Man Attempts To Cross English Channel With Jet Wing

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.

Transformers

Transformers here to save the day!

Centurions....

Power. Extreme!

Thats Right

I'm BATMAN!

Re:Thats Right

I bet he can breathe in space too.

Damn!!

My wife says that I cannot have one.......

Re:Damn!!

Oh dear. Your poor wife.

Buzz Lightyear

And if it doesn't go well? Plummeting with style does not help when you go head first into the drink, or the cliffs, at high velocity. I'd like to see him make it, just because everyone's first reaction seems to be, "He's out of his fucking mind", but I would not trade places with him for love, nor money.

Re:Buzz Lightyear

He'll probably make it if you've watched his videos. He flys all over in that wing. If something goes wrong he can throw it off and parachute down.

Re:Buzz Lightyear

People who tagged this "Darwin" are probably not aware that this guy isn't just your regular redneck who strapped rocket engines to a backpack but someone who actually used and tested this suit. It works, just go watch his previous videos. I think that there will be no problem with this flight.

Try that in the US

Not mentioned in TFA, he tried to do this at Kittyhawk where the Wright brothers made their historic flight. But there was some trouble getting clearance with the US authorities....

TSA: Sir, you can't take that on the plane.
Rossy: But this *is* the plane!

Information about the jets

From the looks of it he is using four JetCat P180 [jetcatusa.com]. Each jet weighs about 5 lb and produces about 45 lb of thrust. They burn about 24 oz/minute of 1-K kerosene/Jet A1 fuel at full power.

He'll never make it

With balls that big there will be too much drag.

The funniest part of course...

... 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!

lol

Buzz Lightyear called. He wants his suit back.

Gliders can do it easy..

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.

Re:Gliders can do it easy..

First across the channel (pure) soaring flight was in 1939; Geoffrey Stephenson in a Slingsby Kirby Gull 1. Pretty darn impressive (former glider pilot myself). Just a normal winch launch, so he actually had to do it with thermaling.

Been there, done that

at least with a non-propelled wing... http://www.atairaerospace.com/press/2003/11/birdman-flies-atair-parachutes-across.html [atairaerospace.com]

Re:Could you explain that...

its like a car

Re:Could you explain that...

it's like a car, in that it is possible to cross the channel in it, but it neither the most cost effective, nor sensible way to do it. [youtube.com]

Re:His site?

It's here [darwinawards.com].

Re:Talk about a...

I don't think he'll even be high enough above the ground for a parachute if everything doesn't work out!

At 5100 feet, he'll be covered.... [fabulousrocketeers.com]

Re:Talk about a...

A reserve parachute can open in less than 400 feet and a main parachute can open in 1200 feet or so.

Re:Talk about a...

His initial altitude when he leaves the plane will be 2,500m. For static-line parachuting (automatic parachute deployment as you exit the plane), the US Army can drop people at under 120m in real-life, non-training combat situations if the circumstances for some reason call for this. For those who don't know what static-line [wikipedia.org] parachuting is, look at the first picture on the wiki link. The yellow line is connected to a bag that pulls their chute out of the pack. The bag is not attached to the parachute itself, and instead trails behind the plane until all jumpers are out of the plane, and the jumpmaster pulls the dozen or so deployment bags and static lines back into the plane. Also, the jumpers in the picture are likely exiting at around 300m, typical for a training jump.

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:Talk about a...

What, he's not landing by running very, very fast?

Disappointed I am, sir; disappointed.

Re:he's gonna kill his feet...

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.