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Jet Pack Runs For Hours On Water

Ponca City, We love you writes "Jet packs have been around for half a century, but there's always been one problem: they run out of fuel in around 30 seconds. Now a German company has taken the standard jet pack design, run a fat yellow hose out the back, and connected it to a small unmanned boat that houses an engine, pump, and fuel tank and sends pressurized water up the hose, where it's shot out by two nozzles just behind the wearer's shoulders. Called the JetLev-Flyer, the design purportedly can reach a height of 15 meters, a speed of 72 kph, and a range of 300 kilometers based on four hours of flying time. A digital fly-by-wire system is used to control the throttle. Future designs may achieve higher altitudes, higher top speeds, and extended range, and even travel below the water's surface. The American manufacturers claim it is 'amazingly easy to learn and operate' and they're taking orders now at $130,000 each."

16 of 268 comments (clear)

  1. round and round by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    I doubt how anything that makes you spin 300 km of circles around a fixed point in the water (and probably vomiting every now and then) is going to make you look cool.

  2. Re:are you crazy? by $RANDOMLUSER · · Score: 5, Funny

    It reminds me of the electric car I invented - the one with the really really long extension cord.

    --
    No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
  3. Re:A range of 300 km? by Demoriel · · Score: 2, Funny

    You pretty much just nailed why this is a totally useless design.

  4. Worms by harry666t · · Score: 2, Funny

    FTFS:

    > but there's always been one problem: they run out of fuel in around 30 seconds

    But that's what made them fun in the game :)

  5. Re:So it doesn't run on water at all? by Overkill+Nbuta · · Score: 5, Funny

    The real question should be. Does it run Linux.

  6. Prior art by bobdotorg · · Score: 2, Funny

    This is pretty much a human Water Wiggle:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4D_WdavMuKs

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    __ Someday, but not this morning, I'll finally learn to use the preview button.
  7. Re:A range of 300 km? by SeaFox · · Score: 2, Funny

    What exactly are the advantages over just simply using a boat?

    Is your boat 15 meters tall? You get a higher view, which has many uses.

  8. You are invited... by srussia · · Score: 4, Funny

    to take a ride on the Firehose.

    --
    Set your phasers on "funky"!
  9. Re:So it doesn't run on water at all? by Overkill+Nbuta · · Score: 2, Funny

    More than likely that it runs on beer.

    I'm pretty sure i can run Linux on beer also. Just my efficiency goes down.... or up depending on the task.

  10. How to Annoy People, Vol. I by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    This would be a fantastic device for annoying the shit out of anyone hanging out on a dock or outside their house that's on the lake.

    Just imagine Norm and Agnes, outside on the deck, enjoying a quiet cup of tea when suddenly... what on earth is that?

    VVVRRRROOOOMMMMM! You show up, 30 ft. in the like a supersoaker from hell and hover over them, pounding them into the deck with your aerial twin water cannons.

    Move over jet-skis, there's a new douchebag in town!

  11. Runs on water? by jamesswift · · Score: 2, Funny

    I have a crane that runs on gravity!

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    i wish i could stop
  12. Re:So it doesn't run on water at all? by radtea · · Score: 2, Funny

    Yeah, typical /. headline: so misleading that you have to read the article to figure out what they're talking about, and 90% of the discussion is focused on either annoyance about or misapprehension of the false headline.

    There's a story below that has a headline about the odds of finding an Earth-like planet within a few dozen lightyears of Earth, but I'm pretty sure the actual story is about a new way to bake pastry. With a /. headline, why would anyone assume otherwise?

    --
    Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.
  13. Re:are you crazy? by yotto · · Score: 4, Funny

    This seems more of a limit on a jetpack than I'd be willing to accept. I mean, cruising along 100 feet over the ground (Well, the water) is fine until you hit a dock, or accidentally go over land. Then you've got 100 feet of free-fall.

    As a bonus, you're almost guaranteed for this thing to ONLY fail when you're NOT over water, eliminating the only chance you have of surviving that big of a fall.

  14. Join my campaign by Kupfernigk · · Score: 2, Funny

    To allow respectable recreational boaters over 50 to be armed with twin torpedo tubes and surface-to-air missiles. As the NRA keeps telling you, an armed society is a polite society.

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    From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
  15. Re:A range of 300 km? by Hognoxious · · Score: 2, Funny

    Ahh, so yer mizzen t'gallant crowsnest is two and a half fathoms above the waves, matey?

    --
    Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
  16. I can't believe no one has said this yet by Optic7 · · Score: 3, Funny

    In Soviet Russia... the [waterskier|parasailer] tows the boat!