Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Airline pilots landing at LAX report “a guy in jetpack” flying alongside them

thedrive.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

181–190 of 486 posts

Re: Airline pilots landing at LAX report “a guy in jetpack” flying alongside them

#181

Post by CobrastanJorji »

achow wrote: post #124
ckocagil wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All sorts of transportation are very fragile. Everyone with a driver's license is trusted with operating tons of steel that can move at enormous speeds. Society's based on some amount of mutual trust. We can't lock everything down and treat every person as a potential criminal. That leads to an inefficient and dystopian country.

Well at the risk of sounding pedantic, things on rails - railways, metro/subway etc. are not in same category.

On the contrary, you need to defend the entire length of the track at all times from an enemy who can destroy any small part of it at any time and then just leave the scene to try again later. Yes, it takes much more effort than a driver just deciding to go on a rampage, but against a determined adversary the train is at a huge disadvantage.

Re: Airline pilots landing at LAX report “a guy in jetpack” flying alongside them

#182

Post by Turing_Machine »

kingbirdy wrote: post #49
degenerate wrote: post #43

Nobody is going to mention how this is an overly-hyped PR stunt? edit: Nevermind, I thought the embedded youtube videos in the article was footage of the event described in the article. I didn't realize the video footage was a separate flight from 2015.

The jetpackers in the video at the bottom of the article aren't the same jetpackers the article is about. The people in the video clearly have permission as you pointed out, but I don't think we can say for sure as to whether the person at LAX did.

I think it's a near-certainty that this person didn't have permission.

It's extremely unlikely that he'd be given permission to fly his jetpack in the approach to LAX, and even if he were, you can bet that air traffic control would be fully aware of it ahead of time.

Re: Airline pilots landing at LAX report “a guy in jetpack” flying alongside them

#183

Post by garmaine »

robodale wrote: post #158
dvtrn wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This comparison flew over my head easily at about 20,000 feet, anyone else? Can someone give me clearance to land this bird, 20L please.

Bringing the egg....versus being the bacon.

It falls flat because people eat chicken for breakfast too..

Re: Airline pilots landing at LAX report “a guy in jetpack” flying alongside them

#185

Post by lightlyused »

peeters wrote: post #69

Took me a while to find on LiveATC as this wasn't actually on the Tower frequency, but here is the full feed: http://archive-server.liveatc.net/klax/KLAX-Final-Aug-31-202... . At 5:23. Unfortunately their web player is not linkable, but this is the KLAX North/South Final Approach feed ( https://www.liveatc.net/archive.php?m=klax6 ) from Aug 31, 0130-0200 UTC.

That is a friend of mine's site. If you live near an airport and have a good internet connection volunteer to provide a live feed.

Re: Airline pilots landing at LAX report “a guy in jetpack” flying alongside them

#186

Post by hondo77 »

egfx wrote: post #53
bufferoverflow wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jetpacks have been around for years, tons of youtube videos of people flying them. You can even buy one. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nj-Iwv5NJKg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yBe9bucYPcY

Is there a reason why the flights are all over water? LAX doesn’t have a body of water surrounding it other then the Pacific Ocean. Is that a requirement for the jet pack?

> LAX doesn’t have a body of water surrounding it other then the Pacific Ocean.

LOL

Re: Airline pilots landing at LAX report “a guy in jetpack” flying alongside them

#187

Post by MayeulC »

rozab wrote: post #47
callumprentice wrote: post #19

I don’t imagine it was these guys but another “Ironman” type flight suit I’ve been following is the tech from https://gravity.co/ - it looks like so much fun although I’m sure it’s much harder to use that the videos suggest.

I think those look really exhausting and unnatural since you have to carry your whole bodyweight on your arms. Seriously, try suspending yourself with your hands on two chair backs. Now imagine doing that for many minutes at a time, while also withstanding heavy vibration and precisely controlling your flight.

It looks like the arms are just here for controlling the direction, the jets look supported by a belt attachment: https://youtu.be/aFQSFke0wFc?t=35

That video was one link down in the article, several other interesting concepts are shown, that generally seem to be platforms with thrusters.

I feel like a more practical design could be something a bit like "falcon" in the avengers: back-mounted thruster that gives a lot of forward thrust, with deployable delta wings à la jetman. Since the thrust is forward, you'd need something to right up for landing. Either with a physical movement, or aerobraking above the center of gravity (could be using the wing?).

For now, designs that only rely on thrust, and not lift, are probably doomed by their fuel efficiency and noise.

Re: Airline pilots landing at LAX report “a guy in jetpack” flying alongside them

#188

Post by sudosysgen »

CobrastanJorji wrote: post #181
achow wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well at the risk of sounding pedantic, things on rails - railways, metro/subway etc. are not in same category.

On the contrary, you need to defend the entire length of the track at all times from an enemy who can destroy any small part of it at any time and then just leave the scene to try again later. Yes, it takes much more effort than a driver just deciding to go on a rampage, but against a determined adversary the train is at a huge disadvantage.

Derailing a train is an ordeal, though, and it's fairly easy to surveil against it. I'm fairly certain just blowing up the locomotive is less effort against modern networked rails.

Re: Airline pilots landing at LAX report “a guy in jetpack” flying alongside them

#189

Post by kitteh »

OJFord wrote: post #175
CPLX wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the procedural problem with it? It's possibly a little too cute or maybe embellished, but there's nothing in it that sounds impossible or beyond plausibility. For reference I have a pilot's license.

The upthread-linked Reddit debunk [0] is A) SR71 would've been on a different frequency to both other planes; B) ATC computers at the time were capped at 990 knots; C) SR71s' speeds were classified, no way the crew would've asked or ATC responded with it. Unfortunately. https://np.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/8x5ndw/til_wh...

Correct, people keep repeating this story - it's false. I know controllers who have actually controlled the U2 and SR71 and they've explained why it's not true (they don't use the same freq, etc.).

Also Brian Shul (the originator of this anecdote) and his RSO were the only SR71 crew removed from the program. There is a reason for that.

Re: Airline pilots landing at LAX report “a guy in jetpack” flying alongside them

#190

Post by egfx »

detritus wrote: post #111
egfx wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there a reason why the flights are all over water? LAX doesn’t have a body of water surrounding it other then the Pacific Ocean. Is that a requirement for the jet pack?

I could've sworn I remember reading that Hoverboard pioneer Franky Zapata was only allowed to test over bodies of water when practising in his native France, but I'll be damned if I can conjur the right keywords to googlefu a specific answer, so now I'm [as often] wondering whether I just made it up... - minor ed: addition

Is this the discussion you were referring to? Maybe it’s these guys running QA tests.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19334909

Post reply on HN