Home-made Versions
Episode 32 of MythBusters investigates the urban legend of an affordable jet pack or rocket pack that can be built from plans purchased on the Internet. Extensive modifications were made by the MythBusters team due to vagueness in the plans and because of the infeasibility of the specified engine mounting system. The jet pack produced by the MythBusters had two ducted fans powered by ultralight-type piston engines. (Fans complained that the use of piston engines destroyed the whole idea of the pack's being truly based on jets, by which, presumably, they meant self-contained gas turbines.) They found it was not powerful enough to lift a person off the ground, and was expensive to build. The plans specified a Rotax 503 ultralight engine, but they intended to use the more powerful and lighter Rotax 583 engine before a similar lighter unnamed engine was substituted.
America's only "private rocketeer", Gerard Martowlis, built a fully operational rocket pack. Like all flying packs, his is extraordinarily difficult and extremely dangerous to fly, taking many hours to learn and practice. He performed his test flights using a safety tether system in case he lost control. A consequence of the short flight time of any peroxide-based pack is that the entire flight is below the minimum parachute altitude. Accordingly, any loss of control or failure of the pack is most likely fatal. The training also incurs expensive fuel costs.
Read more about this topic: Jet Pack
Famous quotes containing the words home-made and/or versions:
“The post-office appeared a singularly domestic institution here. Ever and anon the stage stopped before some low shop or dwelling, and a wheelwright or shoemaker appeared in his shirt- sleeves and leather apron, with spectacles newly donned, holding up Uncle Sam’s bag, as if it were a slice of home-made cake, for the travelers, while he retailed some piece of gossip to the driver, really as indifferent to the presence of the former as if they were so much baggage.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The assumption must be that those who can see value only in tradition, or versions of it, deny man’s ability to adapt to changing circumstances.”
—Stephen Bayley (b. 1951)