In the beginning it was the Jetpack, a device shaped as a beltpack that uses jets of escaping gases to allow a single user to fly. It emerged from science fiction in the 1920s and popularised in the 1960s as the technology became a reality and people could see it in 007 movies. Now, many decades after, the Jetpacks clearly do not have the success one could have foretold and it seems that the only practical uses currently has been extra-vehicular activity for astronauts. Despite decades of advancement in the technology, the challenges of Earth's atmosphere, Earth's gravity, and the human body (which is not suited to this type of flight) remain an obstacle to its potential use in the military and as a means of personal transport. But even more than the human body fragility the main obstacle was that is fuel: Jetpacks are necessarily a compromise between the amount of fuel they can carry and the amount of weight they can lift, and so far the best you’ve been able to expect is 10 or 20 minutes of flying time. So if somehow you could get the fuel off of the jetpack, you’d be good to go… And that’s what the JetLev does.
The creators of this amazing device had the idea that kill two birds with a stone, solving both problems (human fragility and fuel autonomy) simply replacing gases with water. The gimmick is that JetLev doesn’t carry the water with it; rather, it’s got a 140 foot long flexible tube attached to a little boat that you drag along behind you. The boat has a 4 stroke 115 hp engine in it that pumps water up into the jetpack at 100 psi, and when that water comes shooting down out of the two nozzles at the sides, it puts out enough force to lift a person up to 50 feet in the air at speeds of 50 mph! Amazing isn't it?
Obviously JetLev Flyer use is restricted to water (better if far from boats and shoreline) but this way, your fuel is infinite (except
the gas in the motor boat pod thingy, that however gives a range of nearly 200 miles). Moreover if something goes wrong and you fall down you are simply taking a dive in the water from 50 feet... nothing really dangerous.
I know you're already dying for trying this thing... and it will get worse with the videos at the end of the post, however it's not exactly cheap costing something like $128,000. Let's hope that with a great success the price will drop.
You can find all the infos in the official site of the JetLav Flyer
Take a look at the following promotional video to see the JetLav in action:
the following one instead is the first of five tutorial videos, if you're interested you can easily find the others on YouTube:
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