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

Did he cross the English Channel to speak with...?

[ls671]

Did he cross the English channel to speak with Elton John so they could sing "Rocket Man" together ? ;-))

He already failed

[SoCalChris]

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

Better luck next time.

Why the rockets?

[oldspewey]

Tow me to 6500ft in a high-performance glider and I will traverse the straits of Gibraltar easily ... without carrying rockets or motors of any kind.

Call me when he starts doing these stunts taking off from the ground under his own (carried) power.

Re:Why the rockets?

[Goaway]

He uses a jet-powered wing because it's a fucking jet-powered wing strapped to his back, and that is awesome.

That is not difficult to understand.

Re:Why the rockets?

[mrjb]

It is also a totally different experience than flying with a jet powered wing strapped to your back.

Tell me about it. He spends all this money and what does he get? No food served. No seat. NO PLANE?!!? Worst. Airline. Ever.

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.

And he failed.

[dk90406]

Due to "difficult winds" he dropped into the Ocean after completing half the trip. The entire trip was, for reference supposed to last 15 minutes and span 38 Km, He was picked up by a rescue chopter and is reportedly unharmed.

He could have been a superhero

[V50]

Dammit, this is why you're not supposed to reveal your secret identity. He could have been a superhero with a wide array of crazy gadgets, but now if we see some crazy guy with a jetpack stopping crime, everyone will know who it is. :(

Re:He could have been a superhero

[V50]

On second thought, the guy in the picture is bald, so if that's him, I'd say he's more likely to end up as a supervillian. Might be for the best.

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.

Re:Isn't the English Channel Larger?

[asylumx]

The Spirit of St. Louis was a TRANS-ATLANTIC flight.

Coulda done it easier [Re:He already failed]

[Geoffrey.landis]

He could have made an intercontinental flight more easily by flying from Europe to Asia: if he flew across the Bosporus, that would be only 700 meters. And, heck, if he picked the right place, he could have just walked!

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).

Re:Engineering Effort?

[Alastor187]

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.

Engineering is about solving problems with practical solutions. You are assuming he didn't consider what it would take get of the ground using the jet pack. But I would assume he did look at the issue, and found that it would significantly increase the cost, weight, and risk by launching from the ground.

If his end goal is just to fly around, then to solve the problem of take-off he probably reasoned the best solution was to use existing aircraft to get to the proper altitude. Then just figure out how to get in/out of the aircraft with his equipment. Sounds like a smart engineering decision to me.

Re:Engineering Effort?

[zippthorne]

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.

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

[megamerican]

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.

Re:Ooooh... Intercontinental

[Geoffrey.landis]

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

Not until Mexico conquers Guatemala, Nicaragua, Honduras, Costa Rica, and Panama, you can't.

Re:Ooooh... Intercontinental

[eviloverlordx]

More than Half of the world count south and north america as 1 continent named America. So for some that jump would not count as intercontinental.

That must be the half of the world that doesn't know geology or plate tectonics.

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:Ooooh... Intercontinental

[Walking The Walk]

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

Sorry, no, the convention is that they are two continents: North America and South America. It's mostly just those in Latin America that consider the Americas as one continent. (Obviously they love Canada so much they want to be on the same continent.)

Re:Ooooh... Intercontinental

[SPickett]

When I read your post, I thought you were nuts. I always learned there were seven continents, two of which were North America and South America. I went to get a Wikipedia link (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continent) and read it's taught differently in different parts of the world.

The seven-continent model is usually taught in China and most English-speaking countries. The six-continent combined-Eurasia model is preferred by the geographic community, Russia, the former states of the USSR, and Japan. The six-continent combined-America model is taught in Latin America, and some parts of Europe including Greece, Portugal, Spain and Italy. This model may be taught to include only the five inhabited continents (excluding Antarctica)[20][21] -- as depicted in the Olympic logo.

It sounds like you may be from an area that has a 6-continent model.

balls!!!

[visionsofmcskill]

I think he could probably fly a whole lot farther if it weren't for the drag created by his monstrously huge friggin balls.

that is one brave dude

Gross!

[Spazztastic]

Incontinental? Ewww. Put this in idle, please...

Wait, what? Intercontinental? Ohh! Nevermind...

If I defeat Jetman...

[HishamMuhammad]

Do I keep his jet-powered wings? Are they useful for beating other bosses or is he too hard and I should get some other weapons first? Do you guys think I should defeat him before or after Cutman?

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.