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Highest Human Elevation Using a Rocketbelt
Chris Gondek writes "Rocketman Eric Scott shot 46 metres into the air in London and promptly claimed a world record. Scott, 41, from Dallas, Texas, donned his red and white jumpsuit and zoomed into the north London sky in his bid to achieve the highest human elevation using a Rocketbelt. His feat, which saw him reach the equivalent height of a 12-storey building, lasted just 26 seconds but allowed enough time for a couple of pirouettes. The Rocketbelt was devised by the United States military in 1961 but has since been used for performances and displays around the world, including the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles."
Since then he has become a veteran of almost 500 flights and claims to be the world's only Rocketman.
Obviously he hasn't seen Rocketeer.
...from the top of Everest?
The highest human elevation using a Rocketbelt is funny.
;-)
The dumbest human fall that follow this record is even funnier
Ploum.net.
Of course they're probably even less fuel-efficient than cars. I'll bet the environmentalists won't be happy.
The Cheese Stands Alone.
Stacking rocket men. 64 men, one atop the other, reaching to the heavens!
First off i work towers tall buildings so i know a little about danger This "rocketeer" has 3 kids and does this stuff with no safety equipment! anybody know the name of his insurance agent i want in on that policy. Hello Vegas here we come!!!
"owwwahh, look at this blonde down there. Gotta go a bit closeeeeeeeeeeee" rrroooooaaaaarrrrrr flatsch.
this sig is useless
are the flying cars?
Well, it seems safer than the rocket jump we've all pulled a thousand times in order to get up to those sweet camping spots...
davejenkins.com |
in his bid to achieve the highest human elevation
Please. I've gone way higher than 46 meters above London - it's called a 747 people, and it's way more powerful than some wimpy rocket belt.
"Cool your jets, Jetson (hehe). You'll come down when it runs out of fuel. That will happen soon enough, you'd better believe it."
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
---
"There's no I in Team." - Reporter
"Yeah, there ain't no we either." - Leon
The Rocketbelt was devised by the United States military in 1961 but has since been used for performances and displays around the world, including the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles.
Sounds like another good use of military technology to me!
He was happy to see me.
That looks like a rocking good time.
...lasted just 26 seconds but allowed enough time for a couple of pirouettes.
Interesting, I too accomplished this feat with my imaginary girlfriend over the weekend.
"Oh. You said flying cahs! I thought you said.... oh neva mind."
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
The rocket pack holds enough fuel for about 1 minute (or less) of flight. He had to keep enough fuel to land with. THAT's why we see this military technology at air shows and not being shot at over Baghdad.
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There's a fine line between cuddling and holding someone down so they can't get away.
How can he be a nominee if he has 3 kids?
http://www.local6.com/news/3022956/detail.html isn't slashdotted... yet...
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
64 rocket men on the pad, 64 rocket men. Launch one up, notify next-of-kin, 63 rocket men on the pad.
63 rocket men on the pad, 63 rocket men.....
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
Also seen in a James Bond film, I forget which one. Googling "James Bond rocket pack" seems to indicate Thunderball.
Craig Steffen
http://www.craigsteffen.net
These would be great for getting around if it weren't for the 20 second time limitation.
So if I have to compromise and give up on a having a rocket pack or flying car, can I get a MagLev skateboard instead?
"Provided by the management for your protection."
Hi. I'm Troy McClure. You might remember me from such rocketman documentaries as "Rocketeer 2: Electric Boogaloo" and "Splattered All Over Nebraska".
The current rocket pack uses (IIRC) 99% hydrogen peroxide as a monopropellent fuel - the peroxide is broken down by a silver catalyst into water vapor, oxygen and LOTS of heat. This is a big part of why this rocketpack only works for tens of seconds at a time.
I wonder if anybody has looked into using the 50% peroxide/50% methanol mix that John Carmack is using in his rocket - could this increase the flight time?
www.eFax.com are spammers
Because Wile E. Coyote has gone way higher than this guy did. Unfortunately he bashed his head through an overhanging ledge, which then broke off and fell on him when he plummeted to the canyon floor below.
Read any good sonnets lately?
Why does London seem to be the new haven for American crazies doing weird things?
David Blaine sits in a box by the Thames.
Rocketman out in north Londdon.
What's next?
Is there some kind of American law about being weird that Britain doesn't have?
Unlikely to /. smh.com.au a major .au newspaper.
While there are one or two other Bond-related shows on A&E / Discovery / History / etc, I believe it was this particular show that spent time with the guy who now owns the speedboat from one of Brosnan's outings, a history of the Rocketman pack and how it works (and what they're doing now), and one or two other "real world" items used in the films.
Then again, TiVo also automatically recorded last week's "Secrets of the Human Cannonball" on TLC, so who knows?
Largest area covered by bloody splat ever achieved by a falling human being
Yeah, and you also need to learn how to spell.
Is this the infamous missing rocket belt?
Did anyone else notice that he is sponsored by Smirnoff Vodka? This is not a coincidence:P
Harpo Tunnel Syndrome--my wrist feels funny.
How long before Richard Branson gets the idea to try and try again to go 'round the world in a rocket belt?
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
Wow, I thought that the rocketbelt only had 15 seconds of fuel.... and to think about it, he probably could have gotten where he wanted to go a lot faster with the ninja rope.
article about one rocket belt company.
but my squirrel rocket belt still holds the real record. The trick is finding a good squirrel. Most can't steer for shit.
Sheesh, go with what NASA uses for attitude
control rockets. The 99% H2O2 is already some
wicked nasty stuff; you might as well go whole hog:
NO4 and monomethyl hydrazine
From the article:
There were no records before. I am the first one in the books for the record so it is neat.
Basically, the story is "Man uses Rocketbelt and happens to measure how high he went."
Hardly Rocket Science.... (BaDum Tish!)
.. he was scorned as a "Camping Faggot" when he went up with a railgun.
"Derp de derp."
Yes custom houses with 3 floors but no stairs you have to rockpack your way up.
Saying Apple is better than MS is like saying Botulism is better than rabies.
Back when I had a SNES I had a game called Pilotwings that had a segment with a rocketbelt in it. The trick was to fly around and touch a lot of floating colored balls and fly through moving hoops without falling into the water or touching the ground.
It would have to be a pretty sophisticated belt in that game, though, as its fuel reserves kept the wearer aloft for a couple of minutes.
You are in error. No-one is screaming. Thank you for your cooperation.
The first Super Bowl had this too. I'll bet those guys were happy not to have a "wardrobe malfunction"!
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
Most upper-class and middle-class people are also working-class (because they work). There is not the exclusionary relationship that you imply. Perhaps you meant to say "lower-class". The lower-class, oddly enough, is the least working-class (as most of the unemployed, non-workers are in this group).
I'm still waiting for the base jumpers and the high power rocket builders to get together. Build a rocket to lift someone with the ability to eject cleanly and still recover the rocket too...
I beg to differ.
Try doing some 'shroom and smoking some Columbian weed.
Oh, wait. You said with a Rocket Belt..
Nevermind..
Religion is for people afraid of going to hell.
You'd be better off notifying next of Kzin. "Hey, ratcats! Fresh fried dinners coming your way!"
I did not only saw the movie, I read the comics before, and I loved all of'em. You asked.
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
When your helicopter engine quits, you autorotate to a landing. When your plane engine quits, you glide.
With this, you have absolutely no chance of survival during a large portion of the flight if the thing quits on you.
I'd imagine it's too low to use a parachute, but high enough to kill you.
Let's track some video footage down eh?
http://www.rocketmaninc.com/videogallery.html
slashdot 'em for disabling rightclick to save!
http://www.rocketbelt.nl/
A blog I run for the wealth
Yeah, if I had slept in 1984 and woke up today, I would be pretty disappointed... Nowadays, I would be satisfied even by "Minority Report"-style car-levators.
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
Old new for those who watch techtv, was on tech live a few days ago I believe, pretty interesting interview footage as well as seeing the guy covered in advertisements.
I'm sure it will repeat this weekend if you want to see the video.
------------------------------ SirPhreak - "It's Thinking..."
I hear that Darl went 47 metres into the air after getting kicked by Baystar.
One would think that "Highest Human Elevation Using a Rocketbelt" would be something one gets just before the Darwin Award.
-Styopa
the millions of lives lost to things such as radar, jet engines, jeeps, sonar, kevlar, etc...
Not all military stuff goes boom you know.
All the predictions about flying cars and global prosperity. We have no flying cars and globalized poverty. NAFTA, the WTC and the Clintons did a real number on the USA.
The only thing new in this world is the history that you don't know.[Harry Truman]
Adding fuel also increases the exhaust temperature, and if you're already in danger of cooking your legs with superheated steam this could be a problem. The system might require modifications to keep the pilot cool.
Propellants containing N2O4 or N2H4 are right out; you'd presumably like to survive an impact which bends the plumbing, assuming that you live long enough to get the thing fuelled up and launched in the first place. Both substances are extremely poisonous.
To really get long flight times you have to increase the performance well above what rocket propulsion can give you. You can go from rocket to venturi-assisted rocket, to rocket-driven turbofan, to straight turbofan, to helicopter. Each one represents an increase in lift*time per unit fuel, by moving more mass (in this case, air) at a lower velocity and thus decreasing the energy (proportional to v^2) per unit momentum (proportional to v). However, by the time you do this you're not really a "rocket man" any more, you're something else.
Scientists restrict study to entire physical universe; creationist
Like the fabled, ever-promised Air Car, this would be great for getting around if you were the only person who had one.
Stir in crowds and typical human behavior, and things turn rapidly nasty.
Think about it. Say 10% of Long Island's tens of thousands of car-commuters buy air cars or rocket packs. Can you imagine the traffic control problems? No traffic signs, no colored lines, no stop signals. Unless you have automated governors that restrict you to certain flight paths, the skies at rush hour would look like a gnat swarm, only with random collisions and your occasional explosion.
Manhattan airspace would probably be off limits. (Think suicide bombers able to take out corporate board meetings on the 75th floor of the Consolidated-Amalgamated tower.)
And then there are recreational users. Can you imagine a troupe of teenagers with these things? People would start putting up chicken-wire domes over their back yards to prevent adrenelin-addled punks from snatching cats and lawn flamingos.
We might have to carry umbrellas on Friday nights, because you just know what ideas a drunk rocket packer will come up with.
So. Be careful what you wish for. You just might get it.
Stefan
Don't be fooled! The nazis are behind this!
http://mediagoblin.org/
Did this guy also wear his underwear as overwear?
The Erogenous Zone
"Saddam Hussein, who never harmed anyone in his life and is a victim of a Zionist smear campaign"
Oh you are sooooooooo stupid.
That would be hard to do from the top of a mountain.
Would someone mind telling me how this guy avoids burning his legs off? It seems to me that a rocket powerful enough to lift all that weight would have to be pretty hot, and being that close to the human body....
~UP
Eat the Path.
Is it the missing one? Is there a new rocketbelt maker involved?
Am I the only one that feels that there is too much mystery shrouding a stupid flying backpack?
"Reuters Television" has the video of the flight and preparations.
...till someone gets hurt. Then, it's hilarious.
> Rocketman Eric Scott shot 46 metres into the air... Scott, 41, from Dallas, Texas
Have we confirmed this wasn't the result of good old Texas chili?
Rocketbelt or Time Travel Delorean? I've been pretty bad this year so I can't ask Santa for both.
Here are the videos from the video gallery page.
Rocketman-LAN.wmv
trinidad-pov.wmv
egypt.wmv
MTV.wmv
brazil.wmv
bush.wmv
olympics.wmv
boystoys.wmv
rocketeer.wmv
extreme_machines.wmv
beach.wmv
knightrider.wmv
superbowl.wmv
media.wmv
stadium.wmv
Robocop.wmv
[filler]Now I have to add some filler at the bottom if I want nice formatting. Too few characters per line? Why bother checking this? I think the moderators know pretty soon whether or not a post a legit. People like myself that just want to make a nicely formatted post have to put all kinds of junk into our posts as filler.[/filler]
Tip jets.
46 meters a record for human elevation? What about lawn chair balloon guy, who (allegedly) made 16,000 feet?
There's no I in team. There's no ME in team either. But that pesky little ME in manageMEnt is the root cause for the I in unIon.
He just did it to look down Heidi Wall's shirt.
But, at 3 meters a floor; roughly, that makes 54 meters for 18 floors. The rocket pack wearing daredevil flew up to 46 meters, about 15 floors.
Digging around on the web led me to this sight (http://www.fabulousrocketeers.com/Photo_See_Ya.ht m) where the page says that the US parachute associates has a minimum altitude for opening a parachute at 2,000 ft (609 m) for experienced skydivers. The sight says you can pack a chute to open within 200 ft (60 m) but, keep in mind you are probably falling at 115 mph (185 kph) in order to get it to open so fast. A chute probably wont open right if you are not falling fast enough. The site also said that chutes are often packed in such a way to slow the opening, to reduce the jolt, as a fast opening is a hard opening.
Hangliders use a rocket assisted emergency parachute, and light aircraft can deploy a similar device that will land a whole plane (see http://brsparachutes.com/). A model for a rocketpack system may be a fairly easy solution, but, as seen before, properly deploying at low altitude remains a risk. In all events, these things try to prevent death and reduce injury, they probably are not a injury free event.
The range and endurance of the Rocketbelt are pretty pathetic, and the only good use I have seen this thing put to is landing on the lawn outside the kitchen of some young woman and instructing her on the use of polyethelyne film to wrap food leftovers.
speaking of which, he has some nice tests up of the big engine. still looks like a ways to go, but it's nice to see progress. the sheer amount of parts issues he goes through is insane.... click the news for the video...woooo wouldnt i like to have one of those to play with. the site
All your preview button are belong to hello kitty.
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/primetime/DailyNews /rocketbelt_021010.html
...
That states that the newer, improved, state of the art rocketpack that the guy had formed a company to create went up to 150 feet and 70mph back in 1995, on its initial test flight by the guy who tested the first rocket belt.
150ft~=46m