When inventor David Maiman took to the skies, he seemed to be answering an ancient desire.So why does no one seem to care?
We have jetpacks and we don’t care.An Australian named David Maiman invented a powerful jetpack and flew it around the world – once in the shadow of the Statue of Liberty – but few people know his name.His jetpack was available, but no one was rushing to get it.Humans have been saying they want jetpacks for decades, and we’ve been saying we want to fly for thousands of years, but really?look up.The sky is empty.
Airlines are dealing with a pilot shortage, and it could get worse.A recent study found that by 2025, we expect a global shortage of 34,000 commercial pilots.For smaller aircraft, the trends are similar.Hang gliders have all but disappeared.Manufacturers of ultralight aircraft are barely making ends meet.(The manufacturer, Air Création, sold just one car in the U.S. last year.) Every year, we have more passengers and fewer pilots.Meanwhile, one of the most coveted forms of flying — jetpacks — exists, but Mayman can’t get anyone’s attention.
“A few years ago, I had a flight in Sydney Harbour,” he told me.”I still remember flying close enough to see joggers and people walking around the plant area, some of whom didn’t look up. Jetpacks were loud, so I assure you they heard me. But I was in There, flying by in jetpacks, they didn’t look up.”
When I was 40 years old, I started experimenting with flying whatever I could – helicopters, ultralights, gliders, hang gliders.It’s not so much a midlife crisis as it is that I finally have the time, or the time, to do what I’ve always wanted to do.So I tried paragliding, skydiving.One day, I stopped at a roadside airstrip in California wine country that offered World War I biplane flights.They didn’t have biplanes available that day, but there was a WWII bomber, a B-17G called a Sentimental Journey to refuel, so I got on board.Inside, the plane looks like an old aluminum boat; it’s rough and rough, but it flies smoothly and buzzes like a Cadillac.We flew for 20 minutes over green and russet hills, the sky was as white as a frozen lake, and it felt like we were making good use of Sunday.
Because I don’t know what I’m doing, and I’m not good at math, reading the wind, or checking dials or gauges, I do all of these things as a passenger rather than a pilot.I will never be a pilot.I know this.Pilots are supposed to be organized and methodical, I’m not one of those things.
But being with these pilots made me deeply grateful to those who kept going — experimenting and rejoicing in flight.My respect for pilots is limitless, and for the past 10 years, my elementary school teacher was a French-Canadian named Michael Globensky who taught ultralight tricycle flying in Petaluma, California.He used to teach hang gliding, but that business was dead, he said.Fifteen years ago, the student disappeared.For a while, though, he still had ultralight clients—those who wanted to fly as passengers, and some students.But that work has fallen sharply.The last time I saw him, he had no students at all.
Still, we go up often.The ultralight trike we drove was a bit like a two-seater motorcycle with an oversized hang glider attached to it.Ultralights aren’t protected from the elements — there’s no cockpit; both the pilot and passengers are exposed — so we wear sheepskin coats, helmets, and thick gloves.Globensky rolled onto the runway, waiting for the small Cessna and turboprop to pass, and then it was our turn.Powered by propellers in the rear, the ultralight accelerates quickly, and after 90 meters, Globensky gently pushes the wings outward and we’re in the air.Takeoff is almost vertical, like a kite being pulled upwards by a sudden gust of wind.
Once we left the airstrip, the feeling was otherworldly and completely different from sitting on any other plane.Surrounded by wind and sun, nothing stood between us and the clouds and birds as we flew over the highway, over the farms in Petaluma, and into the Pacific.Globensky likes to hug the shore above Point Reyes, where the waves below are like spilled sugar.Our helmets have microphones, and every 10 minutes, one of us speaks, but usually it’s just us in the sky, silent, but occasionally listening to a John Denver song.That song is almost always Rocky Mountain High.Sometimes I’m tempted to ask Globensky if we could have survived without John Denver’s “Rocky Mountain Heights” — especially considering that this particular singer-songwriter died flying an experimental plane in Monterey, just before we South – but I don’t have the guts.He really liked that song.
Globensky came to my mind while waiting in the parking lot of a Ralphs supermarket in the arid farming town of Moorpark in southern California.This car park is where Mayman and Boris Jarry, the owners of Jetpack Aviation, told us to meet.I’ve signed up for a weekend jetpack training session where I’ll be wearing and operating their jetpacks (JB10) with dozens of other students.
But as I waited in the parking lot, I only met four other people — two pairs — who were there for a training session.First up was William Wesson and Bobby Yancey, burly 40-somethings from Oxford, Alabama, 2,000 miles away.They parked next to me in a rented sedan.”Jetpack?” they asked.I nod, they stop and we wait.Wesson is a pilot who has flown almost everything – airplanes, gyrocopters, helicopters.Now he works for the local power company, flying helicopters in the area and inspecting downed lines.Yancey was his best friend and the journey was smooth sailing.
The other pair is Jesse and Michelle.Michelle, who wears red-rimmed glasses, is distressed and is there to support Jesse, who is a lot like Colin Farrell and has worked with Maiman and Jarry as an aerial cameraman for years.He was the one who shot the footage of Mayman flying around the Statue of Liberty and Sydney Harbour.Given saying “copy that” instead of “yes,” Jesse, like me, is curious about flying, flying adjacent – always passengers, not pilots.He’s always wanted to fly a jetpack, but never got the chance.
Finally, a black pickup rumbled into the parking lot and a tall, stocky Frenchman jumped out.This is Jarry.He had bright eyes, a beard, and was always ecstatic about his work.I thought he wanted to meet at the supermarket because the jetpack training facility is hard to find, or – even better – its location is top secret.but not.Jarry told us to go to Ralphs, bring the lunch we wanted, put it in his cart and he would pay and take it to the training facility.So our first impression of the Jetpack Aviation training program was of a tall Frenchman pushing a shopping cart through a supermarket.
After he loaded our food into the truck, we got in and followed him, the caravan passing through Moorpark’s flat fruit and vegetable fields, white sprinklers cutting through the rows of greens and aquamarines.We pass strawberry and melon pickers in oversized straw hats, then we take our dusty road through hills of lemon and fig trees, past eucalyptus windbreaks, and finally into a lush avocado farm at about 800 feet above sea level , Jetpack is located in the aviation compound.
It’s an unassuming setup.A two-acre vacant lot has been separated from the rest of the farm by a white wooden fence.In the roughly circular clearing were piles of firewood and sheet metal, an old tractor and some aluminum outbuildings.Jarry told us that the farmer who owns the land was himself a former pilot and lived in a house on top of a ridge.”He doesn’t mind the noise,” Jarry said, squinting at the Spanish colony above.
At the center of the compound is the jetpack testbed, a concrete rectangle the size of a basketball court.Our students wandered around for a few minutes before finding the jetpack, which was hanging in a shipping container like a museum collection.A jetpack is a beautiful and simple object.It has two specially modified turbojets, a large fuel container and two handles – throttle on the right and yaw on the left.The jetpack certainly has a computerized element, but for the most part, it’s a simple and easy-to-understand machine.It looks exactly like a jetpack without wasting space or weight.It has two turbojets with a maximum thrust of 375 pounds.It has a fuel capacity of 9.5 gallons.Dry, the jetpack weighs 83 pounds.
The machine and the whole compound, really, are totally unattractive and immediately reminds me of NASA – another very unattractive place, built and maintained by serious people who don’t care about looks at all.Nestled in the swamps and scrubland of Florida, NASA’s Cape Canaveral facility is fully functional and no fuss.The budget for landscaping seems to be zero.As I watched the final flight of the space shuttle, I was struck by every turning point because of my lack of focus on anything unrelated to the mission at hand – building new flying objects.
At Moorpark, we were sitting in a small makeshift hangar, where a big TV played footage of Jarry and Mayman piloting various avatars of their jetpacks.The video loops their flight in New York, southern California at the start of the Formula 1 race in Monaco.Every once in a while, a short from the James Bond movie Thunderball is stitched together for comedic effect.Jarry told us that Mayman is busy on the call with investors, so he will handle basic orders.With a heavy French accent, he discusses things like throttle and yaw, safety and disaster, and after 15 minutes on the whiteboard, it’s clear we’re ready to put our gear on.I’m not ready yet, but that’s okay.I decided not to go first.
The first garment was a flame retardant long underwear.Then a pair of heavy wool socks.Then there’s a pair of silver pants, lightweight but flame-resistant.Then another pair of heavy wool socks.Then there are the jumpsuits.helmet.Fire resistant gloves.Finally, a pair of heavy leather boots will prove to be the key to keeping our feet from burning.(More info coming soon.)
Since Wesson is a trained pilot, we decided to let him go first.He climbed three steel-fence steps and slipped into his jetpack, which was suspended from pulleys in the center of the tarmac.When Jarry tied him up, Maiman showed up.He is 50 years old, well-proportioned, bald, blue-eyed, long-limbed and soft-spoken.He welcomed us all with a handshake and greeting, and then pulled a can of kerosene from a shipping container.
When he came back and started pouring fuel into the jetpack, it only realized how risky that seemed, and why jetpack development and adoption was slow.While we fill our car’s gas tanks with highly flammable gasoline every day, there is — or we pretend to be — a comfortable distance between our fragile flesh and this explosive fuel.But carrying that fuel on your back, in a glorified backpack full of pipes and turbines, brings home the reality of the internal combustion engine.Just watching kerosene being poured inches from Wesson’s face was disconcerting.However, it’s still the best technology we have, and it took Mayman 15 years, and dozens of unsuccessful iterations, to get here.
Not that he was the first.The first person on record to patent a jetpack (or rocket pack) was Russian engineer Alexander Andreev, who imagined soldiers using the device to jump over walls and trenches.He never made his rocket pack, but the Nazis borrowed concepts from their Himmelsstürmer (Storm in Heaven) project – which they hoped would give the Nazi superman the ability to jump.Thank God the war was over before that, but the idea still lives in the minds of engineers and inventors.However, it wasn’t until 1961 that Bell Aerosystems developed the Bell Rocket Strap, a simple dual jetpack that propelled the wearer upward for 21 seconds using hydrogen peroxide as fuel.A variation of this technique was used at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, when pilot Bill Suitor flew over the opening ceremony.
Hundreds of millions of people watched that demo, and humans can’t be blamed for assuming everyday jetpacks are coming.The image of Maiman as a teen watching suitors hovering over the Los Angeles Coliseum never left him.Growing up in Sydney, Australia, he learned to fly before he learned to drive; he obtained his pilot’s license at the age of 16.He went to college and became a serial entrepreneur, eventually starting and selling a company like Yelp, and moving to California with a windfall to fulfill his dream of creating his own jetpack.Starting in 2005, he worked with engineers at an industrial park in Van Nuys, building and testing rough variations of the technology.All of these jetpack variants have only one test pilot, though he gets training from Bill Suitor (the same guy who inspired him at the 84th Olympics).That was David Maiman himself.
Early versions used 12 engines, then 4, and he regularly crashed into buildings (and cacti) around the Van Nuys Industrial Park.After a poor week of test flights in Australia, he crashed on a Sydney farm one day and was hospitalized with severe burns to his thigh.As he was scheduled to fly over Sydney Harbour the next day, he was discharged and briefly flew over the harbour before crashing again, this time in a drink.More research and development followed, and eventually, Mayman settled on the two-jet design of the JB9 and JB10.With this version – the one we’re testing today – there have been no major incidents.
It’s important to note, though, that Mayman and Jarry fly their jetpacks almost exclusively over water — they haven’t yet devised a way to wear both a jetpack and a parachute.
That’s why we’re flying tethered today.And why we’re no more than 4 feet off the ground.Is it enough?Sitting on the edge of the tarmac, watching Wesson get ready, I wondered if the experience—flying 4 feet over concrete—would offer something like real flying.While I’ve enjoyed every flight I’ve taken in all the aircraft I’ve tried, I’ve always come back to the experience that comes closest to pure flying and truly feels weightless.It was on a golden hill on California’s central coast, with mohair grass, and a man in his 60s was teaching me how to fly a hang glider.First, we assembled the contraption, and everything about it was raw and awkward—a mess of poles, bolts and ropes—and at the end, I was on the top of the mountain, ready to run down and jump.That’s what it’s all about – running, jumping and floating the rest of the way as the sail above me hits the gentlest wind.I did it a dozen times that day and never flew more than 100 feet until late afternoon.I find myself thinking every day about the weightlessness, the tranquility and simplicity of hanging under the canvas wings, the gallop of the Mohair Mountains beneath my feet.
But I digress.I’m sitting on a plastic chair next to the tarmac now, looking at Wesson.He stood on the steps of the iron fence, his helmet tightly on, his cheeks already part of his nose, his eyes squeezed into the depths of his face.At Jarry’s signal, Wesson fired up the jets, which howled like mortars.The smell is burning jet fuel, and the heat is three-dimensional.Yancey and I sat on the outer fence of the yard, in the fading shadow of the eucalyptus trees, it was like standing behind an airplane when starting on an airstrip.Nobody should do this.
Meanwhile, Jarry stood in front of Wesson, using gestures and head movements to guide him up and down, left and right.Although Wesson controlled the jet with throttle and yaw, his eyes never took his eyes off Jarry’s—he was locked on like a boxer with 10 hits.He moved cautiously around the tarmac, not more than 4 feet high, and then, too quickly, it was over.Such is the tragedy of jetpack technology.They can’t provide enough fuel for a flight of more than eight minutes — even that’s the upper limit.Kerosene is heavy, burns quickly, and a person can only carry so much.Batteries would be much better, but they would be much heavier – at least for now.Someday, someone might invent a battery light and energy efficient enough to do better than kerosene, but, for now, you’re limited to what you can carry, which isn’t much.
Wesson slumped on the plastic chair next to Yancey after dodging his jetpack, flushed and limping.He has flown nearly every type of plane and helicopter, but “that,” he said, “was the hardest thing I’ve ever done.”
Jesse did a great job flying up and down with good command, but then he did something I didn’t know we were supposed to do: he landed on the tarmac.Landing on the tarmac is routine for aircraft — in fact, that’s where they usually land — but with jetpacks, something unfortunate happens when pilots land on concrete.The jet turbines on the pilots’ backs blow the exhaust at 800 degrees to the ground, and this heat has nowhere to go but is radiated outward, spreading across the pavement like a bomb radius.When Jesse stands or lands on the steps, the exhaust may be emitted down the fenced steps and spread out below.But standing on the concrete floor, the exhaust air spreads in the direction of his boots in an instant, and it attacked his feet, his calves.Jarry and Maiman get into action.Maiman uses the remote to turn off the turbine while Jarry brings a bucket of water.In one practice move, he guides Jesse’s feet, boots and everything into it.The steam doesn’t come out of the tub, but the lesson is still learned.Do not land on the tarmac with the engine running.
When it was my turn, I stepped onto the steel-fence steps and slid sideways into a jetpack suspended from pulleys.I could feel the weight of it when it was hanging on the pulley, but when Jarry put it on my back it was heavy.The packaging is well-designed for even weight distribution and easy management, but 90 pounds (dry plus fuel) is no joke.It must be said that the engineers at Mayman have done an excellent job with the balance and intuitiveness of the controls.Instantly, it felt right, all of that.
That is, right down to the buckles and straps.There are many buckles and straps that fit like a skydiving suit, emphasizing the groin tightening.Before I talk about anything about groin tightening, Jarry is explaining the throttle, which is on my right hand, giving more or less fuel to the jet turbine.My left hand control is yaw, directing the jet exhaust to the left or right.There are some lights and gauges attached to the handle, but today, I’ll get all my info from Jarry.Like Wesson and Jesse before me, my cheeks were pushed into my nose, and Jarry and I met eyes, waiting for any micro-command that would help me not die.
Maiman filled his backpack with kerosene and went back to the side of the tarmac with the remote in hand.Jerry asked if I was ready.I told him I was ready.Jets ignite.Sounds like a Category 5 hurricane going through a drain.Jarry turns an invisible throttle and I imitate his movements with the real throttle.The sound is getting louder.He turns his stealth throttle more, I turn mine.Now the sound is at a fever pitch and I feel a push on the back of my calf.I took a slight step forward and brought my legs together.(That’s why jetpack wearers’ legs are as stiff as toy soldiers — any deviation is quickly punished by the 800-degree jet exhaust.) Jarry imitates more throttle, I give it more throttle, and then I am slowly leaving the earth.It’s not like weightlessness at all.Instead, I felt every pound of mine, how much thrust it took to levitate me and the machine.
Jerry told me to go higher.One foot, then two, then three.As the jets roared and the kerosene burned, I circled, thinking it was a staggering amount of noise and trouble floating 36 inches off the ground.Unlike flying in its purest form, harnessing the wind and mastering soaring, it’s just brute force.This is destroying the space through heat and noise.And it’s really hard.Especially when Jarry makes me move around.
Turning left and right requires manipulating the yaw — the grip of my left hand, which moves the direction of the jetted exhaust.On its own, it’s easy.But I had to do it while keeping the throttle consistent so I didn’t land on the tarmac like Jesse did.It’s not easy to adjust the yaw angle while keeping the throttle steady while keeping the legs stiff and staring into Jarry’s ecstatic eyes.It requires a whole-hearted level of focus, which I compare to big wave surfing.(I’ve never done big wave surfing.)
Then forward and backward.This is a completely different and more challenging task.To move forward, the pilot had to move the entire device.Imagine a triceps machine in the gym.I had to tilt the jetpack—everything on my back—away from my body.Doing the opposite, pulling the handle up, bringing my hands close to my shoulders, turning the jets toward my ankles, pulling me back.Since I don’t know anything about anything, I won’t comment on the engineering wisdom; I’ll just say I don’t like it and wish it was more like throttle and yaw – more automatic, more responsive, and less likely Burning (think blowtorch on butter) the skin of my calves and ankles.
After each test flight, I would come down the steps, take off my helmet, and sit with Wesson and Yancey, rattling and exhausted.If this is the hardest flight Wesson has ever done, then I think I’m ready to fly the helicopter.When we saw that the Jesse was slightly better, when the sun went down below the tree line, we discussed what we could do to improve it, and the general usefulness of this machine.The current flight time is too short and too difficult.But that’s also the case with the Wright Brothers — and then some.Their first maneuverable air vehicle was very difficult to fly for anyone but themselves, and a decade has passed between their demonstration and the first practical mass-market aircraft that could be flown by anyone else .Meanwhile, no one is interested in it.For the first few years of their test flight, they zipped between two freeways in Dayton, Ohio.
Mayman and Jarry still find themselves here.They’ve done the hard work of designing, building, and testing a jetpack that’s simple and intuitive enough for a Rube like me to fly in controlled conditions.With enough investment, they can reduce costs significantly, and they’ll likely be able to solve the flight time problem as well.But, for now, the Jetpack Aviation boot camp has two paying customers, and the rest of humanity gives the visionary pair a collective shrug.
A month into training, I was sitting at home trying to put an end to this story when I read a piece of news that a jetpack had been spotted flying at 5,000 feet near Los Angeles International Airport.”The jet man is back,” said LAX’s air traffic controller, as it wasn’t the first sighting.It turns out that at least five jetpack sightings were recorded between August 2020 and August 2021 — most of them in Southern California, at altitudes between 3,000 and 6,000 feet.
I emailed Mayman to ask what he knew about the phenomenon, hoping this mysterious jetpack man was him.Because I think he’s a very responsible guy, he’s flying so high, it seems counterintuitive in limited airspace, but then again, California doesn’t have the record that anyone else has, let alone the ability to fly, with a jetpack.
A week has passed and I haven’t heard back from Mayman.In his silence, wild theories bloom.Of course it was him, I thought.Only he is capable of such a flight, and only he has the motive.After trying to grab the world’s attention through direct means—for example, YouTube videos and ads in the Wall Street Journal—he was forced to go rogue.Pilots and air traffic controllers at LAX began calling the pilot Iron Man — the man behind the stunt acting like the superhero alter ego Tony Stark, waiting until the right moment to reveal that it was him.
“I wish I had an idea of what’s going on around LAX,” Mayman wrote.”No doubt the airline pilots saw something, but I highly doubt it was a jet-turbine powered jetpack. They just didn’t have the stamina to climb up to 3,000 or 5,000 feet, fly for a while and then come down and land. Just me I think it could be an electric drone with an inflatable mannequin that looks like a person wearing a jetpack.”
Another delicious mystery just disappeared.There probably won’t be rebellious jet men flying in restricted airspace, and we probably won’t have our own jetpacks in our lifetimes, but we can settle for two very careful jet men, Mayman and Jarry, who occasionally hang out in Avocado Fly around the farm, if only to prove they can.
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Post time: Jan-27-2022