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Swiss Man Flies With Jet Powered Wing

Posted by timothy on Wed May 14, 2008 05:32 PM
from the no-passenger-airbags-no-hybrid-engine dept.
Transportation Toys
NotBornYesterday writes "After spending $190,000 and 'countless hours' building a set of jet-powered wings, a Swiss man has successfully demoed this ultimate mother-of-all-toys. After jumping from a plane like a skydiver, he then lit the four jet engines and proceeded to fly around a valley in the Alps at up to 186 miles per hour. His site is here, if you want to see shots of him in action. 'I still haven't used the full potential,' he said."
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Submission: Swiss man flies with jet powered wing by NotBornYesterday (1093817)
[+] Man Attempts To Cross English Channel With Jet Wing 175 comments
Back in May, we told you about Swiss pilot Yves Rossy and his personal jet powered wing. It seems Mr. Rossy will now try to cross the English Channel with his invention. The flight was planned for Sept. 25 but had to be canceled due to poor weather. Yves will leap from a plane more than 2,500 meters off the ground, fire up his jets and try to make the 35-kilometer flight from Calais in France to Dover in England. If all goes well, the flight will take about 12 minutes. I'd like to officially ask Mr. Rossy for a review model for Slashdot.
[+] Jetman Attempts Intercontinental Flight 140 comments
Last year we ran the story of Yves Rossy and his DIY jetwings. Yves spent $190,000 and countless hours building a set of jet-powered wings which he used to cross the English Channel. Rossy's next goal is to cross the Strait of Gibraltar, from Tangier in Morocco and Tarifa on the southwestern tip of Spain. From the article: "Using a four-cylinder jet pack and carbon fibre wings spanning over 8ft, he will jump out of a plane at 6,500 ft and cruise at 130 mph until he reaches the Spanish coast, when he will parachute to earth." Update 18:57 GMT: mytrip writes: "Yves Rossy took off from Tangiers but five minutes into an expected 15-minute flight he was obliged to ditch into the wind-swept waters."
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  • OFN? (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 14 2008, @05:34PM (#23411024)
    This news is AT LEAST several months old!

    Here are some youtube clips of him:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-66AcTo9TU

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bEXxkWXncuo

    • Re:OFN? (Score:5, Informative)

      by vtscott (1089271) on Wednesday May 14 2008, @05:44PM (#23411156)
      To be fair, the yahoo article is dated today. I'm guessing that this is "new news" because it was the first public demonstration:

      A Swiss pilot strapped on a jet-powered wing and leaped from a plane Wednesday for the first public demonstration of the homemade device, turning figure eights and soaring high above the Alps.
      Those videos likely came from private practice runs. Now it seems they're confident enough with the device that they'll do live public demos.
    • Man, you just don't get the slashdot zeitgeist. Old news is an essential part of the whole experience.

      PS: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fLOgMQon7c [youtube.com]

    • Re:OFN? (Score:5, Funny)

      by at_slashdot (674436) on Wednesday May 14 2008, @09:43PM (#23413366)
      That's nothing, I'm pretty sure that I've seen Wile E. Coyote using such a product designed by Acme long time ago...

      • Re:OFN? (Score:5, Interesting)

        by zippthorne (748122) on Wednesday May 14 2008, @06:23PM (#23411590) Journal
        This guy's been jumping out of planes with jet-powered wings for *years*.. to the point that the big story over a year ago was that the army was considering developing one to give air-dropped troops more flexibility. Supposedly the wings can hold like 200 lbs worth of gear in addition to the "pilot."

        It'll be news again when he finally achieves his goal of taking off with just the wing. Not jumping out of a plane.

        • Re:OFN? (Score:5, Interesting)

          by Scrameustache (459504) on Wednesday May 14 2008, @06:37PM (#23411728) Homepage Journal

          This guy's been jumping out of planes with jet-powered wings for *years*.. to the point that the big story over a year ago was that the army was considering developing one to give air-dropped troops more flexibility. Supposedly the wings can hold like 200 lbs worth of gear in addition to the "pilot."

          It'll be news again when he finally achieves his goal of taking off with just the wing. Not jumping out of a plane.
          I'm thinking "SEAL-dropping UAVs", dropped from a bigger plane, flies a ways into enemy territory, drops the daring soldier, and flies back undetected (ideally).

        • Re:OFN? (Score:4, Interesting)

          by Hal_Porter (817932) on Wednesday May 14 2008, @10:34PM (#23413750)
          You know, if you replaced the pilot with remote control system, it could carry GBU-39s. Or even something smaller, like the size of RPG warheads. The idea is that you launch loads of these things from B52s and they would swarm over a combat zone killing tanks and sending video feeds back.

          http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GBU-39_Small_Diameter_Bomb [wikipedia.org]

          • Re:OFN? (Score:5, Funny)

            by 4D6963 (933028) on Thursday May 15 2008, @02:09AM (#23414738)
            Oh that gives me an idea! What about we give bombs small wings and jet engines so they could reach from like 20 miles away a target much faster than a plane!? I propose we call these new type of jet-powered bombs "missiles".

            • Re:OFN? (Score:4, Informative)

              by Hal_Porter (817932) on Thursday May 15 2008, @02:33AM (#23414844)
              A cruise missile costs $1m. JDAMs cost $40000. I don't know what SDBs cost, but it should be less than a JDAM.

              The plane to drop them costs much more ($137m for an F-22) and if it gets shot down the pilot can be effectively held hostage to try to influence public opinion back in the US. Seems like a light weight, semi disposable way to drop bombs on people would be cheap and would avoid hostage situations with POWs.

              In fact you could could lose a whole squadron for less than a cost of one F-22. They'd be quite stealthy due to their size and low altitude, but they don't need to be. Sheer numbers would overwhelm enemy air defenses.

              • Re:OFN? (Score:5, Informative)

                by 4D6963 (933028) on Thursday May 15 2008, @05:46AM (#23415706)

                The plane to drop them costs much more ($137m for an F-22) and if it gets shot down

                And when's the last time a F-22 got shot down? Matter of fact a F-22 is probably less visible on a radar than this jet-packish thing we're talking about. You know what's the difference between a missile and that thing? Missiles can be launched from an airplane from 25 miles away (I'm not even talking about ground-ground missiles which can have any range you may need), and they cruise at a speed usually between Mach 2 and 4 (iirc). That thing probably wouldn't reach 200 knots if it tried so you could shoot it down with any heat-seaking missile or even anti-aircraft gun.

                There's a reason why missiles cost the price they cost. Same for pretty much anything in the Air Force.

      • Re:OFN? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by nbert (785663) on Wednesday May 14 2008, @07:25PM (#23412206) Homepage Journal

        Who the fuck keeps modding up these moronic "This is old news!!!" posts from AC's.
        Yes, they are boring, but someone has to state the obvious and there's nothing wrong about imforming everyone about prior coverage in the media.

        It might have been the first official flight, but I can recall at least 3 TV "infotainment" shows (non-US) covering this in recent years. Afterall it's just the economy of the mass media industry: Some major media agency publishes this and every news source copies it ad nauseam, because the journalists in charge haven't heard of it before or they simply are in need of content. Or they feel that not covering it will make their clientele think that they are not aware of an issue important to their particular target group*.

        Two anecdotes: I know someone in the healthcare industry who hired a pr agency to promote his product. They scheduled a press conference in spring. Maybe 5 journalists of unimportant newspapers showed up. However, the press-kit they send to every major news source really paid off: In the silly season (over here that's around July) many newspapers wrote a feature about said product. Some even copied the euphemistic phrases of the press kit: "Breakthrough in hip surgery", "Uncle John can finally walk again" and so on.
        On another occasion I wrote to a major energy supplier requesting material about their view on nuclear power. They send me many articles and 2 months later I read one of them again in my favorite newspaper word-by-word (it was about a new generation of nuclear plants somewhere in scandinavia). Both examples show that we have to pay attention to how we read news and who has interest in making it public. It also shows that journalists do not only cover interesting stories, but also copy material because of laziness or cost pressure.

        For those reasons I like it when someone shouts "old news" in such discussions. It's a kind reminder that the news isn't newsworthy. And if I haven't heard about it before I can still read on, but I'll take it with a grain of salt.


        *Not a problem as long as they mention that it has been covered before.

  • Well... (Score:3, Funny)

    by BlueStrat (756137) on Wednesday May 14 2008, @05:35PM (#23411034)
    I for one welcome our new jet-winged Swiss overlord.

    Cheers!

    Strat

    FP?

  • Just don't get too close to the sun (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 14 2008, @05:39PM (#23411086)
    This ought to be fun. Might even turn into a sport or extreme recreational activity. But just remember what happened to the last person who got too close the sun ...

  • Jetpack! (Score:5, Funny)

    by vecctor (935163) on Wednesday May 14 2008, @05:44PM (#23411154)
    This is the one time where people could legitimately use the term "jetpack" and then the submitter and TFA choose not to!

    Looks very cool.

  • Wait... what? (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 14 2008, @05:46PM (#23411192)
    "The German-built model aircraft engines he currently uses already provide 200 pounds of thrust, enough to allow Rossy and his 120-pound flying suit to climb through the air."

    So... he weighs less than 80 pounds?
  • I wonder if these things show up on radar. And how easy they'd be to shoot down. Because they'd make dandy kamikaze weapons.

  • Famous last words... (Score:5, Funny)

    by HydraSwitch (184123) on Wednesday May 14 2008, @05:57PM (#23411320) Homepage
    'I still haven't used the full potential,' he said.

    Feh.

    Definitely famous last words.

  • misread it (Score:5, Funny)

    by B3ryllium (571199) on Wednesday May 14 2008, @06:13PM (#23411480) Homepage
    I initially misread it as "Jet Powered Wang".

  • Making Sense (Score:5, Funny)

    by Nom du Keyboard (633989) on Wednesday May 14 2008, @06:27PM (#23411624)

    at up to 186 miles per hour.

    I gather that this number makes some sense in metric.

  • Uh oh (Score:5, Funny)

    by Ihmhi (1206036) <i_have_mental_health_issues@yahoo.com> on Wednesday May 14 2008, @07:04PM (#23412008)

    Hobgoblin in 3... 2...

  • ACME Jet Powered Wing Pack (Score:5, Funny)

    by catdevnull (531283) on Wednesday May 14 2008, @09:43PM (#23413358)
    Didn't I see Wyle E. Coyote with one of these?

    If the Swiss man flew this into a mountain side with a tunnel painted on it, I wouldn't be surprised at all.

  • At last, small jet engines (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Animats (122034) on Wednesday May 14 2008, @10:54PM (#23413848) Homepage

    Small jet engines have been an elusive goal for decades. They can be built, but the cost doesn't go down much below bizjet size. That's why general aviation is still piston-powered.

    This guy is using four model aircraft jet engines. Probably ones like this. [jetcatusa.com] They're somewhat marginal devices, needing an overhaul every 25 hours. (For aviation jet engines, that number is usually at least 1000 hours.) Good thing he carries a parachute.

    • Re:It is pretty old (Score:4, Insightful)

      by bev_tech_rob (313485) on Wednesday May 14 2008, @05:46PM (#23411190)
      Who cares about transportation? It would be FUN!!

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by jd (1658)
      Parachutes and paragliders tend to be unpredictable and are not particularly safe, doubly so at speeds exceeding sound or at very low altitudes. It's unclear the designs can be improved much beyond current levels. A more rigid wing might be a viable option under circumstances where parachutes either shouldn't be used or can't be used. As such, they may well be a viable option for emergency transport.

      Yes, it's an old story, but it has been a very slow news day. Actually, it's been a very slow news month!

      • Re:It is pretty old (Score:5, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 14 2008, @06:38PM (#23411736)

        Parachutes and paragliders tend to be unpredictable and are not particularly safe, doubly so at speeds exceeding sound
        Please mod up +1 informative. I had no idea that parachutes and paragliders were unsafe when flown at 770 mph.

            • Re:It is pretty old (Score:4, Insightful)

              by fractoid (1076465) on Wednesday May 14 2008, @11:08PM (#23413932) Homepage
              Um... yeah, and base jumping is widely acknowledged to be about the most dangerous thing you can do for fun, bar jumping off office buildings WITHOUT a parachute. Parachutes, rectilinear or otherwise, aren't "quite safe", they're "safer than not having one". There

              Certainly, you're a dozen times more likely to die in a car accident than you are from a chute malfunction. That's because you travel in a car every single day whereas a couple of dozen jumps makes you a seasoned skydiver. If you parachuted your way to and from work every morning, I think you just might possibly find that parachuting is higher risk than driving.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Bah. These are the people who _should_ be reproducing -- the ones who have the balls to explore and take risks to further the ability of humans.

    • but can he get a first post?

      Well he would be getting frosty piss at that height.

      But I want to know if he can run.. err.. fly.. Linux!

    • Re:Landing? (Score:5, Funny)

      by Yvan256 (722131) on Wednesday May 14 2008, @07:04PM (#23412006) Homepage Journal
      I don't know how, but he only does it once.

      • Re:Landing? (Score:5, Informative)

        by c6gunner (950153) on Wednesday May 14 2008, @08:11PM (#23412628)

        At the speed they are talking about, a bird hitting this guy in the head, even with a helmet, stands a good chance of knocking him out. Then you're going to have a dead bird as well as a dead wing-rider.


        Naw. You've got the same problem with motorcycles - a buddy of mine had TWO birds hit him almost simultaneously, while he was doing 200+ mph. One nailed him in the head, cracking the face-shield, while the other one turned itself into jello inside the bike's headlight. Not only did it not knock him out, but he even managed to retain control of the bike.

        Most birds don't have much weight, and modern helmets are built with some heavy-impact in mind (no pun intended). You'd have to hit a friggin condor to get knocked out.

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