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Swiss Man Flies With Jet Powered Wing
Posted by
timothy
on Wednesday May 14, @06:32PM
from the no-passenger-airbags-no-hybrid-engine dept.
from the no-passenger-airbags-no-hybrid-engine dept.
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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OFN? (Score:5, Informative)
Here are some youtube clips of him:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-66AcTo9TU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bEXxkWXncuo
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Re:OFN? (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:OFN? (Score:5, Interesting)
It'll be news again when he finally achieves his goal of taking off with just the wing. Not jumping out of a plane.
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Re:OFN? (Score:5, Interesting)
It'll be news again when he finally achieves his goal of taking off with just the wing. Not jumping out of a plane.
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Re:OFN? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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Jetpack! (Score:5, Funny)
Looks very cool.
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I hate to give the wrong people any ideas, but... (Score:5, Interesting)
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Famous last words... (Score:5, Funny)
Feh.
Definitely famous last words.
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Re:Famous last words... (Score:5, Insightful)
Full Potential == Darwin Award
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misread it (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:misread it (Score:5, Funny)
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Making Sense (Score:5, Funny)
I gather that this number makes some sense in metric.
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Re:Making Sense (Score:5, Informative)
Good call - 300 kph = 186.411mph
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Uh oh (Score:5, Funny)
Hobgoblin in 3... 2...
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Re:Well... (Score:5, Funny)
With apologies to britons and MG lovers everywhere.
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Re:Wait... what? (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Wait... what? (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Wait... what? (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:It is pretty old (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:It is pretty old (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Darwin awards (Score:5, Funny)
Okay, okay, so I'm just kidding - I know not the actual condition of his balls.
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Re:Landing? (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Landing? (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Landing? (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Landing? (Score:5, Informative)
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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