What it's like to fly over Dubai with a jetpack

Thats so cool. Thanked.

awesome!

Wow that was awesome. Thanks for sharing. I didn't know this even existed

It certainly looks like something out of a James Bond movie, but it's real. This is all the work of a Swiss guy, Yves Rossy, who has been improving his prototype jet wing since 2004. You may have seen him on TV testing earlier versions, but as far as I know they haven't even attempted to get these approved for commercial sale anywhere. This model looks incredible, but I suppose it's crazy dangerous in spite of how impressive it looks in the video. I wonder what it took to get permission to fly over the city and do a close fly-by of a building? (That's the Burj Khalifa, currently the tallest building in the world.)

There are some answers to questions from the X-Dubai team in the Youtube comments, and you can find out more at http://www.jetman.com.

BTW, the music on that video is an original composition that can be found here: https://soundcloud.com/piersbaron/sets/ ... ck/s-QWtzw

From the Jetman web site:

A professional pilot, Yves Rossy sought to move out of the cockpit in the continuous pursuit of flight through innovation and ingenuity to achieve mankind’s dream of engine-powered flight for humans. Drawn initially to the world of free fall, he experimented with ways to increase his flight time and enhance his ability to select his trajectory, which introduced him to sky surfing and wingsuiting.

Still not satisfied, he developed his first real wing comprising a rigid harness integrated into inflatable wing panels that he strapped to his back. The next step was towards maintaining and gaining altitude by improving efficiency with a rigid wing and adding propulsion.

Yves chose to go with model jet turbines, at first two of them, allowing him to maintain level flight in 2004, and then four engines in 2006. Till now, Yves Rossy has conducted winged flights over the Swiss Alps, the English Channel, the Grand Canyon and other iconic locations.

And some facts from this Wired article:

- They usually start the flight by dropping from a helicopter as you see in this video, getting up to 160 mph in the initial vertical fall to get airspeed
- They start the jet engines about a minute before the drop, and check them out before jumping
- It has about 10 minutes of fuel
- They fly at about 110 mph
- When the fuel runs out, they land by parachute, usually still strapped to the wing if nothing has gone wrong
- The whole rig weighs about 55 kg loaded with fuel, heavy but manageable for walking, lighter when landing because the fuel is expended
- Flight control is simply by angling the body. They have a throttle control and a few simple instruments like a timer and altimeter. For the rest they rely on feel and sound.

Insane. Ty for sharing and ty for the background info.

Side note, we visited Dubsi 5 years ago. Had a great time. Incredibly friendly people.