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Flying Individuals (Powered: Yves Rossy; Jet Packs; Etc.)

Rrose_Selavy

Gone But Not Forgotten
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Now you have to believe a man can fly
Charles Bremner in Paris

Icarus of the Alps has jet-engine wings

Just in case... he wears crash helmet







For those who are bored with hang-gliding or find skydiving just too dull, a Swiss airline captain has devised the ultimate aerial thrill: flying like a bird.


Thanks to high technology and nerve, Yves Rossy has come closer than anyone to realising the ancient dream of soaring free, flitting through the sky, guided only by the body. As well as a crash helmet he wears a small pair of wings and four tiny jet engines.

As he skims the Alps at up to 187mph (300km/h), the only thing that the former fighter pilot has come up against so far is the Swiss law.

“They were totally confused,” said the birdman, whose flying suit gives him a passing resemblance to Buzz Lightyear in Toy Story. “The authorities said that I was an unregistered aircraft and to fly, you need a licence. I told them, ‘No. To fly, you need wings’.”

The 47-year-old pioneer does not live up to the image of the stolid Swiss captain. Boyish and brimming with enthusiasm, he is a hero in the world of those extreme sportsmen — or borderline nutters — who are devoted to the quest of human flight.

After millennia of fatal experiments, the skills of Icarus and Superman remained a fantasy until the recent advent of powered flight, hang-gliding and skydiving. In the past two decades, free-fall enthusiasts have developed webbed “wing-suits” that allow them to glide and even perform aerial ballet. But the direction is always downwards, followed by a parachute landing.

Mr Rossy, whose day job is flying passengers around Europe for Swiss, the national airline, still jumps from an aircraft in his Jet Man guise and later uses a parachute to land. His achievement is staying aloft with a minimum of equipment. So far, fuel limits have kept his jaunts to six minutes, but he is making progress and hopes soon to sell his kit to would-be birdmen.

“I don’t want anything rigid. I fly with my body,” he said. “The wing is just a device that allows me to remain free in the air. I move my head a little and I turn. Or I put out my leg a few inches and I bank and descend . . . I play with all the elements of flight that I know so well.”

The only mechanical input is a motorcycle grip that controls thrust.

In his first attempt to fly, in 2004, Mr Rossy flew level. This autumn, over Spain, he achieved the first powered climb. In his latest outing, last month, he swooped and soared low through the ridges of the Alps near Montreux.

“I can go up at 1,000 feet per minute, but it’s really just the beginning,” Mr Rossy told The Times. “The next step is more powerful engines and a lighter, more efficient wing for aero-batics. I’ll be able to climb vertically like a fighter.” He also aims to take off from the ground.

Mr Rossy is no death-wish daredevil. “I take great care with safety and there is always a plan B,” he said. This means staying high enough to jettison the wings and open a parachute in an emergency. There have been close shaves, including an upside-down spin when an engine failed.

“When I am the captain of an Airbus, it’s zero risk,” said Mr Rossy, who flew British Hawker Hunters and French supersonic Mirage IIIs in the Swiss Air Force. “I don’t have anything to prove in an Airbus. With passengers, I don’t play the fool. But when I’m alone there’s a big difference.

“It’s a compliment if someone says I’m a bit mad. In our society no one wants to take risks any more. No one wants responsibility. I take calculated risks that could finish in the grave. But I like what I do and there is a certain grandeur in doing it.”

Mr Rossy, who is in the middle of a divorce, has spent his savings on the six-year project. He is sponsored by the German company that makes his engines, which are adapted from jets for model aircraft and unmanned military drones. He is also funded by the company that makes his Kevlar wings.

His ultimate aim is to market the Jet Man as a pure fun machine, like a jet ski for the air. The cost would be about the same as a medium-size car or a microlight aircraft. There may also be a military use — although his device has nothing in common with the crude rocket pack worn by James Bond in the 1965 film Thunderball.

Mr Rossy has solved his trouble with the authorities and flies with a special permit. He is fully insured and avoids air-space where he is likely to meet aircraft. “Of course, it’s not the kind of contraption that you should strap on anyone’s shoulders,” he said. “It’s a prototype, and if you look at the first hang-gliders, they were not exactly the finished product either.”

Upward bound

Ancient Greece Daedalus and Icarus, his son, escape from Crete with feather wings. Icarus falls and dies

1485 Leonardo da Vinci designs Ornithopter, a bird-like flying machine, and a parachute. Neither tested

1783 Sebastien Lenormand of France invents first successful parachute

1896 Otto Lilienthal of Germany killed after making successful hops with bird-like glider

1903 Wright brothers achieve first powered flight

1951 Francis Rogallo of Nasa invents flexible wing later used for hang-gliding

1980s power added to create microlight aircraft

July 2003 Felix Baumgartner of Austria parachutes to land at Calais after flying across English Channel in a wing suit

November 2006 Yves Rossy flies for six minutes over the Swiss Alps

Source: Times research

See link for picture

timesonline.co.uk/article/0, ... 83,00.html
Link is dead.
 
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But this time he splashs.

Jetman Ditches In The Atlantic
http://www.wired.com/autopia/2009/11/je ... -atlantic/
By Jason Paur November 25, 2009 | 5:09 pm

Yves Rossy, better known as the ‘Jetman,’ failed in his first attempt to make an intercontinental flight between Europe and Africa. After launching over Morocco, Rossy was heading for Spain over the Strait of Gibraltar when he disappeared from view on the live TV broadcast. Several minutes later the cameras found him swimming in the Atlantic with his parachute.

Rossy has made several successful flights with his jet-powered wing which attaches like a backpack. Last year he crossed the English Channel and he has also made numerous flights in the Alps.

At a press conference in Spain after the ditching, Rossy thanked his rescuers according to Sky News. It is unclear exactly what led to the ditching, though Rossy said he had attempted to fly over a cloud that was bigger than he expected and ended up going too slow. He ended up flying into the cloud and said he felt he was stabilized at one point despite not having a horizon reference.


As an experienced airline pilot, Rossy knows the difference between flying by visual references and flying by reference to instruments. Flying by instrument reference is normal while flying in the clouds in an aircraft.

Flying his jet wing, Rossy does not have adequate reference instruments. A lack of either a reference horizon can cause pilots to lose control of their aircraft because of spatial disorientation. In the news conference he says while in the cloud he began to lose stability, but did believe he was able to regain a stable climb. A short time later he says he was once again unstable and his altimeter told him he was at only 850 meters (2789 feet) elevation.

“And unstable at this height, that’s not playing anymore, so I did throw away my wing and open the parachute.”

The Spanish Coast Guard is expected to recover the wing from the Atlantic and Rossy’s team has said he will make another attempt at the transcontinental flight.

Photos of Rossy testing his jet wing (above) and parachute (below): jet-man.com

Video capture of Rossy in Atlantic: Sky News
 
'Rocket Man' flies over Grand Canyon
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/bre ... ing37.html
Wed, May 11, 2011

A Swiss adventurer nicknamed "Rocket Man" has completed a flight over the Grand Canyon in a custom-built jet suit.

Yves Rossy was airborne for more than eight minutes, soaring 200ft above the canyon rim on the Hualapai Reservation, Arizona.

A planned flight before reporters last Friday was cancelled after Rossy determined it would be too challenging without any practice runs. The Federal Aviation Administration had given Rossy the green light less than an hour before he was scheduled to take flight.

The successful flight was made on Saturday and was announced today by Rossy’s sponsor, Swiss watchmaker Breitling. His team said he flew at speeds of up to 190mph before deploying his parachute and landing on the canyon floor.

The 51-year-old said the flight was among the most memorable experiences of his life.
 
Another Jetman. Vid at link.

Jet suit inventor breaks speed record off Brighton beach
A British inventor, who calls himself Jetman, has broken his own record for the fastest flight in a jet suit.
Richard Browning took off from Brighton beach in an attempt to break his previous record of 32.02 mph, set in 2017.
He said before the flight he was hoping to show how technology used in the suit had progressed since the previous record was set.
He was more than 50mph faster than his previous record, hitting 85.06 mph, according to Guinness World of Records.
  • 3h ago
https://www.bbc.com/news/av/uk-engl...ventor-breaks-speed-record-off-brighton-beach
 
Pilots report someone flying around LAX in a jetpack.
'Just passed a guy in a jetpack': sightings at Los Angeles airport fuel concern
Federal Aviation Administration and FBI investigate reports from airline crews


Guardian staff and agencies
Tue 1 Sep 2020 22.51 BST


The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is investigating reports from airline pilots of someone flying a jetpack near Los Angeles international airport over the weekend.
“Two airline flight crews reported seeing what appeared to be someone in a jetpack as they were on their final approaches to LAX around 6:35pm PDT Sunday,” the FAA said in a statement on Tuesday, but did not elaborate further.

etc

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/sep/01/jetpack-los-angeles-airport
 
This new incident reminds me both of the "Chicago mothman" flap that also often occurred near the airport and the whole Spring-heeled Jack idea. #JetPackJack
Can't wait to hear more about what they find but I suspect I won't...:wide:
 
Might be an inventor who didn't file a flight plan.
 
According to the two interviewers in the KTLA report above, this was obviously illegal but also super dangerous to be so close to LAX. There are limited suppliers of jet packs. One of the commenters noted that it's surprising that no one noticed the flight from the ground because jet packs are quite noisy.
 
According to the two interviewers in the KTLA report above, this was obviously illegal but also super dangerous to be so close to LAX. There are limited suppliers of jet packs. One of the commenters noted that it's surprising that no one noticed the flight from the ground because jet packs are quite noisy.
With the noise of the aircraft, people might not have noticed the noise. But from what I've seen of jetpacks, they don't travel very far and only stay in the air for a short time so whoever was flying it couldn't have been too far from the airport and, I'd imagine they'd have accomplices on the ground.
 
3000ft sounds excessive for a jet pack. All the film I've seen of these are used much nearer the ground.
 
If it happened, you can bet there'll be a Youtube video of it soon.
 
Pilots report someone flying around LAX in a jetpack. ...

This LA Times article provides some more info on the possible explanations for this sighting.
Alarmed pilot tells LAX tower: ‘We just passed a guy in a jet pack’; FBI now investigating

The FBI is investigating.

... jet packs are not confined to the realm of science fiction. There are a handful of companies around the world that make devices that power a single person up into the air.

Former Swiss Air Force pilot Yves Rossy has created a type of winged jet pack, which typically requires him to be hoisted into the sky by a helicopter or balloon; he can take off from there. Another company, Zapata, has made something like a flying skateboard, which gives off a Marty McFly vibe. ...

JetPack Aviation Corp., based in Van Nuys, says it’s the only one to have developed a jet pack that can be worn like a backpack. The technology is real: Chief Executive David Mayman demonstrated it five years ago by flying around the Statue of Liberty, and his company has created five of them.

So it’s not out of the question that someone could have been soaring above the airport last weekend, giving pilots a scare. ...

Mayman was quick to say that if a jet pack was involved, it wasn’t one of his. JetPack Aviation keeps its five packs locked down, he said, and they’re not for sale. The company does offer flying lessons at $4,950 a pop, but he said students are attached to a wire and can’t stray too far.

None of the company’s competitors sell their products to consumers either, Mayman said.

The weekend incident “got us all wondering whether there’s been someone working in skunkworks on this,” he said, using a term for a secret project. Or maybe, he mused, the airline pilot saw some kind of electric-powered drone with a mannequin attached.

The fact remains: It’s very difficult to get access to a jet pack. If you accomplish that, though, it’s not hard to get permission to fly it. ...

To be clear, they’re not well suited to becoming a common form of transportation anytime soon.

For one, they’re too loud and don’t have enough endurance ...

For another, they’re too expensive. If JetPack Aviation were willing to sell its jet packs to individuals, it would charge at least $300,000 each, Mayman said.

Besides, selling to the general public would create liability concerns.

“It’s so easy for someone to misuse one of these aircraft,” Mayman said. He doesn’t want to be on the hook if, say, a flier were to plow into a car or building.

Mayman said that he isn’t interested in selling his products to anyone but governments or government agencies, and that his company’s focus is on search-and-rescue applications. ...

FULL STORY:
https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2020-09-02/jetpack-lax-access-exclusive
 
So, there appears, from the initial media reports that two pilots independently reporting a "guy in a jet pack" - one from American airlines, the other on Southwest. Had it been only one, I'd probably doubt it much more. It will be interested to see if there are two reports and if they correspond to each other. But I wonder if we never will get to see that. These stories often don't have a satisfying conclusion.
 
From 23 March, 2020. Over the suburbs of Phoenix, Arizona, U.S.A.


Drone? Man with jetpack? Balloon? Genuine? Hoax? I don't know, I'm just sharing the footage.

Go into 25% playback speed (slow mo) and pause the video on a certain frame at 22 seconds and you wind up with this. It appears to be in focus (save for the wings which never are unless you're using high speed photography). This tells me the unknown object is approximately the same distance from the camera as this hummingbird or dragonfly. If this video was shot on a cell phone which it appears to be, then we can factor out lens distortion/perspective, and that's really just a long-winded to tell you that the flying man is actually a tiny object not far from the camera. This is my very strong hunch based on what I see here, but I'm usually right (unless I'm wrong).

hummingbird-dragonfly.jpg
 
Real live flying humanoid conducts rescue mission for Great North Air Ambulance Service in Great Britain:

He could be flying at 3000 feet, though the ground is no more than 40 feet below him . . .
 
Real live flying humanoid conducts rescue mission for Great North Air Ambulance Service in Great Britain:

He could be flying at 3000 feet, though the ground is no more than 40 feet below him . . .
They fly low so that if the engine cuts out it’s not too far to fall...
 
Seems like that would make all the blood rush to your feet. Must be a pressurized suit.

(This is a facetious remark, you understand. :wink2:)
 
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Another person in a jetpack sighted by pilots at LAX.

"There was another reported sighting of a person in a jet pack over the skies of Los Angeles.

The FAA says a China Airlines crew flying from Taipei reported someone in a jet pack just before 2 p.m. "

https://abc7.com/technology/another-jet-pack-reported-over-la-skies/7031010
Now we are getting into Red Panda territory. There will be more and more reports and no additional evidence. I am far from convinced the sightings are of actual people in jet packs.
 
Obviously there are people stupid enough to try it (or want to).
I think the evidence would be the dead guys in jet packs on the ground near airports.
 
Hello everyone,

A "jetpack" has reappeared, this time on video.

Merry Christmas
Jakin
 
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