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Touchline • Issue 16 • 27
here are few commuters who haven’t wished they
could ditch their car and take to the sky with some
unfeasibly futuristic jetpack. Well, New Zealander
Glenn Martin could well have brought those idle
dreams a bit closer to reality.
New Zealand’s Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) has recently
given Martin permission to conduct manned testing and it is
anticipated that his patented jetpack will be available to the
general public before too long.
But before you put that for sale sign on the dash of you Nissan
Micra, you’d better make sure you have the readies for the
Jetpack: it will set you back something between $100,000-
140,000.
The craft itself has been under development for around 30
years. As it stands, the 200hp engine powers two ducted fans
that force the pilot into the sky. Rather than the somewhat more
dangerous fuels used in the jetpacks of the past –such as the
one that sent rocketman William Suitor into the air during the
opening ceremony of the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics- Martin’s
jet uses two-stroke.
The current model has a limited flying time of 30 minutes but
the unmanned tests have seen the machine go as high as 5000
feet. At full throttle it can propel the pilot through the air at
70kph.
It is controlled via two joysticks set into the armrests. Until
recently, it was controlled by remote control rather than these
user-friendly sticks.
NEW ZEALAND
JET PACKS
T
The first public flight of the
Martin Jetpack in 2008