Pretty cool usage scenario, since everyone can imagine a flying hero coming in to save the day. That being said, this feels like a solution looking for a problem. I am sure there are specific areas of responsibility that would benefit from a rapidly deployable single medic carrying a small triage kit with no patient return capability, but they are probably few and far between (especially when you factor in the above…
Hey, serious question related to this since you have a search/rescue background. How would you find the survivor in a mountainous area? Don't you have to use a helicopter anyways or if it's a ground party... wouldn't the whole jetpack thing be redundant 90% of the time since someone is already there?
I don't know the economics to search/rescue problems all that well, but I've always understood that the budget is essentially never enough. With such strained budgets, does it make sense to have something so niche and expensive? It's not like these things are going to be maintenance, license and cert free if implemented to a life saving capacity.
> If a person is, like, lifting off from the ground, and moving through the air in a controlled fashion driven by jet engines, isn't that pretty exactly flying? It depends, are they reaching a height where the Wing-in-ground effect is negligible? If they have to stay below that, then no, not really flying. Unless you'd say that a hovercraft or ekranoplan also flies. Or they could just be staying low because it might…
A hovercraft doesn’t fly not because the wing in ground effect but because it doesn’t have 6 degrees of freedom which constitutes flying. A sub or a torpedo can fly through the water just like an airplane or a missile do through air.
Where did you get this idea of flying? I wondered if I had a misconception there but any source I could quickly find on the web disagrees with the "can move with six degrees of freedom" definition and uses a definition like "doesn't touch ground or sea while moving through the air" instead. (Wikipedia on "Flight" / "Ekranoplan" / "Ground-effect vehicle", Merriam Webster on the word "Flight", and search for "what is flight" if that's not enough).
> I've seen Richard Browning fly this in person — he did a demo > Browning's been doing a bunch of demos lately How many other people have been trained to fly this thing? It's telling if it's no-one, that would mean that it's likely prohibitive to insure the danger.
Yeah interesting you bring that up. I remember being introduced to this Browning by this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAJM5L9hhBs And you notice something interesting in the beginning... this guy is in GOOD shape. Like not just good, we're talking REALLY good, he's in the 0.1percentile, being able to do some pretty difficult callisthenic moves (go to 1:00 in the video to see him doing handstand pushups and…
it seems most trust is in arms? Correct me if i am wrong.
If so this is equivalent to hanging off a bar (the forces are in opposite direction though).
That is certainly not an easy to maintain for long. If one arm gets tired and you cant land you are in big trouble.
Also a strong wind gust might be outright deadly.
Helicopters are faster than vans so they don’t need to fit in one. Also, you can easily put a cheaper, more fuel efficient, and safer paraglider in the back of a van which can also carry even more supplies.
It looks like a paraglider requires a minimum of 30 yards of runway to take off and land (assuming there's nothing obstructing it at the end of those 30 yards, like trees), with some pilots suggesting 150 yards without tall trees to safely take off. I could see that being an issue in a lot of areas, especially mountainous areas where flat areas are only in the valley.
That said, I don't have any personal experience with paragliders, so perhaps there are VTOL options?
Yeah interesting you bring that up. I remember being introduced to this Browning by this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAJM5L9hhBs And you notice something interesting in the beginning... this guy is in GOOD shape. Like not just good, we're talking REALLY good, he's in the 0.1percentile, being able to do some pretty difficult callisthenic moves (go to 1:00 in the video to see him doing handstand pushups and…
it seems most trust is in arms? Correct me if i am wrong. If so this is equivalent to hanging off a bar (the forces are in opposite direction though). That is certainly not an easy to maintain for long. If one arm gets tired and you cant land you are in big trouble. Also a strong wind gust might be outright deadly.
The jet is pushing you up... so it’s more like a dip rather than hanging off a bar. And a lot of core for stability.
Pretty cool usage scenario, since everyone can imagine a flying hero coming in to save the day. That being said, this feels like a solution looking for a problem. I am sure there are specific areas of responsibility that would benefit from a rapidly deployable single medic carrying a small triage kit with no patient return capability, but they are probably few and far between (especially when you factor in the above…
Hey, serious question related to this since you have a search/rescue background. How would you find the survivor in a mountainous area? Don't you have to use a helicopter anyways or if it's a ground party... wouldn't the whole jetpack thing be redundant 90% of the time since someone is already there? I don't know the economics to search/rescue problems all that well, but I've always understood that the budget is esse…
My experience is focused on finding people over water, but a lot of the tools will be the same. Using NVGs if we're at night to pick up any sort of light, our electro optical sensor that has thermal imaging capability, and good old fashioned headwork for guessing where a survivor might be located over terrain. A helicopter isn't always going to be the only airborne search asset, so it's possible to imagine a fixed wing search asset locating a survivor, and then a jetpack medic getting to them to provide triage care. The economics of search and rescue are really tricky, and it's expensive to maintain such a specialized capability with a profit motive in mind. I don't know the specifics of the UKs SAR system, but I am pretty sure they have a civilian organization running their maratime search and rescue, but I don't know if the bill is footed entirely by the government. Was your economics question about the jet pack or helicopter based search and rescue?
Pretty cool usage scenario, since everyone can imagine a flying hero coming in to save the day. That being said, this feels like a solution looking for a problem. I am sure there are specific areas of responsibility that would benefit from a rapidly deployable single medic carrying a small triage kit with no patient return capability, but they are probably few and far between (especially when you factor in the above…
I agree that a jet pack isn’t as useful as a helicopter, but they are way, way cheaper. Medical helicopters cost millions of dollars and require expensive fuel and highly trained pilots. Jetpacks cost $100-300k, use a fraction of the fuel, and can be flown with a sports pilot license (much easier to acquire and maintain).
Good points, but remember we can't only compare the initial capital outlay, we have to compare the hourly operating cost. I imagine that it isn't quite as cheap as you think, and we would also need to see sustained operations from these jetpack to know what the hourly flight time cost is. This is amplified if you need 10 to 20 jetpack to cover and area that could be serviced by two helicopters that are being leased under a maintenance contract. As far as the pilot requirements, sure a jetpack might be able to be just a sport pilot, but can they operate in a commercial capablity then? The FAA says no. Also, this probably isn't trivial operations (search and rescue is highly dynamic, especially in mountainous, maritime, urban or poor weather conditions. On paper my flight experience is 500 hours and a commercial license, which isn't that hard to get as a rotary wing pilot. But in actuality it's 500 hours of highly expensive military flying in dangerous environments, to the tune of well over a million dollars of initial training. Just like a commercial EMS operator isn't going to hand the keys to a helicopter to anyone with a commercial rotary license, are you really going to have a jetpack medic be someone with the bare minimum of certification?
Helicopters are faster than vans so they don’t need to fit in one. Also, you can easily put a cheaper, more fuel efficient, and safer paraglider in the back of a van which can also carry even more supplies.
It looks like a paraglider requires a minimum of 30 yards of runway to take off and land (assuming there's nothing obstructing it at the end of those 30 yards, like trees), with some pilots suggesting 150 yards without tall trees to safely take off. I could see that being an issue in a lot of areas, especially mountainous areas where flat areas are only in the valley. That said, I don't have any personal experience w…
Take off requires a cliff or small runway depending on wind conditions, but you can do a pinpoint landing just like a parachute, which seems to be the concern. I suspect they are going to be walking back either way to keep an eye on the injured person.
> If a person is, like, lifting off from the ground, and moving through the air in a controlled fashion driven by jet engines, isn't that pretty exactly flying? It depends, are they reaching a height where the Wing-in-ground effect is negligible? If they have to stay below that, then no, not really flying. Unless you'd say that a hovercraft or ekranoplan also flies. Or they could just be staying low because it might…
A hovercraft doesn’t fly not because the wing in ground effect but because it doesn’t have 6 degrees of freedom which constitutes flying. A sub or a torpedo can fly through the water just like an airplane or a missile do through air.
Flight is typically 4DOF: (throttle, pitch, roll, yaw). There is no horizontal or vertical 'strafing' ability.