Using a jet engine, rather than a rocket, is one solution to extending the range of rocket-belt-like devices. Bell Aerosystems and Williams collaborated on a Bell Jet Belt, but it hasn't flown for nearly four decades. Modern cruise missiles descended from the compact engine Williams developed.

It's much harder to duplicate a jet belt than a rocket belt. (For one thing, governments don't like cruise missile engines to be for sale.) Nevertheless, Richard Brown (among others) in the UK has been persevering. He's built a unique engine of his own design.

Mr. Brown has just posted video of his flight tests, which employ a multi-axis rig that limits the trouble he can get into.



Mr. Brown has also written a good account of his device's development.

Terrafugia announced today that the Transition, their prototype roadable aircraft, has made seven test flights, starting on 5 March.

Wade Roush was liveblogging the press conference.

Photo Gallery on the Terrafugia site.

Tip o' the propeller blade to whl, who spotted this well before my Google News alerts did. Paul Warman and Mike Blanford took second and third place in my in-box.

Next time someone asks "Where's my flying car?" you can reply "Where's your $194000?"

Mac Montandon's new book Jetpack Dreams has just been published. I met Mac at the Rocketbelt Convention in 2006, and since then we have corresponded occasionally. He set out to chronicle the past and future of the jetpack, and emotions about the jetpack.

It's being promoted very effectively, having been reviewed by Wall Street Journal, Time, and GQ. And it popped up at Boingboing yesterday.

Mac has also started a Jetpack Dreams blog and you can read excerpts from the book at his site. I liked this:

As I began telling friends and colleagues about my plan, I quickly realized that I was far from alone. In fact, just about every (male) friend I told, regardless of age, responded with what can only be called spazzy enthusiasm. One guy, a majestically ironic twenty-something magazine editor, confessed manically to me: “Yes! Yes, totally. I remember sitting in class when I was a little kid just wishing I could blast off with a jetpack and get out of there.” He gripped the side of his chair to demonstrate and shook like a hipster epileptic while making throaty blast-off noises: “Shhhhrrrrrruugghhhh!”

We were having lunch in one of those Manhattan restaurants where the wait staff consists entirely of supermodels, and by acting so publicly geeky, he was ensuring that he would never get to date one. By extension, my friend was basically telling me that he’d rather talk about jetpacks than have sex with a supermodel.

I am braced for the possibility that Jetpack Dreams will not be entirely flattering. One review quotes a description of rocket belt enthusiasts: "These are the anonymous, doughy faces of obsession." But since the book does seem to address certain aspects of the twenty first-century Zetgeist, it may prove to be popular.

The most remarkable thing about the launch (sorry, I can't help myself) of this book is that it comes with a trailer. That's right, a trailer.


Jetpack Dreams Trailer from Mac Montandon on Vimeo.

More books should have trailers, I think.

On 19 February 2001, the Aurora Beacon News published a column by Benjie Hughes consisting almost entirely of out-of-context quotes by a single person.

Collected wisdom of an aircar buff

By day, Bill Higgins is an engineering physicist at Fermi National
Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia; by night, he is a student of
mankind's continued quest to build a car that flies like George Jetson's
did. Higgins recently gave a slide presentation at Aurora's SciTech
museum in which he tried to explain why, in this third millennium A.D.,
we still have to make do with cars with wheels on them.

Here are a few of Higgins' pearls of wisdom.

"Turning your airplane into a car is only one approach to getting
around."

"You've got to be careful not to fall off. Of course, that's true for
any aircraft."
( Read more )

I don't know where the Flight Innovations Sky Commuter has been all my life. But you can buy the last surviving example on Ebay.

( More photos )

You may recall that I attended the Rocketbelt Convention last year, had a wonderful time, met old rocket belt hands and new inventors, and (twice) watched GoFast rocket belt flights.

On 11 and 12 August-- the weekend after next-- a second Rocketbelt Convention will be held in Niagara Falls, New York. It will be part of the Thunder of Niagara Air Show that weekend, at the Niagara Falls Air Reserve Station.

I understand there will be talks in a building on the airbase. Once again, former Bell Aerospace rocket belt pilots will be speaking. These guys were involved not only in the rocket belt, but in X-planes, Rogallo wings, VTOLs, and the Apollo program. Their stories are well worth hearing.

Even more next-generation belt builders will be on hand, along with some of their hardware. And there will again be rocket belt flights by the Jetpack International folks, sponsored by GoFast energy drink, still my favorite energy drink (though I've never tasted any).

If you like, while you're nearby, you can visit the Niagara Aerospace Museum in downtown Niagara Falls, which is mighty good.

This is your chance to see a man fly. Along with a bunch of more conventional aircraft. And to meet some peroxide-powered legends. Tell 'em I sent you. And spread the word.

So Boing Boing has unearthed a portrait of Governor Jeb Bush of Florida posing with his Blackberry, and another of Governor John H. Sununu of New Hampshire posing with his IBM PC.

I have another governor and another gadget to suggest. Here's what I sent Boing Boing. Who knows whether they'll use it?

( Swashbuckling Governor Hiram Bingham III of Connecticut, large photos behind cut )

Every night of the rocket belt conference, I worked to put a selection of photos on the Web and to write a little bit about them.

Last night Make magazine asked permission to post my photos to their blog.

New Scientist has linked to my Flickr photo collection.

Yesterday I wrote a posting for sci.space.history on Usenet. The Make editor liked this enough to run it.

And Xeni Jardin at Boingboing points to one of my Livejournal entries.

There's another account of the Rocketbelt Convention by Billy Paul at Gizmag.com. It's good.

The mother lode of this stuff is Peter Gijsbert's site. Peter has also used one of my photos on his main page.

Here are a few of my photos from Day One. ( Rocketbelt Convention )

Am in Niagara Falls at the Rocketbelt Convention, a gathering of former Bell Rocket Belt pilots and engineers, new-generation RB builders, and enthusiasts. At one point I thought I was gonna be the only guy here who doesn't have an Agena engine in his garage.

I have posted some of my photos to Flickr. I'll work on captions when I get some time.

Met first pilot to fly a rocketbelt, Hal Graham. Quizzed John Spencer, test pilot for X-22 ducted-fan VTOL (which is here in the museum). Sat in rocket chair. Saw three Bell belts and a couple of others. Visited vast Bell plant, where they turned out about one P-39 fighter per hour during WWII. Stood in the pit where the X-1 and her sister rocketplanes were slung beneath B-29s. Met daughters and wife of Bell's chief photographer, Thomas Lennon. Met Hugh Neeson, former VP of Bell Aerospace, trustee of the Niagara Aerospace Museum, and walking encyclopedia on Bell history.

Saturday should be fun.

In 1992, somebody asked about jetpacks, and I dipped into my Aircars And Other Weird Flying Vehicles file to explain them. Here is that posting, with addresses redacted by latterday Google archives.

( Rocket Belt and WASP (was Re: Jetpack) )

concertinette writes:

- how does one get to actually *try* this, other than building your own and then taking the leap of faith? It's one of those things that sounds just amazing to see, but partially because it pushes all my "I wonder what it would be like to do that" buttons.

Short answer: one doesn't.

Nobody is currently offering a rocketbelt ride to customers, nor is this likely to happen soon.

(Also note that in 45 years of history, no woman has ever flown a rocket belt. This may change.)

If you were to pursue the avenue you suggest, most of the people who have built their own will be in Niagara Falls next weekend, so you could get some tips from them.

In the old days, Bell's original rocket belts were flown by experienced test pilots. But at one point, the Army wanted to know whether inexperienced recruits could be taught to operate them. So Bell brought in a teenager, Bill Suitor, and he did indeed learn easily. Today he has more time-in-corset, and has flown more different versions of the rocket belt, than anybody else. People who've built new versions keep hiring him to test-fly them.

If you were learning to fly, you might start with something like Bell's tethered test rig: a set of nozzles fed by compressed-air hoses that allows you to "fly" inside a hangar. This would let you get experience controlling the thing and landing correctly, without the hazards of operating rocket engines or running out of propellant.

Come to think of it, this would be a lot easier to make than a real RB. Mention it to the Country House gang.

Just got off the phone with Kathleen Clough, one of the organizers of the Rocketbelt Convention next weekend in Niagara Falls. They are now planning two demonstration flights, on Saturday and on Sunday. And they got covered in the Niagara Gazette yesterday.

I can scarcely believe this:

A convention for rocket belt enthusiasts is being organized.

Niagara Falls, New York. Saturday and Sunday, 23 and 24 September, 2006.

Four Bell Rocket Belt pilots have committed to appear.

A bunch of new-generation rocket-belt builders will attend.

Wow.

Thanks to Peter Gijsberts, who runs a Web site on all matters rocketbelty.

The Boston Globe has an article about a new company, started by MIT grad students, working on a flying car. The Terrafugia Transition is a roadable airplane with folding wings.