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Company Demos Personal Aircraft, Future Jetpack

Posted by Zonk on from the biggest-toybox-ever dept.

coondoggie writes "Earlier this week researchers with the company ESG Elektroniksystem in Germany demonstrated a form of 'strap-on jet wing' that lets a user truly fly through the air. The system, called Gryphon, consists of a six-foot wing and hand-held rotary controls for the rudder. The pilot has several different instruments available to him, including onboard oxygen and helmet that features a heads-up display. 'Researchers say the final version of the flying wing will contain an electronic system that will take care of some of the steering for the pilot which today can be a little tricky, researchers say. The company also plans to add small jets to the wing making it a true jetpack in the future.'"

6 of 98 comments (clear)

  1. Remember kiddies, this is not a real jet pack by cmowire · · Score: 5, Informative

    If you read the article, you see that there's not an engine in the thing right now.

    This is a short and unwieldy wing that straps on your back and lets you fly farther from where you got dropped out of an airplane. You still need a parachute to land. You still need a real aircraft to lift you up for you to start your flight.

    Not nearly as impressive as the headline seems to indicate.

    --
    Gentoo Sucks
    1. Re:Remember kiddies, this is not a real jet pack by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      This is the real deal:
      http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=jet-man&search=Search

      This is more "conventional":
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2gcurwcPs3U

      Other people playing in a boring way:
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THEcWrznicY

      And this is just for fun, with model rockets:
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0mjUZEsduIE

  2. Some videos by linhux · · Score: 4, Informative

    In german, but anyway some pretty pictures even if you don't understand the language. :-)

    http://www.spelco.eu/edit/content/file/DV141174_en/060817-zdf-heute-gryphon.mpg/Get.aspx
    http://www.spelco.eu/edit/content/file/DV141185_en/060827-spiegel-gryphon.mpg/Get.aspx
    http://www.spelco.eu/edit/content/file/DV141196_en/060915-galileo-gryphon.mpg/Get.aspx
    http://www.spelco.eu/edit/content/file/DV141207_en/Welt_der_Wunder.mpg/Get.aspx

  3. If they are having trouble with the jet by Clockwork+Apple · · Score: 4, Informative

    Maybe they should ask Yves Rossy how he did it... a year or so ago.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHYXrqoS08o

    --
    "Doctor, it's not the voices I hear in MY head, but the voices I hear in YOUR head that really frighten me."
  4. Re:This sounds like... by TechForensics · · Score: 3, Informative

    This is very old news. Almost fifty years ago rigid wing assemblies, or "Batwings" as they were called, were banned in the skydiving community as simply too dangerous. Let's hope the present inventors (or maybe they are better called engineers) can do better.

    --
    Those are my principles, and if you don't like them... well, I have others.
  5. Re:I, no ... well by Em+Adespoton · · Score: 2, Informative

    P.S. Does anyone else other than coders use nested parenthesis in writing something in English?
    Well, the official way to do it (when you do it in English [writing, that is])is to alternate curved and square parentheses. This is similar to using nested quotes (alternating double and single quotes) where the rule tends to match in programming languages. Personally, I think that this would be useful in programming languages as well, but I don't recall seeing any that do it.