Jetman Attempts Intercontinental Flight

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."

Comments

Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

Cool story bro.

Isn't the English Channel Larger?

[Monkeedude1212]

I'm not actually sure. But I think so?

Anyways, Wake me up when he tries like... Beijing Capital International to LAX

Re:Isn't the English Channel Larger?

[interploy]

Anyways, Wake me up when he tries like... Beijing Capital International to LAX

Seriously. Okay, so technically the Straight of Gibraltar separates two continents, but this is not an intercontinental flight. The Spirit of St. Louis made an intercontinental flight. The article title is BS. If they want to use "intercontinental" to describe a distance, then there had damn well better be an ocean involved.

Engineering Effort?

[quangdog]

I'm sure there is significant engineering effort involved in creating something like a personal jetpack, but he's still jumping out of a plane at altitude and essentially gliding with a bit of a boost from his jet engines along the way.

Being a lazy American, of course I did not rtfa, but I did take the time to look up just how far he'll actually fly: looks like about 12 miles.

Re:Engineering Effort?

[quangdog]

Ok, so then I went and rtfa, and it claims he'll fly 23 miles. Then I checked google earth, and it lists the distances between the 2 locations mentioned in the article as 19.3 miles.

As others have said, I'll get excited when he can go from, say, New Jersey to the Oregon coast (with an in-flight movie along the way).

Ooooh... Intercontinental

[aardwolf64]

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.

Re:Ooooh... Intercontinental

[Tellarin]

North, Central and South America are the same continent; America.

If continents were defined by plate tectonics, then America would be split in 6. And the crossing would be from Mexico to Guatemala.

Approximately:
- North American Plate (Canada, most of USA, Mexico, and Belize)
- Pacific Plate (part of California, USA and Baja California, Mexico; and possibly a few Alaskan islands)
- Caribbean Plate (Caribbean island countries and Central America)
- Nazca Plate (Peruvian and Ecuadorian islands)
- South American Plate (almost all South America)
- Scotia Plate (south of Terra del Fuego, smallish parts of Chile and Argentina)

Re:More like "power-assisted gliding"

[MobyDisk]

A guy designing and building a personal jetpack, jumping out of a plane a 6,500 ft, and flying 15 miles in high winds at 130mph... DOES NOT IMPRESS YOU????

Yes, calling it "interncontinental" is exaggeration. But it is still impressive.

Re:Why the rockets?

[WormholeFiend]

It's indeed awesome, but it would be awesomer and potentially awesomest if he base-jumped off a cliff on the African side, and jetted across the Strait to land on the European side.