[HN Gopher] We have jetpacks and we do not care
___________________________________________________________________
We have jetpacks and we do not care
Author : zdw
Score : 210 points
Date : 2022-01-27 17:23 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theguardian.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theguardian.com)
| spaetzleesser wrote:
| We also have supersports cars that can go 200 miles an hour and
| accelerate 0-60 in 2 seconds but not many people have one.
| Current jetpacks are certainly interesting but almost useless
| besides maybe a few very specialized things. As are supersports
| cars. And both are prohibitively expensive for most people.
| MomoXenosaga wrote:
| We have flying cars and nobody cares (unless you're a bored
| millionaire).
| m1117 wrote:
| It's like the NFT of aviation
| msie wrote:
| I hate that particular jetpack design where the arms are tied to
| maneuvering thrusters. I like the other one by jetpack aviation.
| https://jetpackaviation.com/
| mrleinad wrote:
| Sounds a lot like that quote from the 70s "there is no reason for
| any individual to have a computer in their home."
|
| That held true until prices dropped and computers were actually
| useful to individuals and not room-sized machines.
| arduinomancer wrote:
| Isn't it a huge problem that a jetpack is not fail-safe?
|
| With an airplane/paramotor you can still glide safely down if
| your engine dies.
|
| What would happen if the jetpack engine fails mid air?
| wutbrodo wrote:
| Wouldn't a parachute work? I know very little about
| flying/aerodynamics, so I might be missing something obvious.
| gs17 wrote:
| It would work in some cases, but if you're too low it won't
| necessarily have time to slow you down enough. The record for
| the lowest BASE jump is about 100 ft, and that wasn't a
| surprise equipment failure. Parachutes would help in a lot of
| situations, but you would still easily die in a lot of other
| situations.
| jonathankoren wrote:
| Ballistic parachutes exist for light aircraft. Seems like
| they'd work here as well.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballistic_parachute
| darau1 wrote:
| If I could afford it I'd buy it and learn how to use it to
| commute to work and back (safely, of course).
| capableweb wrote:
| > They can't hold enough fuel for more than eight minutes of
| flight - and even that's the upper end. Kerosene is heavy, burns
| quickly, and a human can only carry so much. A battery would be
| far better, but they're much heavier - at least for now. Someday
| someone might invent a battery light and energy-efficient enough
| to do better than kerosene, but, for now, you can only use what
| you can carry, and that's not much.
|
| Seems there are good enough reasons for people to not really care
| about jetpacks (yet). But it does seem like the military/law
| enforcement could have some use for it, mainly for boarding
| moving vehicles and/or scaling walls/barriers.
| mikestew wrote:
| If you think leaf blowers are loud and blow shit everywhere, wait
| until folks have a leaf blower powerful enough to lift a human
| being with its output.
|
| Point being, we never wanted them in the first place, we just
| didn't know it.
| sevenf0ur wrote:
| My brother has flown one of these on a tether. They are
| deafeningly loud and put out tons of heat so you need special
| clothing and it needs to be cool downed after use. Have to fly
| low to the ground or over water where you are better off with
| other means of transportation. Not to mention this thing runs out
| of kerosene in 10 minutes. Not practical for consumers in the
| slightest.
| pqdbr wrote:
| Nobody cares because we have something better. It's called
| paramotoring.
|
| Saying it changed my life wouldn't be an overstatement. The
| ability to store it inside my sedan, travel anywhere, take off
| with my own feet, fly anywhere for around 4 hours, and land
| basically anywhere... is just magical.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| You've got my attention.
|
| Been watching these kids with paramotors on YouTube blaze
| across fields, drop in on a rural McDonalds.... It looks like
| fun ... and safe enough?
| pqdbr wrote:
| It's the best thing you can do with your clothes on, lol. And
| extremely safe. I've been flying for 4+ years and I never
| even twisted an ankle.
|
| Actually, if you like adrenalin, I'd suggest looking
| elsewhere. I did skydiving for many years before discovering
| paramotoring, and they are completely unrelated activities.
|
| Yes, you can do high speed flying and "slalom" with your
| paramotor, but 98% of us don't. It's a contemplation sport.
| Like going on a bike ride or jetski ride with your friends,
| but in 3 dimensions. It's all about the views, soaking up the
| scenery, and having a good time in the sunset or in the
| sunrise. If you live near the beach, you can fly all day; if
| you live in the countryside, you'll probably fly early in the
| mornings or in the sunset, due to the lower thermal activity
| (it gets bumpy otherwise).
|
| If your engine fails ... you have a huge "parachute" that
| sails 6 meters forward for ever meter down. Actually, every
| single landing we do, we are either with our engine
| completely shutdown or idling. I've had 3 malfuctions in
| these 4 years; as long as you're flying watching your "safety
| cone", you'll slowly glide to a pleasant landing.
|
| If your main glider fails (they don't, but our main enemies
| are kites; their lines can cut through our lines like
| butter), you still have a reserve chute that you can throw as
| a last resort.
|
| If you fly over water, equip yourself with flotation devices.
| There are many specific to paramotors that inflate
| automatically.
|
| What defines the sport is the wing you choose. You'll get
| trained by an instructor, and he'll guide you to the best
| wing according to your weight and desires in the sport.
|
| Basically:
|
| - Get professional training; - Get a good equipment and a
| wing suited to your weight; - Don't fly over water without
| flotation; - Always watch your "safety cone" in the event of
| an engine out; - Don't fly spirals near the ground (don't be
| a showoff); - Beware of your weather forecast and land if
| winds go over your comfort speed;
|
| You literally become a drone (mine is getting dust and never
| flies anymore). It's incredible. If you have the chance, get
| yourself trained, you'll add a whole other dimension to your
| life.
| [deleted]
| asciimov wrote:
| Nothing is safe, you just have to acknowledge the risk
| involved and accept it.
|
| Risk is everywhere, if you accept the risk involved you may
| find yourself having a good time.
| 8bitsrule wrote:
| Back in 1884 at Coney Island people paid a nickel and lined
| up for a 600-foot ride (at _6 miles per hour_!) on the
| first 'roller coaster'. (Some of them probably fainted!)
| Toutouxc wrote:
| > and safe enough?
|
| They're like motorcycles. Do everything right and it's almost
| safe (someone else can hit you on the road and there are rare
| meteorological phenomena able to bring a paramotor down, e.g.
| a microburst), but even small errors can result in severe
| injury or death.
| jodrellblank wrote:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1Z8YT6w7Rc - guy flies to
| 17,500 feet on his paramotor.
|
| I didn't know they were a thing before watching this. Amazing.
| brailsafe wrote:
| Dude takes off from a rather unsettling neighborhood, damn.
| lsh123 wrote:
| And also collide with planes:
|
| https://www.star-
| telegram.com/news/state/texas/article256764...
| Toutouxc wrote:
| Well, paramotors are actually a bit less prone to mid-air
| collisions (aside from showing off, wing tip bumping etc.),
| because they're usually brightly colored, the pilots have
| perfect visibility, they fly slow and usually pretty low
| (lower than most airplanes).
| imoverclocked wrote:
| I think it's more due to the big sky theory.
|
| When flying even a modest GA aircraft VFR, there isn't
| much time to react if you've been looking down at
| foreflight/instruments for 30 seconds while heading
| straight towards a paramotor which has no ADS-B out. This
| says even more for IFR craft that move much faster.
| austinl wrote:
| I've just been getting into paragliding (i.e. without the
| motor), and have been absolutely loving it. It blew my mind to
| learn that by riding thermals, paragliders can essentially stay
| in the air indefinitely. My longest flight so far has only been
| about 15 minutes, but people are regularly in the air for
| hours.
|
| For some more inspiration, check out "speed flying" --
| essentially, paragliding with skies:
| https://youtu.be/UwWLnaME0CI
| mrtksn wrote:
| I used to do paragliding back in college, definitely prefer
| it to paramotoring because no engine noise and much more
| agile wings.
|
| However I wouldn't relate it with "speed flying" because
| speed flying is a truly an extreme sport with extremely high
| mortality but paragliding is a chill flying unless you choose
| to make it extreme.
|
| Paragliding is so safe these days, the wings are very stable
| and spontaneously return to airworthy shape if disrupted.
| Flying is very chill, to do something at high speed you
| usually need to build up energy by spiralling or swinging the
| wing.
|
| Speed flying on the other hand uses much smaller wings and
| that makes them very dynamic. They fly at much higher speeds
| and they have high kinetic energy all the time which results
| in very large movements even at small inputs from the pilot.
| ngngngng wrote:
| Utah has a couple spots that are popular for paragliding.
| I'll never forget the time we visited one of the popular
| launch spots and saw a man get so high within minutes that we
| couldn't see him anymore.
| wnolens wrote:
| It's such beautifully "simple" system that makes so much sense.
| I love it.
|
| lol @ bajillion dollar R&D jetpack with ai controlled thrust
| vectoring
| jedberg wrote:
| TIL about paramotoring. I'd seen the rigs before but didn't
| know the name.
|
| I googled it and the first thing that came up was a YouTube
| video about the 5 most dangerous things about paramotoring. :)
| petre wrote:
| I wouldn't try paramotoring without doing at least a 6 month
| paragliding course first. Which in fact I did when I was 21.
| After I saw a colleague make a judgement error, fall from
| 30ft, hit the ground and jump like a soft ball I became
| stressed during flight. He had flown a DHV31 paraglider
| though and was not experienced enough to fly that wing.
| Current DHV1 wings are much more safer and very performant
| compared to 2000 era wings that we've flown. Shortly after
| the fall incident a guy I became acquainted with died during
| a competition. I just gave up because it stopped being fun.
| My instructor had an accident with a powered hang glider few
| years afterwards. He still has a bad limp to this day. He has
| always been very safety conscious and had at least 25 years
| of prior aviation experience, parachuting and paragliding,
| when his accident occured.
|
| Anyway, I find paramotors quite offensive because they make
| an awful lot of noise and smoke and the pilot's position is
| quite unnatural compared to normal paragliding because the
| motor pushes him or her forward. Maybe when we'll have
| electric paramotors under 10 kilos things will change for the
| better.
|
| 1. https://www.dhv.de/en/testing/dhv-classification-of-
| paraglid...
| psyc wrote:
| The transitive PTSD from your fellow pilots dying is real.
| I quit after 800+ flights (including motored, and yes it is
| incredible) after the 5th death of someone I'd either been
| close to or at least on adventures with. Not to mention all
| the broken vertebrae which is a lot more common than death.
| In the span of a few years I saw three ridiculously
| experienced instructors (one had like 8,000 flights) smash
| into the ground, then spend 2 months in the hospital and a
| year recovering.
|
| The fact that we know what mistakes they made is a red
| herring. You'd have to be a fool to think you're going to
| be the first paragliding pilot in history to never make a
| potentially fatal mistake. One of them, a friend and a very
| good pilot, simply pulled his brake half an inch too far.
| It was a perfectly calm evening.
|
| There were two warring factions at my local mountain. One
| organized around the idea that paragliding can be made
| safe. My camp maintained that 'safe' and 'paragliding'
| should never be in the same sentence without an 'isn't'
| between them. Hikers always opened conversation with "Is it
| safe?" The other camp would say "Oh yes, quite, and would
| you like a ride for $200?" Our camp would try not to laugh.
| I'd usually reply with, "Does it look safe?" We said it was
| all about risks and percentages, with the understanding
| that the risk of dying or being crippled with a slow glider
| in perfect conditions is always > 0.
|
| I'm not saying it isn't worth it. It's totally worth it,
| though it's easier for me to say since I got out unharmed.
| Rather, I developed a discomfort that prevented me from
| enjoying it. Not fear - but a kind of disillusionment.
| Because even though my instructor said "It's not safe."
| over and over, and even though I repeated it to others,
| secretly I believed it was and it took 8 years for observed
| events to wear that belief down. A big part of me hopes I
| return, maybe after my parents are gone or I'm their age or
| something. There is really nothing like it in the world and
| I doubt anything I ever do will ever energize my soul the
| way free flying did.
| petre wrote:
| Flying is nice but shaky and unpredictable weather still
| makes me uneasy. If I'll ever try it again it will be in
| a sailplane or a light airplane.
| mtinkerhess wrote:
| I found the same video it looks like all those dangers are
| preventable? Don't do acrobatics at low altitude, don't fly
| over water, don't start the engine on the ground, don't buzz
| trees or other obstacles, don't get close to other paramotors
| in flight.
| savrajsingh wrote:
| How/where did you get training?
| yurishimo wrote:
| You can find a club in most large cities. In the US at least,
| the biggest problem is getting far enough away from the city
| so you don't become a hazard to commercial plane traffic.
|
| I live in the DFW metroplex, and you have to drive almost 100
| miles out of the city to take-off and then you're pretty
| limited on where you can fly due to the abundance of small
| airports nearby.
|
| There are maps available that show what kind of airspace is
| around you. I forget the specifics as it's a been a few years
| since I looked into it, but there are different designations
| for what/who is allowed to fly where and paramotors are very
| low on the totem pole in terms of priority and access
| allotments.
| pqdbr wrote:
| Just google for paramotor training, there are many schools in
| the US. I suggest get training near the place you plan to do
| most of your flying, because flying at the beach with
| constant, laminar, mid-strong winds is very different than
| flying at the countryside with bumpy and low-mid winds.
|
| If in doubt, learn to fly near the beach. The views are
| amazing :)
| jerf wrote:
| It's a pet peeve of mine that people think that sci-fi authors
| writing decades before the tech exists somehow got the design
| right, just because Hollywood made some pretty moving pictures
| that fired up your imagination.
|
| It's hard enough to design things in the real world when you've
| got the tech in hand. There's no way to think that people got
| it right decades earlier with even larger disadvantages.
|
| The reality is we don't have jetpacks because jetpacks
| _suuuuuuuuuck_. Paramotoring turns out to make a lot more
| sense. It may not be the picture in your head, but it can be
| _real_.
|
| Also, we don't have flying cars because flying cars
| _suuuuuuuuuck_. We don 't have heavy-duty voice interfaced
| computers because they _suuuuuuuuuck_. We even have the tech
| now for those, and they _suuuuuuuuuck_ as the only interface.
| (They can work if you 're dedicated and have no alternatives,
| as people program with pure voice interfaces, but they only use
| them because they're the best alternative they have.) Computer
| interfaces don't look like LCARS Star Trek interfaces because
| those interfaces _suuuuuuuuuck_. And so on.
| benjiweber wrote:
| Android is starting to look quite LCARS
| https://twitter.com/benjiweber/status/1457039757112922115
| 6gvONxR4sf7o wrote:
| The other side is my own pet peeve: thinking that sci-fi
| authors were visionaries for putting something out there
| before anyone else makes it real. One reason we don't have
| flying cars could be battery tech, taking your example.
| There's a ton of cool shit happening in aviation as batteries
| improve.
| Ekaros wrote:
| Flying without lift from wings or like as people think of
| sci-fi flying cars isn't practical, unless we break the
| physics as we understand today. I honestly can't think of
| anything more wasteful than hovering flying car...
| the8472 wrote:
| Jetpacks only suck due to the lack of a compact power source,
| one of the things that's commonly handwaved in scifi. If we
| had a magical power source they'd provide a more dynamic
| flying experience than gliding.
| jerf wrote:
| They have a poor backup if a component fails, they're
| either going to be blasting something hot or something very
| fast out some set of ports which raises a lot of practical
| issues, they're always going to be very loud, greasing them
| up with enough AI to be safe for a normal person is going
| to be a massive problem, they'll always be difficult to
| control because such a small, fast thing is going to be
| super responsive and thus very twitchy and difficult to fly
| (or, to put it another way, "more dynamic flying
| experience" is a _con_ , not a _pro_ ), and the list goes
| on.
|
| Basically, a jet pack what you get if you take a minimal
| safe flying vehicle based on jet propulsion, then you strip
| away a huge number of components. The result is
| intrinsically unsafe.
|
| Paramotoring isn't the safest thing either, but at least
| it's humanly feasible.
| didip wrote:
| wow! I have seen this in real life but had no idea what's the
| name.
|
| It definitely seems simpler and safer than jetpack.
| danboarder wrote:
| With sufficient flight controller integration and sensors &
| software the jetpack form factor could be as easy to fly as a
| self balancing Segway is to ride around. Current semi- autonomous
| drone software like what we see in the Skydio 2 would be an
| interesting direction for this tech, one would end up basically
| riding a drone around at low altitude. I am optimistic for near-
| future electric implementations and practical progression in this
| type of e-mobility development.
| [deleted]
| JasonFruit wrote:
| Ultralights and hang gliders are nowhere near as dead as this
| article seems determined to assert, using anecdotes without data.
| (How do I know? Also anecdotes, unfortunately, as their
| deregulated nature makes data hard to come by.) But this article
| paints the bleakest picture of personal flight possible, and I'm
| not convinced they have the facts straight -- except about jet
| packs, which are about as practical as a human cannonball.
| jeffreyrogers wrote:
| In Salt Lake City lots of people flew paragliders. But they
| also have a great place to fly from that's close by.
| duxup wrote:
| When the jetpack can fly for me for the most part, I'm down with
| it.
|
| Kinda like small drones. I own one, because it is easy to use.
| zdw wrote:
| It's basic physics - anything that can rapidly accumulates
| potential energy in terms of gravity without a safe way to slowly
| dissipate that energy as it is turned to kinetic can be
| dangerous.
|
| See also how people get killed by falling tree limbs and
| coconuts.
| jonathankoren wrote:
| Kinetic energy. Potential energy is perfectly safe. :)
| jeffreyrogers wrote:
| Skydivers solved that problem with parachutes.
| AcerbicZero wrote:
| We have shitty jet packs and we do not care.
| csours wrote:
| No mention of TikTok yet. How long until a motivated teenager
| gets ahold of one of these and starts a trend?
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > With smaller aircraft, the trends are similar. Hang-gliding has
| all but disappeared. Ultralight aircraft makers are barely
| staying afloat. (One manufacturer, Air Creation, sold only one
| vehicle in the US last year.) With every successive year, we have
| more passengers and fewer pilots.
|
| Yeah, no surprise given that
|
| - planes are expensive to buy - even small ones are in the upper
| five figures range
|
| - planes are expensive to operate: ~150-200$ in fuel per hour
| IIRC, plus insurance, maintenance costs, hangar and
| airport/landing strip fees
|
| - getting a license is expensive: even a basic private pilot
| license will set you back ~7500-10000EUR, and on top of that come
| type ratings and other extras (instrument flight, radio, ...)
|
| - _maintaining_ that license is expensive: you need to keep up
| flight hours either in real flight or in (only a bit less
| expensive) simulators, and there are severe restrictions on
| passengers if you 're not on a commercial license
| ramesh31 wrote:
| Not to mention dangerous. Commercial aviation is exceedingly
| safe -- safer than riding a train by passenger-incidents/mile.
| But general aviation is about on par with motorcycle riding.
| There was a big push in 60s/70s/80s to market general aviation
| to the public as being the same as driving a car. But the
| reality is that most people cannot and will not ever be able to
| safely operate an aircraft without full automation.
| Avlin67 wrote:
| I had an opportunity to see it in action... well the guy took at
| least 20min to set up and event 100meters away i was hooked by
| the strong smell of unburnt kerozene.... in france you can barely
| put a sticker on your car legaly - forget any idea of even pseudo
| tuning - yet we are excited about gogo gadgeto burning flying
| man. it is so startup nation...
| todd8 wrote:
| The real problem is the potential energy one has at even a low
| altitude is enough to kill you, even without a jet powered
| velocity towards the ground.
|
| A fall from just 100ft (~ 30m) is like being hit by a train
| traveling at 54mph (87kph). Any malfunction at this height would
| in a couple of seconds likely result in death. Without some sort
| of anti-gravity belt I don't see jetpacks as being useful.
| trgn wrote:
| I sincerely hope we will never care. That in the US, our
| mentality gets past this infantile fetish for powertools and
| convenience. It's a vestige of high modernism, an adolescent
| ideology that life must be mediated by technology. Scraping food
| of a plate in the trash beget flushing food down the drain
| through a garbage disposer. Athletics beget motorsports. It
| crystalized in the 50s, oddly a decade where adults began to
| watch cartoons like the Jetsons, like children.
|
| Jetpacks are the perfect example. It conflates the ability to fly
| anywhere anytime with freedom. It is a toddler fantasy. Similar
| to how cars for personal transport have not increased freedom,
| but instead delivered obesity, fossil fuel dependence, and a
| polluted, and threatening public realm.
|
| The aspirational city life of the future will be one of
| sophistication and maturity. It will be the an improved version
| of the city life of the pre-industrial age. Where the only sound
| is the chatter of passerbys and their footsteps. At night, it is
| quiet. Everything degenerate (human waste, cars, metros, ...)
| will be pushed underground. The sky will be as pristine as in the
| wilderness.
|
| In other words, it will be an environment where flying a jetpack
| is sociopathic.
|
| This is not a personal fantasy. This kind of urban environment is
| where people with means are moving to _today_. It is the main
| program of every European city. The US is slow to shake these
| destructive 50s ideals of transportation. But it is happening.
| Hopeful to see it in my lifetime still.
| analog31 wrote:
| In my hometown the city code said the garbage disposer was a
| measure against rats.
| mrfusion wrote:
| It's not that no one cares. We just want one that's under 20K,
| has more than 45 minutes flight time, isn't loud or bulky, and is
| extremely safe.
| pqdbr wrote:
| Not a Jetpack per se, but take a look at a paramotor.
| [deleted]
| titzer wrote:
| I think society is exhausted from all the excitement. It feels
| like people would be excited by jetpacks for about 5 minutes
| and then return to their dopamine loops--primarily phones.
| paxys wrote:
| I can assure you if all of those happened it still wouldn't get
| any significant adoption. What even is the use case beyond
| joyrides at fairs?
| mrfusion wrote:
| I for one would commute with it! Fly by the lights and
| traffic jams.
| petercooper wrote:
| And legal. A lot of places can't even get their heads around a
| scooter that can go 15mph.. so I'm not sure jetpacks are going
| to fly.
| saftamihai wrote:
| "not sure jetpacks are going to fly." I lol'd
| addaon wrote:
| The US has a truly incredible rule -- 14 CFR Part 103,
| usually shortened to Part 103 -- that basically deregulates
| ultralight aircraft, other than restricting their airspace
| usage. The logic behind this rule is that it defines
| ultralights tightly enough (low weight, low kinetic energy,
| restricted use over populated areas) that you're probably
| only going to kill yourself if something goes wrong; and what
| can be more American than allowing that?
|
| The main defining features of a Part 103 ultralight are empty
| weight (< 254 lbs, including battery but not including up to
| 5 gallons of fuel, and with additional credits for parachutes
| and floats), minimum flight speed (stall speed for a fixed
| wing aircraft) of <= 24 kts or calculated equivalent (see AC
| 103-7), and maximum horizontal flight speed of 55 kts (with
| electronic or other artificial restriction of speed being
| acceptable).
|
| Many of the "jetpacks" and other ultralight VTOL ideas being
| explored right now easily fit within Part 103, so in the US
| these certainly can fly, at least for very limited
| recreational usage.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| The hand wringers and spineless politicians looking to
| score a few cheap brownie points for advancing "safety"
| will go after jet-packs if they ever become seriously
| viable. Look at all the hand wringing over the unwashed
| masses getting their hands on cheap and fast ebikes. Right
| now nobody cares because they're just rare toys for rich
| people.
| brimble wrote:
| No-one's freaking out about those parachutes with a
| lawnmower engine & seat attached, and those have been
| around for many years and can be seen flying all over (at
| least) the rural Midwest.
|
| Now, flying them over other people's property or over a
| city is, and should be, another story.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| > Now, flying them over other people's property or over a
| city is, and should be, another story.
|
| It's not "one of the most dreamed of forms of flight -
| jetpacks" if you can't fly around town.
| ashtonkem wrote:
| Right, and that's probably never going to happen because
| of noise issues alone.
| WJW wrote:
| Jetpacks are a little bit like the Elon Musk tunnel
| digging startup: it is something you dream about when
| stuck in traffic during your commute.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| Sort of, but a tunnel network of that type is never going
| to be able to handle many users, no matter how good the
| design gets, while improved and safe jetpacks probably
| could replace most of the cars on the road.
| WJW wrote:
| I doubt it, for basically the same reason that electric
| bicycles are not going to replace most of the cars. They
| might be great, but are not very nice for long commutes
| in poor weather (while wearing fancy suits or
| dresses/skirts).
|
| For jetpacks there is an additional huge problem with
| safety flying over inhabited areas. Unless the jetpacks
| are _meticulously_ maintained and inspected, we would see
| people falling out of the sky on the daily. Taking the
| maintenance state of most cars as an example, it seems
| safe to state that it would be infeasible to expect the
| general population to keep their jetpacks in an
| acceptable state.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| Electric bikes are also significantly slower than cars
| and expose you to a lot of ground-based hazards, even on
| the days with the best weather.
| Tostino wrote:
| It's honestly gone better than I expected as someone who
| built their first ebike back in 2006.
| kashkhan wrote:
| SS 103.15 Operations over congested areas.
|
| No person may operate an ultralight vehicle over any
| congested area of a city, town, or settlement, or over any
| open air assembly of persons.
| tshaddox wrote:
| > you're probably only going to kill yourself if something
| goes wrong; and what can be more American than allowing
| that?
|
| I don't think the reason for this deregulation is that the
| FAA doesn't care if you only kill yourself, but rather that
| the number of people interested in doing this is and was
| _in practice_ incredibly small. Yes, anyone _can_ go buy a
| paramotor for $10,000 and probably figure out how to
| operate it just well enough to be able to kill themselves,
| but _in practice_ this is extremely rare.
|
| You can be sure that if it somehow became wildly popular
| for people to buy these things and it was causing lots of
| problems, the regulations would change. The exact thing
| happened with the massive popularity of "drones," which
| were similarly deregulated because the usage of RC aircraft
| had also been limited to a small number of RC clubs around
| the country.
| the8472 wrote:
| > including up to 5 gallons of fuel
|
| That's enough to reach critical mass of many fissile
| elements. I wonder if it would be possible to build a
| miniature nuclear rocket with enough thrust to lift a
| human. The weight budget probably isn't enough to include
| enough shielding.
| jeffreyrogers wrote:
| You would need to get regulatory approval to operate the
| reactor.
| outworlder wrote:
| > It's not that no one cares. We just want one that's under
| 20K, has more than 45 minutes flight time, isn't loud or bulky,
| and is extremely safe.
|
| That's a paramotor.
|
| Still, not enough people care.
| SideburnsOfDoom wrote:
| > under 20K, has more than 45 minutes flight time, isn't loud
| or bulky, and is extremely safe.
|
| These are of course, impossibly contradictory requirements for
| a jet-engine device.
| zxcvbn4038 wrote:
| We have ray guns too but the batteries need a fork lift which
| takes away all the fun!
|
| I guess in the mean time all the would-be Buck Rogers can save
| the world by running over the aliens with their fork lift and
| dropping heavy batteries on them. Board with a nail not included.
| Animats wrote:
| As usual, flying is easy, but landing is hard. Someone commented
| on a previous generation of jetpacks that "knees are terrible
| landing gear".
|
| What are they using for a turbojet engine? One of the great
| frustrations of light aircraft is that nobody has been able to
| make a cheap and reliable jet aircraft engine. It's possible to
| make one small and light enough, but they don't seem to get any
| cheaper below 6-passenger bizjet size. NASA put some effort into
| this in the 1990s, and Williams tried, but all that happened was
| that bizjets got a bit better.
| chipsa wrote:
| RC aircraft jet engines like:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JetCat_P400
| Animats wrote:
| _" It is with unimaginable sadness that we announce the
| passing of Jetman Pilot, Vincent (Vince) Reffet, who died on
| the morning of 17 November during training in Dubai."_
|
| Mfgr: (via Google Translate) _" The CAT JetCat model jet
| turbines are designed exclusively for model flying and are
| not suitable for any other purpose. Definitely not for people
| or use goods or by any other means, except exclusively for
| model aircraft, because any other uses lead to personal
| injury or death can."_
|
| There are low cost (well, US $10,000) jet engines, but they
| are not human-rated.
| taubek wrote:
| I remember jetpack from opening of Olympic games in L. A. in
| 1984.
|
| I was surprised to learn that jetpack used in James Bond movie
| Thuderball from 1965 was a real jetpack.
| dukeofdoom wrote:
| Flying skateboards is what we are waiting for
| TimTheTinker wrote:
| > For decades, humans have said they want jetpacks, and for
| thousands of years we have said we want to fly, but do we really?
| Look up. The sky is empty.
|
| I have wanted to become a small plane or ultralight pilot since I
| was in high school (I'm nearly 40 now)... it's just that with a
| single income and kids, life is expensive and busy.
|
| I was astonished recently while watching _The Spirit of St Louis_
| (the 1957 Jimmy Stewart movie) - how as a young man Charles
| Lindbergh drove into Souther Field, bought an army surplus Jenny
| biplane for $500 cash (about $8000 in today 's dollars), and took
| off immediately without any bureaucracy. Oh for that kind of
| freedom!
|
| Maybe I'll do paramotor training with my kids when they're in
| their late teens - but for now, I can only stare up at the sky
| and dream (and occasionally watch YouTube videos of others living
| that dream).
| ashtonkem wrote:
| Flying has gotten more expensive, but not that much more
| expensive if you're really motivated. Kit airplanes can be
| fairly cheap, $30k for a kitfox, and often can be maintained by
| the owner because they're amateur built.
|
| The issue is the same as Lindbergh's day though. Amateur built
| airplanes are not safe.
| bener wrote:
| You'll get there! Initial "trial" flying lessons can be
| relatively cheap, and in my case the tutor was letting me take
| off and land on my second lesson (with dual controls of course,
| I wasn't very good)
| dieselerator wrote:
| I find the article interesting in that it provides us a first
| person view of operating the machine. We get a perspective about
| the current state of jetpack development. We become aware a timer
| (ie, fuel gauge) is the primary flight instrument. I am happy to
| read about this rather than needing to have the experience
| myself.
| hooby wrote:
| People have always dreamed of flying... in highly varying
| intensity.
|
| At the one extreme we got people afraid of flying and never
| wanting to leave the ground at all - and at the other extreme we
| have people absolutely obsessed with flying.
|
| But I think we have a reached a point where everyone along that
| spectrum can get their fill of flying more or less easily.
|
| For a lot of people, taking a commercial flight and getting a
| window seat might already be enough to scratch that flying itch.
|
| Those who want a bit more than that can easily book a flight in a
| small propeller plane, or a helicopter or a hot air balloon.
|
| People who want even more can go paragliding, or hang gliding, or
| sky diving.
|
| And those who want the most extreme flying package they can
| possibly get - well those people no longer dream of jetpacks -
| those people do fly wing-suits now.
|
| There's no niche left for the jetpack to fill - every type of
| flying desire is already being served. And instead of going with
| a jetpack, you could also choose something that's just as
| exciting but a lot safer and cheaper - or something that's just
| as dangerous but a lot more exciting and still cheaper.
|
| The jetpack was more fascinating while it was the most exciting
| option imaginable, and more longed for, during a time when any
| kind of flying was just out of reach for most people.
| friendlydog wrote:
| Hoverbikes seem more in reach for price and safety.
| 3pt14159 wrote:
| Yes.
|
| That's because they cost more than $300k and can only fly for ten
| or so minutes. If they costed 1/10th that and could fly at the
| very least 4x that then people would be losing their minds over
| these things. They are fast enough. Cool looking enough. Etc.
| Just bring down the price and up the range.
| jakear wrote:
| A bit like a hang glider? Article claims interest in them has
| declined as well.
| HALtheWise wrote:
| A major reason for the decline in interest in hang gliding is
| dramatic technical improvements in paragliders, which are
| quite a bit more portable and cheaper for an increasingly
| small performance hit. Combined interest in paragliders and
| hang gliders is at an all time high.
| mettamage wrote:
| For the people suggesting paramotors as the actual jetpacks of
| our time (in terms of promise), there never has been a paramotor
| topic at the frontpage!
|
| I found this submission quite fun [1, 2].
|
| It was submitted to HN twice and only got 4 upvotes (I used the
| HN searchbar and typed: paramotor).
|
| [1] https://www.justine-haupt.com/blimpdrive/index.html
|
| [2] https://youtu.be/5pPJ-Z4vVyI
| jokoon wrote:
| Seems like using 4 rotors or jet engines around the pilot might
| be a better solution.
| jonathankoren wrote:
| I keep thinking about about the Hiller VZ-1. Like standing on a
| blender.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiller_VZ-1_Pawnee
|
| Which coincidentally, kind of makes an appearance in the
| opening of Jonny Quest https://youtu.be/7gNBFmlNUfM?t=38
| ultra_nick wrote:
| I had a project idea for a hoverpack instead of a jetpack. It
| would only cancel gravity in short busts to enable people to
| super jump over things. The reduced power needs lowered the total
| price to around $5,000. No time to build it though.
| seafoam wrote:
| It would be good to understand the failure characteristics.
|
| Is the risk comparable to a wing suit, or a helicopter, or a
| single-engine plane ?
| mh- wrote:
| I think the failure characteristics are pretty easy to
| understand.
|
| They'd fall into two categories:
|
| - Sudden loss of power
|
| - Mechanical failure that results in unscheduled disassembly
|
| As these crafts have no aerodynamic surfaces like the 3 other
| things you compared them to, the first category would result in
| the rider falling from whatever height. (Minimum altitudes to
| successfully deploy even a BASE parachute are higher than one
| might think.)
|
| And well, the second category should be self explanatory. An
| explosive failure of the stuff strapped to your back would just
| create extra excitement or death before proceeding reverting to
| the first failure mode.
| lordnacho wrote:
| There might be a missing scenario in your list: bag of
| potatoes.
| jpswade wrote:
| This comes up every so often and I think the reality is, yes
| people would like jet packs but they would prefer to be safe.
|
| Reminds me of this sketch.
|
| https://youtu.be/vDIojhOkV4w
| jodrellblank wrote:
| I love the quiet commentary of this Mitchell and Webb "Jump off
| a cliff" sketch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTcBWo4Aj0g
|
| Compared to all the killer theme park attractions and extreme
| sports. "It's all fine though?" "Yeah it's all fine". That's
| enough.
| BatFastard wrote:
| that was perfect!
| Toutouxc wrote:
| Even helicopters burn fuel like crazy when hovering out of ground
| effect, and the only reason we use them are their huge main
| rotors that get some of that efficiency back when actually moving
| at speed, and also because they're the only thing available.
|
| Anything fighting gravity with pure thrust is basically DOA at
| this point, and double that for inherently inefficient propulsion
| methods like jets. Ducted fans, maybe, but most likely not. And
| that's still allowing for fossil fuels and huge fuel consumption.
| Bring batteries into the equation and you can forget about
| personal VTOL for anything longer than five minute hops.
| [deleted]
| dcchambers wrote:
| People would love to fly, but in the magic carpet sense. When you
| look at the dirty and dangerous physical reality of what a
| jetpack is it's obvious why no one wants one.
| schleck8 wrote:
| It's so annoying how first generation technology is trashed by a
| community that should know better.
|
| Of course it will be inaccessible and inefficient.
|
| Where is the spirit of innovation?
| Ekaros wrote:
| Cursory understanding of physics and chemistry.
|
| Fighting against gravity by exhausting anything is energy
| inefficient. And there isn't really anything to fix that. It is
| just fact of universe.
| didip wrote:
| In the Jetson, a jetpack doesn't have to care about fuel
| capacity, safety of the pilot, regulations, and cost of
| production.
|
| But in real life these are legitimate engineering constraints.
|
| Also, if you can scale up a drone to be a 1-person vehicle, I bet
| it will be safer than jetpack.
| stavros wrote:
| We have, and as for safety, well... If you think a jetpack is
| unsafe, wait until you see the blades on a drone.
| Johnny555 wrote:
| It's not so much that we don't care, but that the current
| jetpacks are so expensive, hard to operate, low runtime, and so
| unsafe that they just aren't relevant to most people. I'm not
| sure that the technology will ever improve enough to make the
| sci-fi style jetpack that anyone can use.
|
| The only jetpack I've seen that I'd actually be willing to use is
| the kind that's more like a hose tethered to a water pump that
| lifts you a few feet above the water, that one looks like it'd be
| fun, with little chance of injury if it fails.
|
| https://www.jetpackamerica.com/
| jon-wood wrote:
| They're completely impractical, that jet pack does indeed exist,
| but there are approximately two people in the world who can
| safely fly it untethered. Every now and again they'll pop again
| with "mountain rescue experiment with jet pack" or "Marines
| demonstrate boarding with jet pack", and every time it's just the
| creator cosplaying as whatever service he's trying to sell it to
| this time.
| twobitshifter wrote:
| Furthermore if you want the sensation of a jet pack, there's
| the jet lev, which seems much safer. The article mentions that
| this should only be flown over water on a tether, so what's the
| benefit over a jetlev?
|
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=s00SwPZ_1D0
| Animats wrote:
| That's like the Flyboard, another water-jet system.[1] That's
| the world champion flying.
|
| The Flyboard people now have the Flyboard Air.[2] This is a
| real flying hoverboard, powered by what is believed to be a
| group of model aircraft jet engines. It's not easy to fly.
| They require 50-100 hours in the water-powered version before
| attempting the jet-powered version.
|
| It's very cool, but it's for people who find skateboarding
| stunts too easy.
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0JhUSu8v2N4
|
| [2] https://atlanticflyboard.com/flyboard-air
| badrabbit wrote:
| Could say the same about the wright brothers in the early
| 1900s. Longevity of the flight and safe operation can only
| improve in time. The question is does anyone care. People will
| be scared of it and if not does it offer anything over cars?
| It's not like you can fly it over private property , there will
| be laws that regulate where you can fly it.
|
| Just give me hyperloop tunnels to overlap subways and freeways
| and I am set. Especially with better bike lanes.
| [deleted]
| BlueTemplar wrote:
| Aircraft were improved immensely by new materials since then.
| But jetpacks are still impractical. Might we see the same
| level of improvements _again_ in the next century ? (And even
| if we do, wouldn 't "super planes/copters" _still_ be ahead
| of jetpacks ?)
| ashtonkem wrote:
| > Could say the same about the wright brothers in the early
| 1900s.
|
| Yes, you could. But that's not actually an argument that jet
| packs will follow a same development path, it's just survivor
| bias in action.
| badrabbit wrote:
| They may not, I was just saying we don't know what
| developments will be made in the future.
| mirekrusin wrote:
| Exactly, we had "smartphones" before iphone as well and nobody
| did care.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Hmmm... Not sure that Jetpack 2.0 will ever be a thing like
| the iPhone was.
|
| Helicopters autogyro, planes glide, balloons (usually) lose
| their lift slowly.
|
| A jetpack, like a rocket, is a thing that has no business
| flying. Only a large, heavy-handed impulse of energy allow
| them to oppose gravity. Without altitude and a parachute,
| there is no Plan B for a jetpack engine failure, loss of
| fuel, etc.
| ehnto wrote:
| I think a parachute would be pretty easy to accommodate, at
| least an emergency one. Maybe it'll still hurt, but cut the
| pack loose and hopefully you would survive. Not everyone
| survives helicopter or plane engine failures either.
|
| I certainly don't think jetpacks are a relevant tool for
| society outside of really niche use cases. If we don't even
| trust people to fly small drones around the public safely
| and without FAA regulation and licensing, in what dreamland
| would we all be able to fly personal jetpacks to the shops,
| or even recreationally? There are way cheaper, way safer
| ways to get airbourne as a private aviation enthusiast, so
| I can see why jetpacks really don't scratch enough itches
| to have gained popularity.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| Parachutes have a minimum altitude, and jetpacks really
| do not push people into flying high. (What is a problem
| in more ways than that, because most of the things that
| can make your flight safer need altitude.)
| rhino369 wrote:
| Blackberries were huge and growing. iPhone definitely
| expanded the market faster than anyone dreamed. But it was
| easy to see where the market would go before iPhone.
| mirekrusin wrote:
| If it was "easy to see" we wouldn't have iphone dominance.
| rhino369 wrote:
| Easy to see at a high level--phones with web, multimedia
| support, and app support. Near impossible to guess what
| exactly what would look like and when.
| Ekaros wrote:
| The pieces where there already, just good enough product
| with good enough connectivity was missing. In the end
| iPhone is nothing more than refined PDA...
| WJW wrote:
| I just want to point out that global iPhone market share
| has been hovering between 15% and 20% for years. Android
| has almost all of the rest. Iphones are not dominant.
| ajb92 wrote:
| Global market share is one kind of dominance, there are
| others
| inglor_cz wrote:
| I had Nokia 7650 in 2004 and I am hopefully not-nobody...
| these devices, although clumsy, paved the way to the modern
| mobile ecosystem.
| mirekrusin wrote:
| Yes, maybe those jetpacks and micro flying machines will
| pave the way to future electric-scooter-like flying.
| pmontra wrote:
| A lot of people had smartphones before iPhones. Basically all
| the 3G phones sold in Europe since 2003. I was working for an
| operator that got 3 M customers in its first year back then.
|
| Had they a touchscreen as good as iPhone's? Definitely not.
| Did they had an internet connecting better than iPhone's?
| Definitely yes because the original iPhone was only 2G.
|
| Anyway, this is only an analogy so let's don't get too much
| into it.
|
| People don't care about jetpacks because they are crazy
| dangerous and expensive. This makes them less practical than
| jumping from a plane with a parachute instead of waiting for
| it to land.
| Tostino wrote:
| Early adopters absolutely did care.
| mirekrusin wrote:
| I'm sure people who fly jetpacks absolutely do care about
| jetpacks.
| fartcannon wrote:
| Quite a few of us cared. The teeming millions may not have,
| but definitely more than nobody.
| mirekrusin wrote:
| Sure, I meant it in context, obviously some people did
| care, otherwise they simply wouldn't exist at all, what I
| meant is nobody = niche = not mainstream by any means.
| fartcannon wrote:
| I still think that's an understatement. Not that it
| matters really, but did you forget about the ubiquity of
| Blackberry's for nearly a decade prior to the iPhone?
| wutbrodo wrote:
| > Marines demonstrate boarding with jet pack", and every time
| it's just the creator cosplaying as whatever service he's
| trying to sell it to this time.
|
| Didn't an actual Royal Marine do this recently, in a training
| exercise?
| https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/aviation/a38748085...
|
| This seems like exactly what we'd expect for a technology this
| new and dangerous, and is certainly a step farther than "the
| creator is the only one flying it".
|
| EDIT: Per other comments on this thread, apparently the Royal
| Marine in question _is_ the creator
| MR4D wrote:
| We solved the stability for drones that cost as little as $20.
| We'll solve it the same way for jet packs as well.
| ashtonkem wrote:
| We solved stability for a rigid drone that's symmetric and
| designed for purpose. That's a lot different than solving for
| stability for a variable size and weight human that's
| wriggling around.
| radley wrote:
| > solving for stability for a variable size and weight
| human that's wriggling around.
|
| Was solved for Segways. Just need the third axis and some
| kind of special emergency landing solution (goo + inflato-
| ball??).
| ashtonkem wrote:
| No, it's more complex than that. A Segway is counting on
| the fact that it's sitting on the ground. The force
| vector on the rider is purely a function of angle. A jet
| pack has the issue that there is a moveable center of
| gravity and moveable sources of thrust that feed back
| into each other. It's doable, I'm sure, but it's also
| much more complicated than a Segway + another direction.
| MR4D wrote:
| It's just a digital gimbal. Similar to a light drone in a
| breeze.
| guerrilla wrote:
| I was thinking about this while watching a paraglider with
| propeller yesterday. I was thinking, maybe you could use tiny
| jets for this, but the question is why would you... this is
| already perfect [1]. Seems like jetpacks are a solution looking
| for a problem and at the same time highly impractical.
|
| 1. https://youtu.be/L1Z8YT6w7Rc
| EliRivers wrote:
| In his defence, Richard Browning, of Gravity Industries, was an
| actual Royal Marine. Granted, reservist, but they still take
| and pass the commando course. I ran into him a couple of times
| in the service; while he's not in anymore, "cosplay" seems a
| harsh term in his case.
| ehnto wrote:
| What were we expecting from jetpacks though, really? Is it not
| more fair to suggest that the past was a little bit naive about
| what it would take to operate a jetpack? They're still aircraft
| after all, at the very least you're going to need pilots
| license.
|
| There's no "bicycle" of jetpacks, you've got three axis of
| movement and certain death in every direction but up, it's just
| not a tool that belongs in the every-man's garage.
|
| I think the same can be said for the past's perception of what
| flying cars would be like. You don't see your average joe
| flying a helicopter to work, for the very same reasons you'll
| never see personal flying cars be ubiquitous.
| everdrive wrote:
| > There's no "bicycle" of jetpacks, you've got three axis of
| movement and certain death in every direction but up,
|
| Arguably, this could exist, and is a self-stabilizing battery
| powered drone.
| falcolas wrote:
| > What were we expecting from jetpacks though, really?
|
| Drones, in the form of a jetpack.
|
| A little joystick in each hand with DJI levels of KISS, and
| with the same DJI "Help I'm out of control!" button too.
| Probably "return to home" too.
|
| We don't/can't have that, because there's no servo-mechanical
| joints to be controlled in the referenced rocket pack system.
| scythe wrote:
| >There's no "bicycle" of jetpacks, you've got three axis of
| movement and certain death in every direction but up, it's
| just not a tool that belongs in the every-man's garage.
|
| There is a perfectly good flying vehicle that can be flown by
| an ordinary person with a reasonable amount of training; it's
| called a powered paraglider. However, it has the disadvantage
| that it is _very_ large, and if the weather is not favorable,
| you can 't fly.
|
| The analogy with a car would be "road sometimes spontaneously
| turns into scree", and it would be very hard to design a car
| that can cope with that.
| andrei_says_ wrote:
| To be completely honest my expectations of jet packs were
| modeled by cartoons.
|
| I am admitting this publicly as a reminder to myself and
| others for the fact that for the public, the process of
| writing software is modeled by scenes of hackers in Hollywood
| movies.
| thereddaikon wrote:
| I feel that improved control systems could go a long way to
| making them more controllable. Look at RC aircraft, they used
| to take a lot of practice to fly and even when mastered
| required so much focus that they weren't useful for anything.
| But now drones practically fly themselves and instead of
| "flying" the drone, the pilot really just tells it where to
| go. The flight software figures out the rest.
|
| There's no reason the same principles can't be applied to jet
| packs. Add a gyro or two, gps etc to give it the data it
| needs and the pilot should have a much easier time.
|
| The more difficult to solve problem is with endurance. They
| are only good for 10s of seconds of powered flight.
| sbierwagen wrote:
| >certain death in every direction but up
|
| Up is also certain death, if you're not carrying bottled
| oxygen.
| tshaddox wrote:
| > They're still aircraft after all, at the very least you're
| going to need pilots license.
|
| I think a reasonable interpretation of the _promise_ of
| jetpacks would be more like the "ultralight vehicles"
| category (as it's called in the United States). These
| vehicles require no registration or pilot certification. Some
| are fairly traditional rigid airplane designs (just very
| small and lightweight), but the category also includes
| powered paragliders (AKA paramotors) and some of the smaller
| powered parachutes.
|
| Where I grew up in the US these were fairly common to see in
| the air, and no one thought it was odd that they didn't
| require a pilots license. Perhaps for many people in many
| areas the regulations or different, and it strikes them as
| absurd to fly aircraft without a license?
| Grimburger wrote:
| Ironically where I live, it's far simpler to get a private
| pilot's license than a provisional car license.
|
| It takes 25 hour in a plane to get a recreational license,
| and 120 supervised hours logged in a car, for people who
| don't have a relative to do the supervision and need to pay
| and instructor, the cost comes out more than getting a
| pilots license.
|
| Once that's done to be allowed on the road alone, they need
| to get their 2nd provisional license a year later, then
| full car license a year again after that, with additional
| tests along the way.
| dioxide wrote:
| rocket man.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| >> There's no "bicycle" of jetpacks
|
| Grab any drone with a 200kg capacity (they do exist), hang a
| lawn chair under it, and take to the sky. That's probably
| safer. Jetpacks as a concept might get overtaken by the small
| helicopters we today call drones.
| ehnto wrote:
| But would you let a child operate the drone chair? I think
| you're right that drones would be some kind of safer, I
| think it's the more likely of the two technologies to work
| for personal aviation.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| If you want to get to work in the morning, then a drone
| full of autopilots and AI is the safe and reliable way to
| fly across the city. But for living the Ironman fantasy
| of sailing through windows then you'll need a jetpack
| with all the associated dangers.
| NeuNeurosis wrote:
| Funny you mention that. I just saw the below on reddit the
| other day.
|
| https://explorersweb.com/jetson-one-giant-passenger-drone/
| echelon wrote:
| Put a giant pre-inflated airbag around it and that might
| not be unreasonable.
| Animats wrote:
| That's a nice piece of hardware.
|
| There are other big, people-carrying drones. eHang was
| probably the first, in 2016. They've actually sold a few.
| Price is above US$300K. They routinely fly above cities.
| Like everybody else, they're battery-limited. Their limit
| is about 30 minutes.
|
| All those un-shrouded spinning blades at low height are
| worrisome.
| dclowd9901 wrote:
| And yet, it's quite easy to fly a drone in simple mannerisms.
| The UX failure of the jet pack is refinement in software,
| which drone makers have already figured out.
|
| The real issue is, with an 8 minute flight time, it's good
| for demonstrations and that's it.
| fishtoaster wrote:
| I feel like you could describe cars the same way:
|
| You've got two axis of movement at 60mph. Stray a couple feet
| left or right and you die in fiery inferno. Stop too fast or
| too slow, same deal. Maybe appropriate for highly-trained
| specialists, not for every-man's garage.
|
| My point is not that "cars are death machines no one should
| own," although there are certainly those who hold that
| opinion. Rather that inherently dangerous things can be made
| relatively safe with enough systems around them: roads,
| signs, traffic laws, licenses, seatbelts, and so on.
| somehnacct3757 wrote:
| The third axis adds the risk of a gravity impact to every
| accident. Maybe it's solvable with some kind of failproof
| parachute system, I dunno. I wouldn't invest in it.
|
| Showing that cars are scary doesn't disprove that flying
| cars are more scary
| kiliantics wrote:
| I think it was a mistake to allow just about anyone behind
| the wheel of a car. It results in upwards of 1 million
| deaths per year, that's more than malaria. And that's not
| including deaths attributed to air pollution.
| silvestrov wrote:
| The big difference is that cars have brakes and that coming
| to a full stop will avoid most crashes.
|
| There is no good "emergency braking" for jetpacks, there is
| not even "autorotation" as there is for helicopters.
| nerdponx wrote:
| I think maybe the problems are: 1) the extra axis of
| movement means more operating complexity, and 2) there is
| no equivalent of "5 mph in a parking lot" on a jetpack,
| either you're flying or you're not.
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| yes but the way to make cars safe is to - seriously
| constrain their movements (all cars here move in this
| direction, you can get off here, you can get on here etc.
| ), have different types of licenses for different kinds of
| cars, and limit their speeds based on location.
|
| Jetpacks, and the flying car, have more possible ways to
| move.
|
| The Jetsons used to show the flying car working the way the
| normal car did - highways in the sky - that's basically the
| way it would have to work to be made safe, as long as there
| are any sizable amount of users of the jetpack or flying
| car.
|
| The jetpack has of course other hazards associated with it
| such as the engine being really close to the human
| operating it with significantly less shielding than one has
| on the car.
|
| on edit: I think there might have been problems with the
| car in some Jetsons and George had to parachute to safety,
| arms crossed and a seriously miffed expression on his face.
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| So all that said - what would be required of the flying
| car for it to work well enough to supplant the car? (not
| the jetpack, that will at best be the skateboard of the
| sky)
|
| 1. It would have to be significantly faster, able to go
| longer (makes sense this would be the case because
| obviously you can fly quicker than you can drive so I
| assume this benefit will be a gimme, but it has to be
| significant for people to care. If you can make the
| flight to grandma's house in 3 hours instead of 8 there
| would be interest)
|
| 2. It would have to not cost very much more to own or to
| run.
|
| 3. It would have to not be any less safe for drivers than
| it currently is to drive - at the beginning this might be
| the case because less drivers means more safe maybe.
|
| 4. there would probably have to be significant safety
| features built in to keep flying cars from causing
| catastrophic damage if they failed - this seems to right
| there make it impossible because it has to not cost much
| more than a normal car.
|
| 5. There would probably have to increase in automation of
| cars to be able to detect when something wrong, when
| someone breaking flight rules etc.
|
| 6. no internal combustion engine flying cars, because a
| falling car with internal combustion engine is also a
| potential bomb.
|
| so what are the benefits - we've already mentioned 1 but
| are there others?
|
| Conceivably with a mass movement to flying cars instead
| of cars the infrastructure of cars would no longer be
| needed or need to be maintained. A utopian vision would
| then be that all that land that is currently big packed
| freeways get converted to parks etc. although a cynical
| vision would say oh nobody would want to pay for that and
| they turn into dystopian hellholes and kids go there to
| get eaten by coyotes.
|
| Possible benefit #3 - to make safe have to have much
| routes for everything but given that we have all the sky
| conceivably there could be more routes, including
| emergency routes that would be left to emergency services
| or people registered for a possible quick route (quick
| routes to hospital for birth etc.) All of this of course
| implies flying cars with effective computer surveillance
| of drivers.
|
| So I see these benefits to flying car - 1. quicker longer
| trips enabled. 2. No longer need driving car
| infrastructure 3. possible solutions to congestion are
| still available with flying car.
|
| But does that mean it is doable.
|
| I think the needed functionality points basically cancels
| out it ever working but maybe I am pessimistic, although
| I do think that now we are actually getting to the point
| where the necessary prerequisites for flying cars are
| starting to be built - specifically good electric cars
| and driving automation and services (but way early for
| that, flying cars in 100 years at this rate)
| edaemon wrote:
| Jetpacks don't have brakes. Once you start moving, coming
| to a stop is very difficult or very harmful. You have to be
| a highly trained specialist to operate a jetpack _at all_ ,
| while you can gently learn to operate a car.
| nwienert wrote:
| I think this comment is reasonable and the replies to this
| comment are filled with bad takes.
|
| Currently designed Jetpacks don't have brakes, or any
| safety features really, but that's just a lack of
| development.
|
| You could easily think of hundreds of safety features that
| would make Jetpacks in a distant future seem pretty safe,
| from auto pilot/recovery features, automated object
| detection and avoidance, body suits with built in airbags,
| better designed packs that give things like 100x better
| articulation control, built in parachutes, the list could
| go on forever really.
|
| Meanwhile cars actually have additional dangerous
| properties: being stuck in very confined tracks where any
| other user errors affect you, limited visibility, and a
| massive amount of heavy metal surrounding you.
|
| I don't see why Jetpacks couldn't be as safe as a cars
| given they had an equal amount of investment into safety as
| we see modern cars. And to answer the article as to why
| they aren't popular, it's pretty easy to see that they just
| kind of suck as they are now, they need improvements in
| nearly every dimension.
| outworlder wrote:
| The reason they are not popular is that we don't have a
| practical power source. Flight times are measured in
| minutes. And practical ones that could be used by anyone
| would be much larger (think VTOL hang glider, not Bobba
| Fett).
|
| Even with a practical power source, you know have an
| immense amount of energy stored right next to your body.
| You need to be able to direct said energy in a safe way.
| Good luck.
|
| There's only so much airbags can do. Imagine where you
| would locate those airbags. Cant be pressed against the
| body either (airbags can cause horrible injuries).
| Parachutes won't help close to the ground.
| iainmerrick wrote:
| I think there are a couple of key differences that you're
| underplaying.
|
| First, for usage of cars in society, there's a nice
| gradual curve where an early slow unreliable car is still
| somewhat useful, and a faster car is a bit more useful,
| etc, and that's what allowed them to get off the ground
| (as it were). There's a vastly higher threshold before
| jetpacks start being usable and useful.
|
| Second, cars are relatively fail-safe in that if you take
| your foot off the accelerator the car will coast to a
| halt. Lots of cars can easily come to a safe stop
| together -- traffic jams are bad but not immediately
| life-threatening.
|
| Jetpacks aren't nearly as failsafe because if you stop
| flying you need to land (or more likely, crash-land).
|
| Planes have the same two advantages over jetpacks,
| because even a slow or unreliable plane is useful because
| it can carry cargo; and most planes can glide a bit which
| helps reduce the risk of crash landings.
| notahacker wrote:
| Apart from anything else, the minimum viable car was
| pretty much as safe as modern cars (probably actually
| harder to kill yourself in the original car with its
| 10mph top speed), and just as intuitive to operate
| safely. The safety advances came later to deal mostly
| with problems which arose later (speed and other cars and
| boredom from long distance low effort driving)
| pdonis wrote:
| _> inherently dangerous things can be made relatively safe
| with enough systems around them: roads, signs, traffic
| laws, licenses, seatbelts, and so on._
|
| While this is true, the issue is that what is required for
| "enough" can vary very widely. In particular, what would be
| "enough" for jetpacks (and flying machines more generally)
| is a lot more than what experience has shown to be "enough"
| for cars. Some indications of why that is are the frequency
| of airplane accidents involving experienced pilots, who
| have had a lot more training on how to fly a plane than
| anyone gets on how to drive a car, and also the amount of
| time and effort and the level of continuing human
| supervision required to keep commercial air travel as safe
| as it is, even though that also involves experienced pilots
| and has the support of many complex systems.
| moralestapia wrote:
| Your engine dies while driving, nothing happens.
|
| Your engine dies while flying, good luck, pal.
| outworlder wrote:
| > Your engine dies while flying, good luck, pal.
|
| In a jetpack, yes. Good luck. Drone, good luck too.
|
| Airplane? You glide down.
|
| Helicopter? You autorotate down.
| nwienert wrote:
| If only we had an invention that used air resistance to
| slow falls...
| ben_w wrote:
| Parachutes don't work well enough for this hypothetical.
|
| Are there full body airbags? Could that even work?
| HeyLaughingBoy wrote:
| > Are there full body airbags? Could that even work?
|
| Let me know if you find out. I have _got_ to get one :-)
| notahacker wrote:
| If only that invention wasn't supposed to be strapped to
| the same part of the person's anatomy as the jetpack,
| with the result being that no practically working
| implementation combining the two exists...
| nwienert wrote:
| That's not an intractable problem by a mile.
| notahacker wrote:
| It's also not the solved problem your snark implied. I
| mean, someone's been working on it for decades and his
| solution is _fly over water as much as possible_!
|
| (As other posters have alluded to, parachutes won't save
| you at low altitudes. In the mean time, it's further
| weight on your back on a device which is already
| difficult to control, and not really optimal for
| releasing next to jets of hot kerosene either)
| r00fus wrote:
| Do parachutes help when you lose control 50ft off the
| ground? Deploy time is probably too short. Also lateral
| speed may be fatal enough with a jetpack.
| chipsa wrote:
| Rocket deployed parachute. Kinda like https://en.wikipedi
| a.org/wiki/Cirrus_Airframe_Parachute_Syst...
|
| Speeds up deploy time by making the deploy happen,
| instead of waiting for gravity/airflow to deploy it.
| nwienert wrote:
| Body airbags or similar would likely work for lower
| altitude.
| ehnto wrote:
| It's not really a "new frontier being misunderstood"
| though, it's very clear what it's value proposition is, and
| it's also clear from our history with aviation so far, what
| the challenges are. As I said in another comment, we don't
| even trust people to fly small drones without certification
| and FAA regulation, there's good reason for that, being in
| the air is nothing like being on a road.
| jancsika wrote:
| To answer your question-- people in the past were
| expecting what has happened with small drones. Namely,
| that there'd be a metric fuckton of them, and that
| regulators would have to scramble to keep order before
| angry townsfolk began firing their rifles up at in the
| sky at them.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| Yeah, people in the past overestimate how eager people
| are to take obvious risks.
|
| To be fair, the eagerness of people to do activities that
| feel risky but actually aren't makes that prediction
| harder than it looks at first.
| InitialLastName wrote:
| > we don't even trust people to fly small drones without
| certification and FAA regulation, there's good reason for
| that, being in the air is nothing like being on a road.
|
| We don't trust people to operate cars on a road without
| DMV certification, FMVSS regulations, and a substantial
| amount of liability insurance.
| hunterb123 wrote:
| I feel somewhat in the middle between both of your
| opinions.
|
| The "average joe" in some regions may not fly regularly,
| but around here there's many farmers with Cessnas that do
| routine work.
|
| Currently, if you have a use for it and are somewhat
| competent, it's practical to fly and not out of reach for
| the common man.
|
| But in no near future do I see them reducing the
| restrictions, flight hours, air traffic protocols, etc.
|
| That being said, I don't see much practicality for a
| jetpack other than sport or rescue.
| ehnto wrote:
| That's a big part of my reasoning, there are some
| fundamental impracticalities to personal aviation that
| limit it to particularly niche use cases. Those don't
| really change just because it's a flying car or jetpack.
|
| I can of course picture a world where there are automated
| skyways, and electric AVs guide themeselves from abode to
| shopping mall airport, I'm not without imagination. But
| I'm not hopeful.
| jabbany wrote:
| Actually, the high level question in here is quite
| interesting (and has even been discussed in some sci-fi).
|
| Humans evolutionarily think about movement with a 2
| dimensional mindset because for much of our history we only
| needed to think about 2d movement. It's why even modern
| flight is centered around the idea of stacking multiple 2d
| environments (via elevation / flight levels) and then just
| ignoring that 3rd dimension for the most part.
|
| This is why something like a car is operationally intuitive
| -- humans don't need training to quickly pick up the
| interface for one, even a kid could operate a 2d vehicle.
| The systems around them mainly manage the risk around
| _conflict_ introduced by having multiple actors.
|
| This is also where a plane (or submarine, or jetpack) is
| fundamentally different. The systems around those need to
| manage not only conflict but also our sensory deficiencies.
| It's very easy to get disoriented in 3d movement (it's very
| easy to lose the ability to tell up from down) and there
| have been plenty of plane crashes due to this. That's why
| pilots need to infer their orientation from instruments
| rather than just their senses. That's also why flying cars
| and jetpacks are not widely available -- the amount of
| training just to operate such devices _alone_ is already
| very high, let alone having to manage conflict in addition
| to that.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| > It's why even modern flight is centered around the idea
| of stacking multiple 2d environments
|
| That's for sharing the space. It's not only a set of
| stacked 2D environments, those are also divided in road-
| like spaces, with a limited number of junctions.
| orthoxerox wrote:
| Cars are mostly 1d vehicles in practice, unless they are
| bumper cars. We try really hard to minimize 2d
| interactions between cars by stacking multiple 1d
| environments (lanes) and ignoring the 2nd dimension for
| the most part. Where we cannot ignore it we try to make
| it safe by adding turn lanes, roundabouts, traffic lights
| or building interchanges.
| eshack94 wrote:
| You raise some interesting points here that I had not
| previously considered with respect to flight/submarines
| vs. land vehicles/boats. That third dimension must
| introduce a lot of cognitive load, even before conflict
| of other vessels/aircraft enter the scene.
| jabbany wrote:
| There's some sci-fi (that I cannot remember off the top
| of my head) that actually uses this as a plot point.
|
| I may be misremembering, but the idea is there's a
| special race of humans who have continued to evolve
| living in low gravity (space) environment, and the
| terrestrial human (those living on planets) governments
| would hire them as space mercenaries because they're at a
| huge advantage when it comes to 3d combat compared to
| training some terrestrial guy.
| hedgewitch wrote:
| You don't mean The Expanse, do you?
| at_a_remove wrote:
| This was a limitation of Khan in the second Star Trek
| film.
|
| There is a trilogy of books written covering Khan's life
| and it very subtly shows why Khan has this difficulty,
| but never points at it and shouts.
| usefulcat wrote:
| I had always thought of that line as metaphorical ("two
| dimensional thinking"), but that's a very interesting
| idea, and fits well with the final battle that
| immediately follows it.
| forgetbook wrote:
| Ender's game; maybe not what you're referring to (based
| on your description), and also uses 3d navigation as a
| plot point ('The enemy is down')
| dTal wrote:
| >It's why even modern flight is centered around the idea
| of stacking multiple 2d environments (via elevation /
| flight levels) and then just ignoring that 3rd dimension
| for the most part.
|
| Generally you want to fly at a constant altitude because
| climbing and descending require energy transfers. Humans
| have little trouble coping with the concept of
| 3-dimensional flight, indicated by the enduring
| popularity of combat flight simulators, but aircraft that
| aren't built for combat physically struggle (and even in
| those that are, such flight demands careful energy
| management).
| jherdman wrote:
| > Humans evolutionarily think about movement with a 2
| dimensional mindset because for much of our history we
| only needed to think about 2d movement.
|
| Citation required? If you hang out with a child you
| quickly discover that their world is quite three
| dimensional. Heck, climbing is a fast growing sport.
| Again, three dimensional. We're made to run, jump, and
| climb. Three dimensional.
| rpdillon wrote:
| I've worked for several years with children, and have
| also piloted aircraft. 3D is _tough_, at least for me.
| aaaaaaaaaaab wrote:
| >Heck, climbing is a fast growing sport. Again, three
| dimensional.
|
| Ummm... no? The surface of a mountain is still two
| dimensional.
| lolc wrote:
| A mountain surface is 2.5 dimensional. If you allow for
| the fractal part.
| brianr wrote:
| Climbing is two-dimensional, not three - on any given
| part of a wall or tree, you can move left-right and up-
| down but not in-out.
| wahern wrote:
| 1) People, especially kids, jump between and across
| structures all the time.
|
| 2) Humans are great at throwing and catching objects,
| even with complex, changing trajectories--bouncing off
| walls, etc.
|
| 3) We have two innate senses that are clearly adapted to
| 3 dimensions: stereoscopic vision and proprioception.
|
| What makes those behaviors relatively intuitive is
| constant acceleration. In a sense constant acceleration
| makes everything 2D. (Or 2.5D?) When humans need to track
| objects which independently accelerate along 3 axes, then
| there's a much stronger case for an environment alien to
| humans. (Counter point: hunting birds, though I believe
| hunters prefer to take their shot when birds are
| beginning or ending their flight. But notably the most
| salient characteristic there is acceleration, not merely
| relative movement in 3D space.)
|
| Yeah, the more that I think about it, you get much more
| predictive power by emphasizing acceleration, not spatial
| dimensionality. And I don't think that's being pedantic;
| the distinction matters. When you look at studies of how
| the brain processes motion, constant acceleration (at
| least along 2 of 3 axes, unless/until hitting another
| object) is often one of the key assumptions that seems to
| be built into our cognition.
|
| For example, tracking many objects moving independently
| in 3D space is pretty darned difficult for
| humans.[citation needed] But that probably has more to do
| with relative motion (and thus relative acceleration)
| than with the number of dimensions as a human can track
| _two_ such objects surprisingly well, especially if they
| have a third, fixed reference independent from
| themselves.
|
| Would be curious to compare & contrast studies of spatial
| cognition between marine animals and terrestrial animals,
| though.
| sirspacey wrote:
| Love this framing. Feels like the three body problem is
| relevant.
| pwinnski wrote:
| Kids don't act in true 3-D, they act in Doom-like 2-D. It
| gives the appearance of 3-D, but the Z-axis is barely off
| zero. Climbing swaps X and Z, but is still 2-D.
|
| If it helps, think of what everybody else is calling
| "3-D" as "no obvious primary axis."
| jabbany wrote:
| From NASA: https://www.nasa.gov/audience/forstudents/9-12
| /features/F_Hu...
|
| "When there is no visual input as is common in many
| flight situations, we rely more heavily on our vestibular
| sense for this information. However, in flight and in
| space, our vestibular system, _which is designed to work
| on the ground in a 1g environment_, often provides us
| with erroneous or disorienting information."
|
| We have a system to somewhat understand and orient
| ourselves in 3d obviously, but it has quirks because
| evolution tuned it to work best on the ground + assuming
| 1G of gravity as "down".
|
| Orienting in 3d is not intuitive for us. We can do it but
| we need a _lot_ of help to do it safely.
| ipaddr wrote:
| Your quote talks about 1g gravity not that 3d is not
| intuitive. A 3d world with 1g could be intuitive.
| [deleted]
| Afton wrote:
| > __on the ground__ in a 1g
| ouid wrote:
| Planes and submarines treat down as special because down
| is genuinely special. We would have some other
| abstraction if this were not the case.
| jabbany wrote:
| It _is_ special but we cannot perceive it correctly. We
| do not have an absolute sense of "down" (and our absolute
| sense of "forward" and "backward" are based on a assuming
| fixed "down").
|
| We sense "down" based on assuming that 1G of acceleration
| is the "down" position. This is fine if you're
| stationary. This is fine if you're moving in 2d. But
| accelerate in 3d and all of a sudden you can get
| completely disoriented because the "down" you're latching
| on to could be any acceleration vector.
|
| We _can_ manage this, but it is an acquired skill and we
| need instruments to help us. Pilots (and especially
| fighter pilots or astronauts who truly experience a lot
| of 3d acceleration) need to train for years to acquire
| this skill.
|
| Can you imagine training an average person years just to
| _use_ a jetpack? That's why we have jetpacks and yet most
| people don't care.
| lazide wrote:
| Most of the astronaut and pilot training on this, btw, is
| to completely ignore what our internal intuition is and
| use instruments and direct math - for the reason you're
| talking about, but also because especially at the
| astronaut level ALL intuition related to speed,
| direction, etc. is generally wrong. for pilots it's often
| only _mostly_ wrong, but using intuition and flying IFR
| is not going to work for long.
|
| For an astronaut in orbit, going 'up' means accelerating.
| Going 'down' means slowing down. Going sideways (in the
| way we typically think of it) involves changing velocity
| in least 2 vectors twice, etc.
| hateful wrote:
| The answer here is what we have in drones. Drones can
| stay perfectly still in the air now. A flying car or
| personal "jet pack" would be the same. The usable system
| would provide all the stabilization of a drone and your
| controls would be just that of a car, with a separate
| setting for altitude.
|
| And just like cars, you wouldn't be flying it randomly,
| we'd have to build "lanes" at different heights, etc. You
| don't drive your car randomly through buildings. In fact,
| connecting to a network and having it fly for you would
| be the most likely scenario.
|
| Not to say that there wouldn't be "free flight" parks
| around.
| mountainriver wrote:
| I donno the mandolorian maybe?!
| jvanderbot wrote:
| Someday, helicopters will operate like video games, due to
| complete flight software stabilization and abstraction of the
| horrifically complicated control surfaces. This is already
| starting. But uptake is slow[1]
|
| At that time, we can revisit jetpacks and use onboard
| software to completely abstract the horrifically complicated
| control problem.
|
| 1. https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/23977/why-
| arent...
| ehnto wrote:
| I agree and it's pretty incredible, but I think to enable
| popularization of it as personal transport you'd need to
| abstract the pilot away entirely. Automate the whole
| journey, from a system that's aware of all other journeys.
| That still can't account for all dangers, but at least
| people wouldn't be flying into each other at 100mph
| outworlder wrote:
| At 25k USD for the cheapest helicoper blade, I don't see
| them getting more popular even if they become trivial to
| fly.
|
| Tiny jet turbines are expensive too.
| BlueTemplar wrote:
| Wouldn't mass manufacturing significantly drive these
| costs down ? Fuel costs however...
| ThrustVectoring wrote:
| > They're still aircraft after all, at the very least you're
| going to need pilots license.
|
| The FAA is amenable to allowing people to operate small
| personal for non-commercial purposes _without_ a license. If
| you do not take passengers and do not operate it in time,
| place, and manner that creates a hazard for others, there 's
| a very real "if you kill your own damn self that's your
| problem" regulatory mentality.
|
| What you actually need a license for is to exceed
| speed/weight/fuel limitations designed to ensure these
| conditions. If you're going for a part 103 ultralight craft,
| that's 55 knots / 254 pounds / 5 gallons of fuel. Might be
| hard to design a usable jetpack under these constraints.
| outworlder wrote:
| > What were we expecting from jetpacks though, really? Is it
| not more fair to suggest that the past was a little bit naive
| about what it would take to operate a jetpack? They're still
| aircraft after all, at the very least you're going to need
| pilots license.
|
| You need a pilots license, but you don't need fine motor
| coordination skills across your entire body PLUS a lot of
| core strength, in addition to all the problems with moving in
| 3d.
|
| For this 'jetpack' you are essentially balancing your weight
| between your back and arms. If you get it wrong for a split
| second, you'll kiss the ground. It's inherently unstable and
| tiring since you have jet turbines strapped to your arms.
|
| An aircraft is stable. Let go of the controls and it will
| keep flying.
|
| The closest aircraft comparison would possibly be with a hang
| glider, except even there your weight is supported and you
| are essentially just shifting it around.
|
| Many jetpacks in fiction were envisioned to work more like
| drones. Tell it where to go and it would do the rest. Iron
| Man would be similar to this thing, except it is described as
| a fully mechanized suit (plus artificial intelligence), which
| magically takes care of some of these problems.
|
| Ultimately, 'jetpacks' will probably never exist. There's an
| inherent physics limitation when trying to strap a whole
| human body to the side of something small (and generally
| depicted as being strapped on your back, Bobba Fett style).
| The center of mass is off.
| KineticLensman wrote:
| > since you have jet turbines strapped to your arms
|
| So soldiers that use them would need guns strapped to their
| feet?
| dreamcompiler wrote:
| The stability issues could easily be fixed with more
| closed-loop control. The much more serious issues are heat
| and the limited fuel supply.
| jonathankoren wrote:
| Agree. This is the same reason why I'm skeptical on
| flying cars. There's so many fender benders. I don't want
| a Jetta crashing through my roof.
|
| Sure, general aviation is safer than driving (e.g. less
| accidents per vehicle, and less accidents per hour/mile),
| but general aviation is more dangerous than commercial
| aviation. I suspect there's something going on with
| maintenance, training, and available safety features.
| Seems like lowering the barrier of entry to flying is
| simply going to increase the accident rate because
| there's just more less skilled people flying.
|
| Of course most flights crash on takeoff and landing, and
| conceivably that would be automated, so maybe I'm just
| being paranoid. Still seems impractical, if for no other
| reason space restrictions on the ground.
| lazide wrote:
| Commercial aviation gets to pick from the cream of the
| crop and fully professionalizes it's pilots - it's all
| they do, all the time. That means staying current
| (keeping habits fresh, remembering key details, etc)
| happen easier.
|
| Considering how low the frequency is for your your
| typical GA pilot, it's honestly a wonder it works as well
| as it does.
| carabiner wrote:
| GA is actually less safe than driving. It's about as safe
| as riding a motorcycle:
| https://inspire.eaa.org/2017/05/11/how-safe-is-it/
|
| GA aircraft crash every day in the US. They don't make
| the news outside of aviation circles because only 1-2
| people are affected. Often the occupants survive.
| rictic wrote:
| If battery tech continues to improve at current rates then
| certainly electric jetpacks will be possible and practical,
| if there's still demand (and we don't destroy ourselves one
| way or another). Without doing the math though it might be
| many decades.
| mdavidn wrote:
| Unlikely. The specific energy of jet fuel is more than 40
| times that of batteries, and I don't see batteries
| improving by an order of magnitude. A jetpack would need
| 40 times more battery mass than fuel to produce the same
| thrust for the same duration. Of course, the weight of
| the batteries require even more thrust...
| earleybird wrote:
| Nailed it.
|
| Even in cars where there they do a bunch of gliding
| (rolling) batteries are just becoming plausible (looking
| back over time).
| alisonkisk wrote:
| XMPPwocky wrote:
| "There's an inherent physics limitation when trying to
| strap a whole human body to the side of something small
| (and generally depicted as being strapped on your back,
| Bobba Fett style). The center of mass is off."
|
| While obviously wasteful and goofy, there's always the
| option of putting an _upwards-pointing_ (i.e. pushing down)
| thruster at the rear of a jetpack like a lever arm.
| asdfasgasdgasdg wrote:
| I was thinking that eventually they could design some
| kind of powered attachment between the arm pods and the
| backpack. It would accentuate your desired movement while
| relieving stress. Maybe they could control it with a
| Neuralink implant so that there won't be accidental
| movements due to buffeting. Then if you had that you
| could build an AI to make it mostly user-error-proof.
|
| To be clear, this is all pie in the sky nonsense, but
| it's fun to think about. It would _still_ be terribly
| impractical, but maybe it could be made reliable enough
| that using it over land would not be immediately fatal to
| most ordinary people who would want to try it.
| rowathay wrote:
| " this is all pie in the sky nonsense"
|
| Nah, only the Neuralink part.
| mbrameld wrote:
| > An aircraft is stable. Let go of the controls and it will
| keep flying.
|
| That's true for most fixed-wing aircraft, but it's
| certainly not true for most rotor-wing aircraft. I'd
| estimate you've got about a second, if you're lucky,
| between letting go of the cyclic in a Robinson R22 and
| unrecoverable loss-of-control.
| evilos wrote:
| Even with loss of power for rotary wing aircraft don't
| you have the option to auto rotate to the ground?
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| You have to have enough forward speed. Auto rotation is a
| joke in a real emergency most of the time.
| elpatoisthebest wrote:
| The problem with Robinson helicopters specifically (older
| R-22 & R-44 more than most) is their very low mass rotor
| system, which results in very low inertia. The time you
| have to recover is significantly shorter than other high
| inertia systems on other helicopters.
|
| Their very low cost makes them pretty common for schools
| and instruction in general, but the low inertia (and
| resultant fatalities early in its operation) was
| significant enough that the FAA requires a Robinson
| specific endorsement.
| lazide wrote:
| I wouldn't be so sure. Fundamentally this is a control
| input/feedback/positioning/power problem - one we don't
| currently know how to model or control in an automated
| fashion.
|
| With the right mental model and control/power systems, it
| wouldn't have to be much different from riding a unicycle.
| Helicopters have similar issues (it's a bit like balancing
| a spinning bowling ball on the end of a stick in practice -
| yet many people are licensed and safe helicopter pilots)
|
| I'm guessing it's something that not everyone can do, but
| something a large percentage of people (20%+?) can do if
| they spent the time learning and it was systematized
| usefully.
| funkaster wrote:
| I think the part that's missing (besides the knowledge and
| understanding of the operation in the airspace) is enough
| (automatic) assistance that its manipulation can be done by
| someone with the sake skills that any GA pilot could have.
| jayd16 wrote:
| I think we probably expected something closer to a motorcycle
| as far as danger and accessibility.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| > the creator cosplaying as whatever service he's trying to
| sell it to
|
| That guy is an actual Royal Marine Commando - he's not
| cosplaying.
| ch4s3 wrote:
| I think the point is that when you see demos, it's always him
| dressed up as a marine, mountain rescuer, etc and not someone
| else.
| hammyhavoc wrote:
| What difference does it make who demonstrates it? All that
| matters is application, performance, and whether it is fit
| for purpose.
| ch4s3 wrote:
| I think the earlier posters are pointing out that no one
| else seems to be able to safely operate the thing, which
| suggests that it might not be fit for purpose.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| The amount of training matters. If it's always him, that
| has some implications on how hard it is to turn into a
| product.
|
| And a quick demo doesn't do a good job of showing fit for
| purpose either. Maybe performance.
| hammyhavoc wrote:
| I can see this potentially having some usefulness if
| refined, but from a strictly practical perspective, I
| can't see many pilots surviving a boarding if the vessel
| has any firearms. It just lacks maneuverability.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| You (obviously) combine it with fire support. Just like a
| ladder or helicopter assault on a ship, or an infantry
| attack on land, or really any other military manoeuvre.
| hammyhavoc wrote:
| Sure, I don't disagree here. My point is that whether it
| is fit for purpose remains to be seen or whether it's a
| solution in search of a problem versus alternatives.
| toqy wrote:
| Isn't the point being made that there is nobody else
| capable of demonstrating it?
| samstave wrote:
| Question: How impracticable is the following:
|
| ---
|
| you have a machine with micro-thrusters (of whatever fuel-
| source)
|
| It is driven by modern drone tech for stability.
|
| How driven, super simplistic maths for establishing
| thrust.telemetry.balance...
|
| How the FUCK has this not been solved?
|
| A belt of jets. They fly you without killing or burning you.
|
| We are significantly evolved for this to happen...
|
| Seriously. This is a solvable thing. Do it.
| jollybean wrote:
| That's legit R&D.
|
| Marines storming a ship is an obvious use case where the high
| cost will be accounted for (i.e. we have a lot of expensive
| gear for specific purpose) and it's a practical scenario. Coast
| Guard same. And certainly other forces. If we can get the gear
| to be very easy to use and practical, it could very much enable
| a kind of acute mobility.
|
| There's little direct use beyond that, however, the development
| of the technology could yield other things as we learn to make
| those little jets cheap, efficient and intelligent.
|
| Those systems could absolutely be deoployed onto drones, which
| opens up a world of use cases.
| xtracto wrote:
| Exactly, right there in the article theres a highlighted quote
| mentioning this:
|
| > Now, the flight duration is too short, and the degree of
| difficulty too great. But this was also the case for the Wright
| brothers
|
| I think the next step for Jetpacks is to develop automated
| navigation/stabilization systems. We want a Jetpack for which
| the normal state is flying at a stable height, then with some
| kind of 3D joystick we can move steadily up, down, front, back
| and sideways. I think all of this is currently achievable but
| too expensive to implement.
|
| Also, the amount of energy required to lift a person is just to
| high, so until better ways to store energy are developed, the
| "backpack" form factor for storing energy will not cut it for
| practical flights.
| outworlder wrote:
| Better and safer too. We need to not only store incredible
| amounts of energy, but do it in such a way that's safe to do
| so next to your chest :)
| BizarroLand wrote:
| Maybe it's silly, but I want wings on my jetpack that are
| large enough that I can glide, but also that can sheath
| themselves into each other.
| autokad wrote:
| it does feel like we made lots of progress though. as we need
| less fuel for them, they get easier to use, and safety improves
| we should start seeing some real use cases
| walrus01 wrote:
| a widely usable 'jetpack' would actually be more like a ducted-
| fan coaxial octocopter that you wear, with flight
| stabilization/onboard flight controller not very dissimilar
| from a large commerical cinema filming octocopter.
|
| if it relies on the person's skill to fly it and has a 5-10
| minute max flight time, of course it'll be a niche thing...
| falcolas wrote:
| Theoretically, if you could add adjustable _mechanical_
| joints, you could hook up a flight controller to it and fly
| it. Could you add the necessary joints and motivators and
| stay inside a reasonable weight? Not so sure.
| walrus01 wrote:
| with arducopter and common COTS flight controllers people
| have made monocopters that use servo motor controlled
| vanes:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Pu-KDuxUwU
| andi999 wrote:
| I think with a active control unit safe operation should be
| possible. There are fighter jets that cannot be flewn manually
| (unstable flight behaviour). Probably range and use case is the
| problem.
| ArnoVW wrote:
| While indeed people do not use jetpack in a day-to-day manner,
| they are becoming slightly more 'available' than you portray.
|
| See this video where one of the corridor crew members
| participates in a jetpack training.
|
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-R5xYaqQo4k
|
| I think it's more precise to say that they are currently a toy
| for the rich.
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| " And this is the tragedy of jetpack technology. They can't hold
| enough fuel for more than eight minutes of flight "
| Borrible wrote:
| Yes, why don't we care? Inquiring minds need to know!
|
| https://qz.com/1667783/why-doesnt-the-military-have-jetpacks...
| citizenpaul wrote:
| Jetpacks are only useful if there is no infrastructure. You can
| get a motorcycle for <$500 that is infinity more useful than a
| $500,000 jetpack. Hop on the road and get where you want in a
| moment.
|
| Plus a jetpack requires special licensing and pre approved flight
| plans, ect.
|
| Jetpacks are only a toy, a very, very expensive toy as they are
| now.
| hirako2000 wrote:
| it's rather $300,000, but at the burning rate of several litres
| of kerosene per minute, your budget isn't far off reality of
| actually owning one and using it.
| byw wrote:
| Or even a light helicopter. You can get a Robinson R22 (2-seat)
| for around $300k new, or R44 (4-seat) for around $500k.
| twobitshifter wrote:
| A Honda Grom is still $3500, but I don't think that weakens
| your point about cost. However, similarly to jet packs,
| autogyros, ultralights, and paramotors, motorcycles are not as
| popular in the USA, due to safety concerns. So even though
| motorcycles are very useful and cheap, people don't ride them
| much. I think the same would be true of a $3500 jet pack.
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