Man Attempts To Cross English Channel With Jet Wing 175
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.
Centurions.... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:His site? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Buzz Lightyear (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Talk about a... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Talk about a... (Score:5, Informative)
He doesn't actually have a static line setup, of course, but this is only to illustrate the low altitude limits that parachutes can be used at. BASE jumpers don't jump from very high, for example.
Re:His site? (Score:3, Informative)
Where's the link to his site?
You Tube video of him in action [youtube.com]
Rossy's website [jet-man.com]
I am your own personal Google.
Information about the jets (Score:5, Informative)
The funniest part of course... (Score:5, Informative)
... is that news like that clearly demonstrate that 49% of Slashdot poters are living in a cave and 49% other are living under a bridge. What other explanation could there be for all those inane comments?
Once again: The guy has been flying this thing for quite sime time now! It flies already! And it flies well! No, his feet are not in the path of jet exhaust! Yes, he will make it more than a few feet from the ground, because he's actually taking off _from_ _a_ _plane_! And no, he'll not crash on landing, because he actually uses _a_ _parachute_ to land!
Gliders can do it easy.. (Score:4, Informative)
Since he only needs a L/D ratio of about 14 (35 km distance with a 2.5 km altitude start), any decent glider can do the same thing, with no thermal lifts, and no jet engines, just pure glide slope.
Been there, done that (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Gliders can do it easy.. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:he's gonna kill his feet... (Score:5, Informative)
A friend of mine is fitting 3 of those jets to his ASW20 glider.
I stood 10ft behind one when it was running. It was suprisingly cool so close. The temperature at the tailplane of the glider is below 50 degrees C, so it wont effect the composite glass/carbon flying surfaces
Must be something to do with the air expanding out of a relatively small nozzle, causing rapid cooling.
He Made it! (Score:2, Informative)
Hi All,
He made it. Remember that this guy is a commercial/jet fighter pilot as well as an accomlished parachutist. Children don't try this at home.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/europe/09/26/rocket.man.english.channel.ap/index.html [cnn.com]