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'Jetman' Rossy Flies Above the Grand Canyon
cylonlover writes "Yves Rossy, the former Swiss jet fighter pilot better known as Jetman, flew over the Grand Canyon last Saturday (May 7th) using his wearable jet-propelled wing. It was the first time he has flown with the device in North America, having previously used it to cross the English Channel, perform an aerial loop, fly in formation with stunt planes, and to unsuccessfully attempt traversing a stretch of the Atlantic Ocean between Morocco and Spain."
It's a boring fluff piece montage with horrible editing.. The flight doesn't start before half way in... and with dull music instead of ambient audio
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
TFA says he started from a helicopter then parachuted to the canyon floor. I was expecting something cool, like he started standing on one side of the canyon, flew across it, then landed safely on the other side.
how 1950s and 1960s. I'm almost 50 and this kind of shit was done long before I was born.
...and you're all so critical of this being a lame story because you have flown all over the place at 160 kph in your own, much better and well designed and fully functional jet propulsion systems, is that about right?
This is funny, I was just watching an old documentary about him. Just before he flew across the English channel, he realized in a wind tunnel that his wings were unbalanced so he would always starts an endless looping that leads to a crash on the same side. He learned to recuperate from this anyways. Amazingly, he said that he didn't have time to rebalance his wings before the English channel crossing so he did it as is.
This guy is serious business. Another poster was unsatisfied because he needs to be launched from a plane or helicopter. Believe me, it is a must with his setup. Also, he can't land and he uses a parachute to land. His setup involves only a wing set and a turbine. There is no other controls but the turbine speed. All directional control is done with his body.
Everything I write is lies, read between the lines.
..this news is two days short of being a week old - whooosh!
fucking doo. this is nice and all, but call us when he can actully strap on a pair of skates or something and takeoff from the ground
may be old but I still say that it is cool as hell!
Here's a different wingsuit guy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8oY60556JJU
I wonder if Rossy and Jean-Albert know each other.
traversing a stretch of the Atlantic Ocean between Morocco and Spain."
umm.. what is the straits of gibraltar? I'll take geography for 500. Daily double!
-- Flame me and I will happily flame you back. Bring it!
Does nobody test the UI commits before they push them out to the front page? On Chrome and IE6 (not logged in) the replies are all masked by a block of white, I can see the top 8th of the characters. Site is broken, someone needs to fix this ASAP.
Doesn't the National Park Service have to approve this? I remember when Evel Knievel was trying to jump the Grand Canyon, they gave him a lot of grief then he went to Snake Canyon instead. http://weirdscifi.ratiosemper.com/evelknievel/canyon.html He failed but still would you strap yourself into a steam powered rocket that had never been tested? Later on Knievel blamed the engineer. Typical.. but he still made money on the deal by selling the TV rights and charging spectators a lot for admission and for concessions. ABC Sports had the rights to the event and it was a national thing. This was before the Internet and ABC had always had deals with Knievel.
Then a few years ago his son, Robbie, got permission to jump. Why? I don't know, maybe they weren't selling enough National Park coffee table books at the gift shop? I realize that the national parks are public lands but they're there to be preserved, not to be used for circus attractions. There wasn't the huge hype and once he did it everything was ho-hum.
It seems that every time one of these daredevils actually does something, we raise that bar and consider something similar to be mundane. " Fly over the grand canyon with your little jet pack? Pffft. I saw a guy do it in a hang glider 30 years ago. " I guess that's sad in a way and says something that as society we're becoming bored with things more quickly. We have to be constantly entertained and have the attention spans of two-year-olds.
Now, this guy launched himself from a helicopter. I'd prefer him to try
it like those old time aeronautical pioneers and jump off a rock or a bridge with his wings. Think of the Drama! What if he tripped over a rock or some shit like that? The jet fuel could have exploded or maybe he could have set himself on fire when he launched himself? he'd be like the human torch! Now that would be cool.
Or he could have launched himself like the old "Sky Car" bouncing around.. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4622565557055437255#
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
Where do I get mine? Seriously this is as close as we're getting to jet packs right now, so how long until this is commercialized or I'm not interested.
It's like the mind going AWOL, it's there somewhere
Anyone else accidentally pronounce that site's name with the first g soft, as in magic?
Getting diabetes AND salmonella would be a bad weekend.
If you live trying that, you will have made a new land speed record for roller skates.
...you'll be able to finally catch that damn bird.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Once again, life and art imitate each other (definitely SFW). This is awesome, so pardon while I will just a little here by pointing out that he jumped from a helicopter. In the words of Woody from Toy Story, "That's not flying, that's falling with style!" Woody's point was that flying should involve taking off as well as soaring and a controlled landing.
That's falling, with style.
This never happened. Word