Swiss Man Flies With Jet Powered Wing

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."

OFN?

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?

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.

Re:OFN?

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?

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?

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.

Jetpack!

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.

I hate to give the wrong people any ideas, but...

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...

'I still haven't used the full potential,' he said.

Feh.

Definitely famous last words.

Re:Famous last words...

'I still haven't used the full potential,' he said.

Full Potential == Darwin Award
         

misread it

I initially misread it as "Jet Powered Wang".

Re:misread it

I'll take two.

Making Sense

at up to 186 miles per hour.

I gather that this number makes some sense in metric.

Re:Making Sense

I gather that this number makes some sense in metric.

Good call - 300 kph = 186.411mph

Uh oh

Hobgoblin in 3... 2...

Re:Well...

I hear the Brits developed this technology in the mid-80's, but abandoned it when they could not find a way to make it leak oil.

With apologies to britons and MG lovers everywhere.

Re:Wait... what?

Well, that depends on the exchange rate at the time.

Re:Wait... what?

you really gotta stop using that old Intel Pentium for your math!

Re:Wait... what?

You work for the RIAA/MPAA, right?

Re:It is pretty old

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

I do. Have you flown on commercial aircraft recently? I'd rather get tugged behind jet-man on a rope.

Re:Darwin awards

The problem being that the windchill permanently damaged his balls, so that scuppers that plan!

Okay, okay, so I'm just kidding - I know not the actual condition of his balls.

Re:Landing?

I don't know how, but he only does it once.

Re:Landing?

With a parachute.

Even though you'd think a pair of rollerblades should be sufficient.

Re:Landing?

Wiley Coyote [wikipedia.org], is that you?

Re:Landing?

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.