Personal Air Vehicle (PAV) or Personal Flight Equipment (PFE)

[Jeffry Fontaine]

I remember reading a children's book a very long time ago about a pair of kids, brother and sister.  The story has them flying around in a winged flying suit, I really don't remember the small details such as the means of propulsion but suffice to say the children were zipping about with glee in these flying suits and went to visit their aunt or grandmother for milk and cookies.  Of course it all ended with the children returning safely to their home just in time for bed. 

That was over forty-five years ago that I read that book, why did the memory of that story stick with me when I have forgotten so much else?  I guess it had to do with the ability to fly unimpeded through the air without relying on an airline service to get you there.  I always thought that was too cool to forget.  So here we are in 2008 and where are the personal air vehicles and personal flight equipment?  Still on the drawing boards or in the imagination of the people that wait to build them for real is my guess.  Sure we have come close to realizing short distance flight with the Bell Rocket belt but that was a quick ride and terribly expensive, too expensive for the common folks out there that yearn for such a conveyance. 


So with the exception of the special effects folks in Hollywood and people that are incredibly wealthy, what do we have to look forward to now in the form of these devices?  The flying wing parachute combinations are a step in the right direction but you still have to use the parachute to get you to the ground in one piece.  There was also the failed Solo-Trek flying exo-skeleton that went nowhere but consumed a lot of financial support before it was determined to have been a failure.  Before the Solo-Trek there was the Baumgartyl helicopter design that to be honest scares me.  Two opposed single rotors, eash powered by a small gasoline engine and fitted with a counter-balance to keep you from getting ripped to shreds while wearing the thing.  But it was tested and it did appear to work.

[Maverick]

G'day Jeffry,

The Bell Rocket Belt was always a fave of mine, especially with its use in that Bond movie & on Lost in Space (TV).  Realistically, however, I can't see that we'll ever have widespread use of PAVs regardless of their cost.  It's the same as flying cars, it's great to think about, but given that we'd be adding a third dimension to the problems we already experience on our roads (especially in developed nations), I can't see either being cleared for mainstream use.  Add to that, the inherent dangers of flight and the results if you have a mechanical failure and it seems to me that this is one particular dream that will remain in the realms of Hollywood & the Rich & Stupid.

Regards,

Mav

[Mossie]

Related to the PAV is the wingsuit.  It's simply an aerodynamic suit that allows the user much more range during a freefall skydive.  As with PAV's, there are attempts to enable the user to allow the user to land without a parachute.  Here's a concept for a military suit with a ski type landing gear:



A little while ago, I found a handful of designs on the web for compact one man gliders.  I guess these could be used for covert insertion of a single operative





Here's an early design of the Moller Skycar M400 in a Police livery:

[Jeffry Fontaine]

I remember reading about a winged suit for skydivers but it was made from lengths of fabric that was sewn into the arms, legs, and crotch of the jumpsuit.  It extended the distance travelled during the free fall portion of the jump.  Reminded me of a flying squirrel in some ways with the large flaps of fabric between the extended limbs.  Unfortunate that you still need the parachute for the end of the ride.  The image you provided portrays something similar to that idea but certainly much more complex and evolved. 

[GTX]

Anyone played Metal Gear Solid 3?  IIRC Snake was inserted using a small single seat delta wing glider launched from a cargo aircraft or some such ilk...
Sounds like a pretty doable concept, apart from the fatalities in testing of course...  I think attached to the wing of a harrier is much safer!!!!

First image is the Gryphon Personal Air Vehicle (PAV). 

Second and third images show the PHASST (Programmable High Altitude Single Soldier Transport).  deploying wings as it exits the ramp of the launch aircraft and in flight with wings extended. The PHASST was also used in one of the recent James Bond films.

Fourth image is Atair Aerodynamics Skyray Flying System, another PAV that has promise. 
Other similar designs such as Yves Rossy's Jet Powered Flying Wing Personal Air Vehicle that has been powered by two (original design) or four (later design) micro-turbo jets. 

Of course all of these designs require a launch platform and the flight profiles all end with a parachute decent.

This was being offered to defence forces at last year's DSEi .

Regards,

Greg

[Mossie]

I remember reading about a winged suit for skydivers but it was made from lengths of fabric that was sewn into the arms, legs, and crotch of the jumpsuit.  It extended the distance travelled during the free fall portion of the jump.  Reminded me of a flying squirrel in some ways with the large flaps of fabric between the extended limbs.  Unfortunate that you still need the parachute for the end of the ride.  The image you provided portrays something similar to that idea but certainly much more complex and evolved. 

I got the Image from Flight International & I agree, it seems to be a concept of a more advanced wingsuit than is a currently available.  Given a military budget, it gives an idea of what may be possible.  At the moment they are pretty mich like you say Jeff, strips of fabric.  Some suit have an opening to allow air in to inflate aerofoil sections, similar to a parachute.  This slightly camp individual is demonstrating the current state of the art:

[RotorheadTX]

From Paulo Parente's DUST comics; German Raketentruppen.....Fallschirmjaeger with jet-packs.

[Jeffry Fontaine]

This is most interesting and I really hope it is not another Solo Trek scam.

Source: Cosmic Log. IS THIS YOUR JETPACK? Posted: Tuesday, July 29, 2008 10:30 AM by Alan Boyle

Link to video clip

One of the classic dreams of aviation is to rise into the air with a flying machine strapped to your back. The jetpack dream is so iconic that it has shown up in movies ranging from "Thunderball" to "The Rocketeer" - and so elusive that it has spawned a book about high-tech failures titled "Where's My Jetpack?"

Over the years, several ventures have tried to realize the jetpack dream - and now a New Zealand inventor is taking the wraps off a secret decade-long effort that he hopes will bring the dream to a sky near you.

Today's unveiling of the Martin Jetpack is one of the marquee events at the Experimental Aircraft Association's AirVenture, a weeklong air show that is drawing hundreds of thousands of people - and about 10,000 airplanes - to Oshkosh, Wis.

Through next weekend, Oshkosh will serve as a mecca for the aviation world's dreamers and builders. Many of the private planes parked in the fields surrounding the town's airport were built by their owners. The hundreds of events on this week's schedule range from quiet seminars on aircraft maintenance to ear-splitting flyovers of military jets.

The show focuses on the experimental side of aviation - and that makes Oshkosh the perfect place for Glenn Martin to unveil his jetpack. "This is an experimental aircraft with a big 'E,'" he told me.


Jetpack or ultralight?

Whether the Martin Jetpack technically qualifies as a jetpack is debatable. It's not the type of rocket belt that James Bond wore in "Thunderball," and it's not anything like the jet-powered, wearable wing that a Swiss daredevil cranked up to 186 mph in May. As far as the Federal Aviation Administration is concerned, what Martin has is an experimental ultralight airplane, equipped with a gas-powered, V-4 piston engine and two ducted fans that provide the lift.

That puts it in a class with several other fan-powered lifters, including Trek Aerospace's Springtail, Urban Aeronautics' X-Hawk and even Moller International's flying-car prototype. But Martin believes his 250-pound ultralight, initially priced at $100,000, stands the best chance of going commercial. He sees it as a recreational sport vehicle that just might be in the right price range for affluent thrill-seekers.

"I've made a Jet Ski for the sky," he said.


'A beast that roars'

Does it really fly? Definitely. This sneak-preview video shows the Martin Jetpack in action, in the backyard of Martin's host in Fond du Lac, Wis

Other videos show pilots tooling around a test field, flying as high as 6 feet off the ground. Two team members are hanging onto handles attached to the prototype to keep the pilot at that height, for safety reasons.

"One or two have cheated, you know?" Martin said. "It's very hard to hold people back."

One of the test pilots was Martin's wife, Vanessa.

"It was really an exciting experience, because at the time it was just a prototype. It was very loud, very noisy, very hot. It was like a beast that roars," she told me. "But once you throttle up, you feel it bite, and you leave the ground, and there's this feeling of floating and freedom - you become quite overwhelmed."


Training required

Theoretically, the jetpack can fly for 30 minutes, and rise to a height of 8,000 feet. But Glenn Martin said the flight envelope will be carefully tested over the coming months. Martin is opening the order book as of today, and said 10 to 20 vehicles could be sold by the time next year's Oshkosh air show rolls around.

Jetpack buyers will be required to go through about 15 hours of flight training as well as a safety screening. "If for some reason they're not coordinated enough, we'll send them their money back and give it to the next person in the queue," Martin said.

As an added safety measure, each jetpack is equipped with a ballistic parachute.

If you do buy a jetpack - whether it's Martin's or another brand - don't expect to take it to work anytime soon: The FAA regulations for ultralight aircraft rule out that kind of point-to-point travel, Martin said. But if regulators ever adopt a NASA-inspired scheme for a "highway in the sky," that could set more liberal rules of the road for jetpack commuters as well as flying cars, he added.


Swathed in secrecy

Jetpack aficionados might well wonder whether Martin has enough technical competence to make his venture fly. After all, his formal background is in pharmaceutical sales and biotech rather than engineering. But the 48-year-old said he's been tinkering on the jetpack concept ever since he was a college student.

"I had my day job going on, as well as what some people called my secret night job," he said.

In 1998, he received enough venture-capital backing to devote full time to Martin Aircraft Co., and today he has a staff of 12 and a posse of corporate partners in New Zealand.

Over the past decade, Martin kept his venture swathed in secrecy - to the point that his teenage son couldn't tell his schoolmates how cool Dad's job was. Martin explained that he was trying to avoid the fate of an earlier pair of aviation tinkerers, the Wright brothers, who found themselves embroiled in years of patent battles.

"If`you read the Wright brothers' diaries, it's almost cliche, isn't it?" Martin said.

Today, Martin feels secure about his patents - and he feels he has a product he can sell. What do you think? Is Martin's price point too high? Is his track record too scanty? Or will this venture finally answer the decades-old question, "Where's my jetpack?" Feel free to add your comments below.

Update for 1 p.m. ET July 30: Hundreds gathered Tuesday on EAA Adventure's Aeroshell Square to watch the first public takeoff of the Martin Jetpack. There were so many people gathered around that the folks in the back (like me) really could only get a glimpse of what was going on.

Unless you were sitting on someone else's shoulders, as was the case for 17-year-old, 130-pound Daniel Woodberry of Nampa, Idaho. Woodberry's buddies took turns lifting him up to take pictures during the buildup to the 30-second flight.

It turned out that the pilot was Martin's 16-year-old son, Harrison, the kid who couldn't tell his friends what Dad was doing.

"I really wanted Harrison to fly," Vanessa Martin told me Tuesday.

After a couple of introductory talks, white awnings were lifted up, revealing two jetpacks. Harrison Martin started up the engine on one of them. "Sounds like a giant leafblower," Woodberry said.

Then the teenage pilot, guided by his father and another handler, buzzed around a tight little area on the square. Martin's feet never got more than three feet or so off the ground - which came as something of a disappointment to those expecting a James Bondian blast into the sky.

The flight was finished after about 45 seconds. Spectators thronged around the jetpacks, asking all the questions you'd expect from an aviation-savvy crowd. Meanwhile, Woodberry's pals looked through the pictures the teen had taken - and starting thinking about getting a massage for their aching necks.

I've added a video from NBC's TODAY show that includes a clip from the AirVenture demonstration as well as NBC News correspondent Jenna Wolfe's personal training flight.

Some commenters have asked about basic specifications for the jetpack, and here's what I was given:

• Empty weight: 250 pounds, excluding safety equipment.
• Gross weight: 553 pounds.
• Useful (pilot) load: More than 280 pounds.
• Maximum thrust: More than 600 pounds.
• Fuel capacity: 5 gallons.
• Engine: Martin Aircraft 2.0 L, V-4, two-stroke, rated at 200 hp. Maximum 6000 RPM.
• Range: 31.5 miles at maximum speed of 63 mph.
• Many of those specs are designed to conform with the FAA regulations for ultralights.

For further discussion of jetpack setbacks, check out my list of failed flights of fancy, as well as my colleague John Schoen's report about futurism's flawed forecasts. And stay tuned for more from the EAA AirVenture in Oshkosh.

[kitnut617]

I remember reading a children's book a very long time ago about a pair of kids, brother and sister.  The story has them flying around in a winged flying suit, I really don't remember the small details such as the means of propulsion but suffice to say the children were zipping about with glee in these flying suits and went to visit their aunt or grandmother for milk and cookies.  Of course it all ended with the children returning safely to their home just in time for bed. 

That was over forty-five years ago that I read that book, why did the memory of that story stick with me when I have forgotten so much else?  I guess it had to do with the ability to fly unimpeded through the air without relying on an airline service to get you there.  I always thought that was too cool to forget.  So here we are in 2008 and where are the personal air vehicles and personal flight equipment?  Still on the drawing boards or in the imagination of the people that wait to build them for real is my guess.  Sure we have come close to realizing short distance flight with the Bell Rocket belt but that was a quick ride and terribly expensive, too expensive for the common folks out there that yearn for such a conveyance. 


So with the exception of the special effects folks in Hollywood and people that are incredibly wealthy, what do we have to look forward to now in the form of these devices?  The flying wing parachute combinations are a step in the right direction but you still have to use the parachute to get you to the ground in one piece.  There was also the failed Solo-Trek flying exo-skeleton that went nowhere but consumed a lot of financial support before it was determined to have been a failure.  Before the Solo-Trek there was the Baumgartyl helicopter design that to be honest scares me.  Two opposed single rotors, eash powered by a small gasoline engine and fitted with a counter-balance to keep you from getting ripped to shreds while wearing the thing.  But it was tested and it did appear to work.

Jeffry, did you see the episode of MythBusters where the guys tried to make a contraption like the second image you posted (two ducted fans), I think it was the one about Hollywood stunts and the PAV came up.  They tried to approach it logically and use items which a person could easily find and buy plus trying to keep the overall weight to the minimum.  They actually got it to lift one of the guys off the floor where they had it set up.  The concensus was that it was possible but figuring out how to control it in flight was for another time.

[ysi_maniac]

From Paulo Parente's DUST comics; German Raketentruppen.....Fallschirmjaeger with jet-packs.

Love this pic, I have not seen it before

[Sauragnmon]

I'm surprised it hasn't been mentioned in this thread already, I saw a clip once on the discovery channel if I recall, or at least on their website - there's a guy in Mexico City who has actually built a few rocket packs.  They actually carry enough propellant for a few minutes of burst flight, and they generate quite a fair ammount of thrust.  The pack the man uses, operates on a pair of pressurized peroxide jets to generate the thrust.  I don't know if you can still find the clip, but the guy wasn't extremely wealthy, but he reasoned it wasn't all that purposeful in his operational use, as you can't carry very much fuel and operate at any effective lift force.  He was still taking the process for other uses, like rocket-bikes and the like.

[SSgt Baloo]

Wingsuits In Use

[Mossie]

I'm surprised it hasn't been mentioned in this thread already, I saw a clip once on the discovery channel if I recall, or at least on their website - there's a guy in Mexico City who has actually built a few rocket packs.  They actually carry enough propellant for a few minutes of burst flight, and they generate quite a fair ammount of thrust.  The pack the man uses, operates on a pair of pressurized peroxide jets to generate the thrust.  I don't know if you can still find the clip, but the guy wasn't extremely wealthy, but he reasoned it wasn't all that purposeful in his operational use, as you can't carry very much fuel and operate at any effective lift force.  He was still taking the process for other uses, like rocket-bikes and the like.

High test peroxide isn't something you want near your skin either.  I think any rocket pack is dangerous, but if any HTP leaks it's a nasty way to get hurt, it's corrosive & will burn on contact & it can possibly even combust in contact with clothes or dirt on your skin.  Not nice!

Wingsuits In Use

Cool vid!  Nutters, but cool none the less!

[Sauragnmon]

I won't deny the risk with 90-90% peroxide of skin damage, considering 3% is what you use medically, I think 25% is what you get for barbicide, and anything higher you have to chemically prepare your own like that guy did.  Any contact with iron, for example, will instantly cause the sublimation of H2O2 into Steam.  That's the core of what generates the thrust in his rockets, a pressurized spray of near-pure peroxide, into the two jet nozzles.

Talk about Steam Punk!

[Jeffry Fontaine]

More information on the Rocket Belt from the U.S. Army Transportation Museum, Fort Eustis, Virginia. Including several images that I have not seen before of the device being demonstrated as well as Lost In Space "Hero Shot" of Guy Williams.