I'd love for this to be true, though I remain skeptical as "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence"
For example, the chap who claimed he had built bird-like wings suitable for launching a human into the air[0] garnered a lot of attention until it was revealed to be a hoax [1].
Some similarities between the two videos. Low resolution. Lots of chopping and changing. Involves human flight - a naturally exciting area and excitement can suspend rationality.
Those are very, very cool, and I'm sure they are a huge technical achievement, but they don't really deserve to be compared with "jet pack" style craft. They have no takeoff or landing abilities at all.
Serious question, why are all these fake videos instantly recognizable? Other fake videos too, even long before "the thing" is shown just from the camera movement I know it's fake. They even try to hide it with artificial blur or lowering quality or shaking but the camera movement is still fake.
He's not flying, he hasn't gone high enough to stop benefiting from the pushback from the ground. See also "Ground effect vehicle", "wing in ground effect", "ekranoplan"
Look out in this sort of video for the lack of sustained level flight at a height substantially over the width of the device/craft (1) if they can't stay at that level, it's not quite flying.
"When an aircraft flies at a ground level approximately at or below the length of the aircraft's wingspan or helicopter's rotor diameter ... an often noticeable ground effect. "
We really ought to have a scraper and chrome extension "HN cache", for things like this. Where we can click "cached" and see the original content hosted somewhere, like on S3 or something.
I'm too busy/lazy right now to implement this :P but I just wanted to throw the idea out there.
It looks like he doesn't have enough power. He only manages to get a few feet off the ground and is probably getting extra lift because the ground is so close. Perhaps adding an other engine on each side might make the difference.
You would need to be relatively strong to be able to fly this (as he clearly is). His weight is supported by the engines which are on his hands. To fly and control this you would need the kind of strength required to do gymnastic rings. Perhaps some kind of stiff suit to move that load to other parts of the body might solve that, but this would add weight, which would increase the power requirement.
The "Flyboard Air" is also interesting [0] (and almost definitely not a hoax!). The inventor was recently in the news [1] saying he would have to leave France because the aviation authorities were cracking down and limiting his ability to test the craft.
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[ 4.8 ms ] story [ 116 ms ] threadFor example, the chap who claimed he had built bird-like wings suitable for launching a human into the air[0] garnered a lot of attention until it was revealed to be a hoax [1].
Some similarities between the two videos. Low resolution. Lots of chopping and changing. Involves human flight - a naturally exciting area and excitement can suspend rationality.
[0]:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojSkxF6Qq_c [1]:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newsvideo/weirdnewsvideo/915...
Do I think the "iron man" suit can do more than hover? Not really. It is pretty cool nonetheless.
Look out in this sort of video for the lack of sustained level flight at a height substantially over the width of the device/craft (1) if they can't stay at that level, it's not quite flying.
1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ground_effect_(aerodynamics)
"When an aircraft flies at a ground level approximately at or below the length of the aircraft's wingspan or helicopter's rotor diameter ... an often noticeable ground effect. "
Looks like someone's doing their diligence to remove all traces.
https://www.startengine.com/startup/jetpack-aviation
So 6 smaller turbines (eg: AMT Olympus) at 23 kgf looks good.That said - I'd not want to be waving 800 degree C things spinning at 100K RPM anywhere near my body.
Edit: I suspect he is using JetCat turbines of appropriate size: http://www.jetcat.de/jetcatturbinen/strahlturbinen.htm
I'm too busy/lazy right now to implement this :P but I just wanted to throw the idea out there.
It looks like he doesn't have enough power. He only manages to get a few feet off the ground and is probably getting extra lift because the ground is so close. Perhaps adding an other engine on each side might make the difference.
You would need to be relatively strong to be able to fly this (as he clearly is). His weight is supported by the engines which are on his hands. To fly and control this you would need the kind of strength required to do gymnastic rings. Perhaps some kind of stiff suit to move that load to other parts of the body might solve that, but this would add weight, which would increase the power requirement.
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEDrMriKsFM
[1] https://venturebeat.com/2017/03/14/french-hoverboard-creator...
maybe some rich guy bought the whole company