Rocket Men

theodp writes "Slate reports on the guys who really, really want to fly, who got together the other week at the Niagara Aerospace Museum for the First International Rocketbelt Convention. To date, only 11 men in history have free-flown a rocketbelt (aka JetPack). More men have walked on the moon. Why? 'It's not a matter of if you get hurt, it's when,' says Eric Scott, an ex-stuntman who's in the exclusive club."

Comments

Gyroscopic stabilizers

[Anonymous Coward]

These people need computer-controlled gyroscopic stabilizers. A fly-by-wire system could dramatically improve the safety of rocketbelts. No doubt that would make them much more popular.

Re:Gyroscopic stabilizers

[jcr]

You can't do it on cheap gyros (read: you're probably spending $5-10k per axis),

Why not? There are gyros that model helicopters use that are cheaper than $100, and an RC chopper is a whole lot twitchier than something with the mass of a human being in it. If your flight only lasts for a couple of minutes, then you hardly need high-precision gyros that won't drift more than a degree per hour.

-jcr

On the Fringe

[tb3]

The (strange/interesting/sad) part of this story is how far out the people involved are. I noticed there was no mention, either in the Slate article or the actual convention website, of these guys who claim to have the only functional rocket belt in existence. Then there's Juan Manuel Lozano, the Mexican inventor who claims to developed a break-through method for creating the 90%-pure hydrogen peroxide fuel needed for the rocket belt.

And then there's the whole RB2000 saga, which involved fraud, murder, and the disappearance of the only prototype. The full story can be found on the rocketbelt.nl site. Rocketbelt developers are out there on the edges with the ufologists, perpetual motion researchers, and free energy salesman, with the exception that rocketbelts can actually work!