Jetman Attempts Intercontinental Flight 140
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."
Re:Engineering Effort? (Score:2, Interesting)
I'm sure there is significant engineering effort involved in creating something like a personal jetpack, but he's still jumping out of a plane at altitude and essentially gliding with a bit of a boost from his jet engines along the way.
Engineering is about solving problems with practical solutions. You are assuming he didn't consider what it would take get of the ground using the jet pack. But I would assume he did look at the issue, and found that it would significantly increase the cost, weight, and risk by launching from the ground.
If his end goal is just to fly around, then to solve the problem of take-off he probably reasoned the best solution was to use existing aircraft to get to the proper altitude. Then just figure out how to get in/out of the aircraft with his equipment. Sounds like a smart engineering decision to me.