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HeliJen

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  • Aircraft
    AS350B3+, R44, Jetsuit/Jetpack
  • Location
    Sydney
  • Country
    Australia

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  1. Thanks @440032 (I found this page through traffic to my site :)). Well, you're all right in parts of your statements:- 1. @kgwilson: bearing the thrust through your arms does require a level of fitness that a non-athlete / exercise-phobe like myself will suffer with. Given I'll be flying a version of it across Australia, it's a problem worth solving, and my iJETPACK team are onto it. 2. @onetrack: correct - the arms produce up to ~44kg thrust each, while the back produces ~55kg thrust, enabling a stable tripod effect with natural forward motion due the additional back thrust. Moving your arms changes the thrust vector, resulting in direction control (yaw, fore/aft, climb/descend and combinations of). Obviously changing your back position affects direction too. Re the 50s version ('RocketBelt'): my chief engineer built and flew (still flies) Australia's first and only RocketBelt, and yes, one of its many challenges is its very limited fuel (hydrogen peroxide) endurance at just ~20 seconds. But like all early inventions, it played an assistive role in the emergence of the turbine powered jetpacks, which still aren't great with 8-10 mins on Jetpack and 3-5 mins on Jetsuit. I have my team looking into ways to address this for the World Record, but it's a tough one to solve as even with thrust to allow a greater payload, there's the physical limitation of carrying large amounts of fuel (though only a real issue for pre-takeoff - in flight you don't feel it, and post-flight you're back to empty weight). "instability of jet packs": not sure what you mean here. The Jetsuit is quite stable from a control perspective (the Jetpack not as much so -- think unicycle vs tricycle in terms of C.of.G challenges); and its turbines are not immensely different to helicopter turbines (albeit smaller with more frequent maintenance requirements). "injury or fatality prevention method": totally agree that this is a weakness compared to other aircraft. Though as @old man emusays, it is flown at low heights to reduce this risk. We are working on a redundancy system and are investigating alternative methods of safety in suits and ballistic parachutes. We'll make improvements but don't expect to fully resolve the issue in 2021 (at least not in readiness for the World Record attempt). 3. @old man emu: yeah, electric fans aren't up to it yet. There are a lot of people trying to solve the multi-billion dollar problem of battery weight. Once this happens, the game changes completely. Looking forward to that day. 4. @red750: the benefit of the Jetsuit is to have first response there at speed. It can also get into far more confined spaces than helicopter can. Jetpack Aviation's forthcoming Speeder (flying motorbike) is a far better solution as it is autonomous (optionally piloted), not much larger than a superbike (still can get into confined areas) and can therefore have a paramedic on one, and an empty one flying beside to stretch the patient back to the ambulance. First working prototype is due early 2021. 5. Martin Jet-not-jet-pack: love that they tried. Was never a fan ('scuse the pun) of the form factor. But again, we can all learn something from every attempt at innovation, successful or not. As for us, we're in build at the moment, on track for a first test-flight in Feb. Can wait to get back in the air. Flying these things is a feeling like no other! Jen :)
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