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Is the world wising-up to the Jetpack?

Today I saw yet another press release from Martin Jetpack, loosely disguised as a news item, this time on the Popular Science website.

No new information in this story, just more of the same old hyperbole and promises.

However, there was something well worth reading on that page -- something that indicates the world might just be tiring of the endless "coming soon" line that Martin has been delivering for years now and an indication that few see it as a true jetpack at all.

Just check out the user-comments.

On savvy commenter says "i asked the last time this was in the news what made it a jet pack, the answer is obviously nothing, however, it is very cool, too bad it isn't less expensive".

Another reader states "Why do you passively submit to the seller's marketing scheme of calling this device a jetpack?"

I note also that the article says "The first units could ship as early as next year".

Don't you love this kind of "reporting"?

Yes, the first units *could* ship as early as next year -- and Prince Harry *could* marry Lady Gaga next week -- but is any of this really likely?

They say of the latest 9-minute flight:

"Had the machine been holding a live person instead of a 150-pound dummy, it would have smashed the record for the longest and highest jetpack flight ever. Every other such device in history has managed to be airborne for, at most, only a minute or two"

But the MJP *wasn't* holding a live person -- it was just carrying a dummy.

When Martin actually demonstrate the thing flying at the claimed speed of 100kph for 9 minutes with an *actual* pilot onboard and covering more than a few hundred metres due to wind-drift, then my BS detector might drop a few dB in intensity.

If anyone wants a *real* jetpack then take a look at this article from the archives of Popular Science magazine.

I even found some video of this true jetpack on YouTube

The Bell Jet-belt was about the closest thing we've seen to a true jetpack, being powered by a high bypass turbofan engine and having an endurance that would have allowed for flight times of almost 20 minutes. What's more, it would have sounded really cool and actually qualified for the title of "jetpack".

Although this device did fly, the economics never did stack up -- the turbofan engine being hideously expensive to build and maintain -- plus the obvious issues associated with any unexpected failure of that engine, a problem that lingers to this day even with the MJP.

One day, when I've got time and money to burn, I might just build a pulsejet-powered jetpack and show how ridiculously impractical that idea is also.

In the meantime, I'm glad to see that the public appear to be slowly awakening to the folly that is the MJP.

Remember the word "aardvarkrox" when you go to sign up for the new forums (yeah, I know I haven't customised it yet but bear with me ;-)

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