Swiss Man Flies With Jet Powered Wing

NotBornYesterday writes "After spending $190,000 and 'countless hours' building a set of jet-powered wings, a Swiss man has successfully demoed this ultimate mother-of-all-toys. After jumping from a plane like a skydiver, he then lit the four jet engines and proceeded to fly around a valley in the Alps at up to 186 miles per hour. His site is here, if you want to see shots of him in action. 'I still haven't used the full potential,' he said."

Comments

Obligatory

[Will the Chill]

I, for one, welcome our new flying humanoid overlords!

-WtC

'sig': command not found

Re:OFN?

[Anonymous Coward]

I was going to put up a list of the 3 other times this story has been on Slashdot's front page, the 8 times it's been on digg, and the 14 times it's been on reddit. But, eh, what's the point?

Dupe lag is worsening...

[heretic108]

http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/12/25/1254217

Re:It is pretty old

[jd]

Ah! This must be why very low-level drops, as used by special forces, are considered bloody dangerous (the chute needs a non-zero time to open), why the rectilinear parachutes are considered more steerable but more prone to entanglement than classical parachutes (which, ergo, means that you can EITHER have predictable steering OR predictable opening, but not both), why the rate of parachute failures on the Thrust-SSC car was unexpectedly high, or why a device invented in 1595 and is intrinsically very simple has a vastly greater mechanical failure rate than far more complex machines that are far newer (and therefore have had far less development time).

In other words, you speak as someone who skydives rather than as someone who is emotionally detached, impartial and observant. Nobody, no matter what the subject, can be impartial when it comes to their own passionate interests. This is not a failing of a person, or a community. It is simply a product of being up close to that degree. If you like, the consequence of being able to see a tree is that you CANNOT see the woods for the trees. The converse is also true. Those distant enough to see the woods CANNOT see the trees. It's an "uncertainty principle" of the way observation works, if you like.

Is landing difficult? Probably, but obviously not impossible - hang-glider enthusiasts land fixed-wing vehicles all the time. Is it more difficult than landing a parachute? Not the problem I'm concerned with, I'm concerned with the mechanical operation of the device, not the mechanical operation of the human, so frankly m'dear, I don't give a damn. Are hang-gliders dangerous? Well, yes, I probably wouldn't want to take off at an altitude so low or where conditions were otherwise so unfavourable that sufficient airspeed to achieve the required level of lift was simply not possible. Now, strap on an engine, so it becomes a microlight, then circumstances change. Microlights are still very dangerous, but not at low altitude. In fact, they'd be quite useless if they couldn't operate from the ground.