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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."
It actually runs on whatever powers the engine that drives the pump.
The web site advertises two models :
155 HP = EUR 99,000 which is $125,116 (£88,122)
215 HP = EUR 119,000 which is $150,392 (£105,924)
so the Telegraph has the prices wrong.
(Exchange rates courtesy of Google)
God: An invisible friend for grown-ups.
There are much easier ways to do this than pumping water 50 feet in the air, like say... a camera on a balloon? The only ships going after pirates are sufficiently large enough to carry a mast or helo with enough range that another 50 feet vertical wouldn't change.
Mario has been doing this for years, and he doesn't even need the "small unmanned boat". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Mario_Sunshine
As many others have pointed out, the name "jet pack" conveys entirely the wrong meaning. Jet packs are by implication untethered, with the "pack" containing everything required by the jet. So we need a more appropriate name to convey that the pack is tethered, and that the jet is pulling something on the end of its tether along.
Well the answer is obvious: this is a JET CART, because the jet takes the place of a horse and is pulling the cart (boat) along. Naturally the horse is tethered to the cart, and it can't get any further from the cart than the length of its tether (pipe) --- the name conveys the right meaning exactly.
With a bit of flexibility from readers, this could even be taken as a car analogy. ;-)
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
Yeah this idea is so old, I mean...cmon:
http://media.giantbomb.com/uploads/0/8178/446755-mario_with_fludd_super.jpg
lol; I think they mean the boat / pump thing will be underwater, not the jetpack. Divers are limited by physiological things when ascending and descending, not how fast they can swim. SCUBA certification organizations will tell you one foot per second up and down is about the limit. They already have underwater propulsion things (little units you hang on to that you point in the direction you want to go, and they run of batteries) to combat currents, long distance requirements, etc. that are about as good as required.
I haven't posted in so long, my sig is out of date.
Hell, even if you don't like a telescopic rod, how about a small kite with a lightweight camera on gimbals?
Even harder to see than an idiot on a flying firehose, no noise, and much less risk of, say, death. This thing's cute and all, and does look entertaining as a toy, but one decent sized, curious fish and it's bedtime for Bonzo.
Not a huge risk when you're tooling around in a bay, but still pointless for military applications.
On the camera mounted rod thing; it was standard practice in some---but by no means all, the Germans didn't do it, probably because of the quality of Allied radar---WWII submarine forces to use their periscopes fully extended on the surface for exactly this purpose.
Go and look up what a jet actually is. Here. Let me help you.
Pay particular attention to number 4.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
This is basically the F.L.U.D.D. from Super Mario Sunshine:
Flash Liquidizer Ultra Dousing Device:
http://www.mariowiki.com/F.L.U.D.D.
This has existed for several years, see Super Mario Sunshine.