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Dubai Buys Commercial Jetpacks For Firefighters (martinjetpack.com)

Posted by timothy on from the risky-but-fun dept.

_Sharp'r_ writes: Want to fly a jetpack? Join the fire department in Dubai. In a skyscraper filled city where cops drive Ferraris and Lamborghinis, it was actually cheaper to buy twenty $150K jetpacks (plus two simulators) for fire rescue rather than find 2700 ft ladders. Slashdot has had stories about these coming for five years. A VR-headset based jetpack flight-simulator for the masses would be fun, too, even better if the object were to put out fires in skyscrapers..

5 of 91 comments (clear)

  1. Firefighting Capacity by zuckie13 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    How much water or other suppressant can it carry? Doesn't help if you can get to a fire, and not have anything to put it out.....

    1. Re:Firefighting Capacity by Dutch+Gun · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Doesn't help if you can get to a fire, and not have anything to put it out.....

      A person trapped in a burning building might disagree. Firefighters do other things besides put out fires, you know.

      These are obviously to be used for observation or search and rescue ops, not for fighting fires directly. Since these can be remotely piloted, you could theoretically fly them up, have people strap in, and fly them back down. Unlike a helicopter, you can land these things just about anywhere, even without a dedicated helipad. You might even have a chance at rescuing someone though a window or from a balcony, though that might be pretty dicey.

      Let Dubai pay for the expensive first-gen models and try them out. If they're actually useful, maybe they'll get adopted elsewhere. While it's more akin to a tiny aircraft than a jetpack, this is still pretty cool tech.

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      Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
  2. Is this some luddite anti-tech site? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    They are commercially available Jetpacks dammit! They are incredibly fucking cool! What is wrong with you all?

    Why does nobody have anything positive to say about personal fucking flying machines? What would it take to get you jaded miserable sods excited?

  3. Re:Ridiculous... by _Sharp'r_ · · Score: 3, Insightful

    It does hover, actually. It's more like a drone in behavior than a rocket. So you could pick someone up, drop off breathing equipment, use it to figure out where a fire has spread to, if people are stuck somewhere, etc...

    Recent Stability and engine tests

    --
    The party of stupid and the party of evil get together and do something both stupid and evil, then call it bipartisan.
  4. Code Enforcement would save more lives by ModernGeek · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I've heard that in a lot of oil rich countries that the stairways of their skyscrapers are used just to store things. Their mentality is that a concrete building would never burn. It's all about the fire load inside of the building, and if your paths of emergency egress is blocked, then your fatality rate is going to be much higher. A regularly inspected fire pump/sprinkler system, automatic magnetic doors closers, and training coupled with a safety plan isn't that expensive or difficult in the context of running a high rise. Followed properly, it will be the safest place you can be in.

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    Sig: I stole this sig.