Found this in YouTube feed yesterday and I was a little surprised at how small and effective these military jetpack devices are:
Very cool too. No doubt the US military is testing their own version as well. That said, it seems like a problematic device for the pilots because they are essentially slow moving targets that can easily be picked out of the air by an enemy with average shooting skills. So these are good for what? Rescue, maybe? A good/safer way for a professional harbor pilot to come aboard a cargo ship (from a pilot tug) to guide it into port?
That’s where I first saw those; the film clip I saw had a paramedic with one of those flying up to an injured person on a relatively inaccessible ridge to treat them much faster than they could by walking.
They’re pretty cool right? Putting the thrust on the arms was a stroke of genius. I remember watching jetpack guy at the 1984 L.A. Olympics. It feels like the technology has finally matured to some extent.
Yes, the U.S. military has been testing various personal flight devices since the 1950s. The problem is, real-world “jet packs” and similar devices are slow, noisy, hot, difficult to operate, and put the soldier up in the air, where they have no cover and are conveniently silhouetted against the sky. There’s no real combat application, short of a technological revolution that gives us the fast, quiet, highly maneuverable jet packs so beloved of fiction.
I can see some limited applications for rescue operations. Beyond that, if the technology ever becomes mature and widely available (or achievable by hobbyists), I’d expect, as with most emerging technologies, someone will figure out a useful application that no one thought of beforehand.
But, equally, short of a technomagic revolution, especially given that you have to carry your own fuel/power source with you, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if jet packs just never wind up being particularly practical.
I wonder just how loud they are; that boarding method might well work at night if they’re not too loud. I’d think maybe coming down from above might be a better bet than right at eye level for any lookouts though.
It’s not clear from that clip how loud they are compared to the normal background noise of a ship underway. It does look like it’s using ducted fans rather than a hot jet exhaust, so at least it’s not a flare illuminating itself as a target.
On the other hand, those thrust/maneuvering elements on the hands seem to preclude having a weapon at the ready. We briefly see one of the jet pack boarders with a pistol out after he boards, but rather conveniently we don’t ever see a transition where he’s divesting himself of the gauntlets.
Again, it’s cool as hell, but I’m just not seeing it as really practical for hostile boarding actions. But, I’ve also never served on a boarding party, so it’s entirely possible I don’t know what I’m talking about.
I’d bet the idea would be to have the jet pack guy drop in without being detected, and drop a rope ladder over the side for the other guys in the boats to board the more normal way.
US Navy SEALs use helicopters that cruise in low and from behind to fast-rope a team of SEALs on deck to allow follow-on SEALs to board via rope ladders. Or they cruise up and use some sort of magnetic climbing system to climb up the side, and then put down a rope ladder for the rest.
The advantage of using the jet pack would be speed; they could put the spurs to the small boats and launch the rope ladder guy at the right time to do it all very, very fast and relatively stealthily when compared to helicopters or magnetic climbing stuff.
FWIW, I’ve found articles mentioning that the Royal Marines as well as the Dutch Marine Corps are testing the jet packs for boarding actions, and that DARPA has issued an RFP for “portable personal air mobility systems”. So apparently this is something garnering a lot of interest beyond just making cool YouTube videos.
I looked up the estimated flight time of these jet packs and it’s about 10 minutes. So if it’s used as some sort of stealthy attack vehicle, it seems to be very limited by range. Would not surprise me if there are versions with longer range being tested my the military on the q.t.
In the video in question, Jet Pack Boarding Guy is launching far enough out that it doesn’t seem likely he’d be giving them any advantage as far as speed, stealth, and surprise. He looks to me like an inviting target. If JPGB launched closer in, and was effectively a glorified self-guiding grapnel, that might be worthwhile. I genuinely don’t know how much added utility there is to having JPGB fly up to lower a ladder over the side vs. using a grapnel launcher.
I’m sure there is plenty of interest in various militaries for this sort of technology, beyond making cool YouTube videos. As I mentioned above, the U.S. military has been developing and testing personal flight devices since at least the 1950s. Maybe the available technology has finally caught up to the requirements, and this device will turn out have practical combat applications. Given the number of failed prototypes there have been over the decades, I personally wouldn’t count on, but, again, I’m far from an expert.
