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Aircraft

Martin Aircraft seeking funds to get Jetpack off the ground

By Darren Quick
August 21, 2012
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The Martin Jetpack is now regularly being flown at speeds of 50 km/h (31 mph)
The Martin Jetpack on a high altitude test flight
The Martin Jetpack has been flown to an altitude of 5,000 feet
The Martin Jetpack is now regularly being flown at speeds of 50 km/h (31 mph)
The Martin Jetpack
The Martin Jetpack features a ballistic parachute safety system
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When we first covered the Martin Jetpack back in March, 2010, the creators were hoping to get it on the backs of buyers sometime in 2011. While 2011 has come and gone, the New Zealand-based Martin Aircraft Company is continuing test flights and is now seeking investors to help bring the manned Jetpack to market in mid 2013.

Last year, Martin Aircraft entered an intensive flight period that saw an unmanned version reach an altitude of 5,000 feet at a climb rate (which was limited to allow the chase helicopter to keep up) of 800 ft/min (4 m/s) and also involved the first test of its ballistic parachute system.

Additional remote control test flights expanded the flight envelope and the company now reports that the unmanned version is now regularly being flown at speeds of 50 km/h (31 mph) in winds of 15 km/h (9 mph). A manned flight demonstration that is likely to take place in Auckland has also been planned for later this year.

To get the Jetpack to market, Martin Aircraft is seeking 100 investors willing to put in NZ$24,000 (approx. US$20,000) each. The company hopes this will allow it to release a manned Jetpack aimed at search and rescue, law enforcement and other Government services by mid 2013, with the personal version launching about a year later. The company also plans an IPO later this year or early next year.

To get an idea of what you’d be investing in, take a look at one of the remote control flight tests carried out late last year in the video below.

Source: Martin Aircraft

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AircraftVTOLJetpackTest FlightsNew ZealandMartin Jetpack
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Darren Quick
Darren's love of technology started in primary school with a Nintendo Game & Watch Donkey Kong (still functioning) and a Commodore VIC 20 computer (not still functioning). In high school he upgraded to a 286 PC, and he's been following Moore's law ever since. This love of technology continues as Managing Editor of New Atlas.
8 comments
Mike Hallett
I don't know, but to me, the term JetPack suggests at least a tongue of flame and a plume of smoke....not the roar of a lawnmower engine and a couple of ducted fans. ;-))
Joe Sobotka
very cool,,, but not stealthy :) seems very loud. But yep,, I'd like to have one! :)
Patrick McGean
As a Hang Glider pilot and crash dummy, reduce the jet pack and use a wing to increase efficency, mechanical advantage of a air foil and we won't have pilots stuck head first in the ground. Compressed air makes more sense but the folks at Martin don't do common sense. Anonymous for President has not flown anywhere, can you see an idea?
Expanded Viewpoint
Unless you are a god of some kind, or a bankster you NEVER get something for nothing. In the world of physics, you need to expend a certain amount of energy in order to do a certain amount of work. That's why you can't power an ocean liner with a lawn mower engine. So to levitate that amount of weight there, you will need to expend enough energy to get the work done, and you will make a lot of noise in the process. Unless you can make it more like a flying bird, insect or bat.
Randy
PeetEngineer
For the jetpack experience, I think I'd rather have a Jetlev - the fire-hose jet pack that's powered by an umbilical cord from a motor trailing along in the water behind you. It's not the same as flying like a true jetpack or helicopter, but at least you have a soft landing in the water.
Slowburn
re; Patrick McGean
It is a jetpack in that you fly on jets of air and the ducted fans make it a lot more efficient than the warm gas rocket jetpacks previously flown.
If you want an ultralight buy one but you will not be able to launch and land vertically.
Compressed air would at best give you a few seconds of flight, getting a pop bottle to fly requires adding water.
Piri
This project has a long way to go to convince me it will become a viable product. The noise it makes will discount its allowable use around residential, public recreation and livestock areas. My real concern is around catastrophic failure in that area of altitude between the ground and effective parachute deployment. It sounds to me like this machine works with high mechanical stress levels - wouldn't fancy hearing a bang-clatter while strapped to a machine that will drop like a rock even from say 20 metres. The reported quest for a measly $2M from small-time investors is also a worry, indicating no interest from institutional or private equity sources. Why is that?
Antony Stewart
114 kilos, 30 minutes of flight time. 243 kilos loaded weight hardly makes it a pack, like a sandwitch pack or pack of cards, if i had a 114 kg pack of cards i would call it a truck. would you rather have this or a plane, planes gome lighter than 114 kilos. like the flynano expected in 2013, and microlights. if you put that motor on a microlight it would make sense, and you would look less crazy and fly for much longer. its interesting that martin has made the martin jetpack, for the sake of curiosity, although he may as well seek orders for them rather than seek investment. you mean he is looking for an order?
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