Are you in the market for a Jetpack?
As guys, we’ve always had fantasies and visions about flying or racing and just plain going fast in any vessel; car, boat, plane, bike or otherwise. As far as flying goes, the idea of sustained flight of the individual man has been sought after for some years and was first driven by the military’s interest to have soldiers in the sky. In what ended up being the best iteration of the jetpack to date was the Bell Rocketbelt, created in the 1950’s by Bell Aircraft. Bell Aircraft was responsible in creating the first supersonic jet. The Rocketbelt uses combusted hydrogen peroxide to create it’s vertical thrust, the problem is that flight was only sustainable for about 21 seconds, later revised in the RB2000 to achieve 30 seconds.
Are you in the market for a Jetpack? Enter the Martin Jetpack from the Martin Aircraft Company. It utilizes a gasoline powered engine to drive the two twin-ducted turbine style fans that provide it’s vertical lift. It is meant to be flown in fair weather conditions and is settings it’s sights on the recreational vehicle markets for about $100,000. Is this a natural progression from the Segway vehicle? Can you picture trying to navigate the sky in traffic? I want one immediately, this has got to be the ultimate guy’s gadget.
Equipped with an internal roll cage, stabilizing wings, parachute and other various break away and impact safety features, the Martin Jetpack does not require a tail rotor like most conventional helicopters and does not have any exposed fan blades. The Martin Aircraft Company states that it’s probably safer than a helicopter. There may be some validity to that, when was the last time you saw a typical helicopter with parachutes?
Check out some of the flight video below!
source: martinjetpack.com
