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Jetman Attempts Intercontinental Flight

Posted by samzenpus on from the a-jetwing-and-a-prayer dept.

Last year we ran the story of Yves Rossy and his DIY jetwings. Yves spent $190,000 and countless hours building a set of jet-powered wings which he used to cross the English Channel. Rossy's next goal is to cross the Strait of Gibraltar, from Tangier in Morocco and Tarifa on the southwestern tip of Spain. From the article: "Using a four-cylinder jet pack and carbon fibre wings spanning over 8ft, he will jump out of a plane at 6,500 ft and cruise at 130 mph until he reaches the Spanish coast, when he will parachute to earth." Update 18:57 GMT: mytrip writes: "Yves Rossy took off from Tangiers but five minutes into an expected 15-minute flight he was obliged to ditch into the wind-swept waters."

3 of 140 comments (clear)

  1. He already failed by SoCalChris · · Score: 5, Informative

    http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article6931566.ece

    Better luck next time.

  2. Re:Ooooh... Intercontinental by megamerican · · Score: 3, Informative

    Calling 23 miles "intercontinental" seems disingenuous. I mean, I could drive down to Mexico and make an "intercontinental" jump of 1 foot... But labeling it as such is just stupid.

    I know as American's we're supposed to hate Mexico, but they are still on the same continent as the US.

    There are a few good examples of short intercontinental flight that would make it even more trivial which you could have used. The Suez Canal and Bosporous would be suitable candidates.

    --
    If you have something that you dont want anyone to know, maybe you shouldnt be doing it in the first place -Eric Schmidt
  3. Re:Engineering Effort? by zippthorne · · Score: 4, Informative

    He's evolving down from "skydiving" to a workable personal jetsuit, rather than up from "rocket skating." An early iteration had no engines at all, just a delta-wing personal glider (and it could probably be considered as an incremental improvement over the "wing suit" which came after the "balloon suit"...)

    It's just safer this way. If he fails, he's ditches the wing and activates "plain old skydiving" mode with a parachute. If he'd started from the ground on the first try, there are dozens of places where a failure means death without any fall-back options at all.

    In previous interviews he has stated than an eventual goal is to do a complete flight including takeoff.

    --
    Can you be Even More Awesome?!