ve got a jetpack?
Ducted fans are not jets. No jets, no jetpack.
I’m waiting until the price comes down to $90,000.
Rysdad
October 4, 2010, 11:34pm
10
How about if I keep the power real low and just kind of boing-boing along, kangaroo-style, down the side of the road?
Hee hee hee. That’d be fun.
It’s a lot bigger than I expected.
If those things become common, we’re going to see NO LANDING zones outside mall entrances and on the streets, just like in Back to the Future Part 2 .
And I better not see them using grandma’s handicapped parking placard.
How could a manufacturer overcome the liability issues? You know somebody’s going to get killed on one pretty quickly. Signing a waiver isn’t going to absolve the company of liability the first time the engine quits or somebody lands too hard.
Maybe, but Ducted Fanpack just doesn’t have the same panache as Jetpack.
ExTank
October 5, 2010, 12:54am
16
Wimp. I’m outfitting an expedition to retrieve all my guns from the bottom of the lake, so I can rob a bank to afford a jetpack!
Requiring a pilots license and/or a qualification course.
Rysdad:
How about if I keep the power real low and just kind of boing-boing along, kangaroo-style, down the side of the road?
Hee hee hee. That’d be fun.
No, for that you would want a jet-assisted electric-powered pogo stick . . .
To the drawing board!
For a light-hearted review of past efforts, see here.
When man conquered the air he was filled with a sense of triumph, followed by a feeling of extreme disappointment. Wright flyers, gliders, and Zeppelins were all very well and good, but none of that is real flying. That’s being carried through the air in a machine. Flying is… flying; being able to strap on a pair of portable wings so that you can soar with the birds and dance among the clouds.
Is it any surprise that as soon as the news of Kitty Hawk hit the papers would-be Daedeluses were scrounging up the 20th century equivalents of wax and gull feathers?
Still not as much fun as the rocket-powered roller skates.
