Of course, even Buck Rogers had to wait until the 25th century for his, so quit your moaning and reminisce with us as we look back at the age of jetpacks that never was. Although the fictional character of Anthony Rogers first appeared in the August issue of Amazing Stories , that's not our man "Buck" on the cover.
Instead, the pulp magazine cover features an illustration of the suave Richard Seaton character from The Skylark of Space testing a workable space drive powered by a newly discovered element "X. Here's how author Edward E. Smith describes the scene:. He snapped the switch which started the Tesla coil in the shed and pressed a button on an instrument in his hand, attached to his harness by a small steel cable. Instantly there was a creak of straining leather and he shot vertically into the air for perhaps a hundred feet, where he stopped and remained motionless for a few moments.
Then the watchers saw him point his arm and dart in the direction in which he pointed. By merely pointing, apparently, he changed his direction at will; going up and down, forward and backward, describing circles and loops and figures of eight. After a few minutes of this display he descended, slowing up abruptly as he neared the ground and making an easy landing.
And with that the hook was set, reeling in generation after generation of optimistic flyboys hoping for a jetpack they could call their own. Enter Anthony Rogers, the fictional character in the story Armageddon— A. Author Philip Nowlan would later change his hero's name to the more familiar "Buck" in the January comic strip.
Although Edward Smith got the cover story, Nowlan's vision of the jetpack is more fully formed. Whereas Smith saw the jetpack as an iterative step in the testing of his interplanetary propulsion system, Nowlan saw the jetpack as an end unto itself.
Nowlan's "Inerton belt" powered by Inerton, the densest substance in the universe! They were very useful in the forest. They were belts, strapped high under the arms, containing an amount of inertron adjusted to the wearer's weight and purposes. In effect they made a man weigh as little as he desired; two pounds if he liked. With his motor in operation, he moves like a diver, headforemost, controlling his direction by twisting his body and by movements of his outstretched arms and hands.
Ballast weights locked in the front of the belt adjust weight and lift. Some men prefer a few ounces of weight in floating, using a slight motor thrust to overcome this. Others prefer a buoyance balance of a few ounces.
The inadvertent dropping of weight is not a serious matter. The motor thrust always can be used to descend. But as an extra precaution, in case the motor should fail, for any reason, there are built into every belt a number of detachable sections, one or more of which can be discarded to balance off any loss in weight. Unfortunately, it's the lack of Inertron that will ultimately doom the jetpack to novelty status.
Legend has it, that Germany took the first successful steps towards building a working jetpack during WWII.
The flier strapped one pulse tube to his back for forward flight and the second, less powerful unit equipped with hand grips, on his frontside for steering. The images above and to the left are simply artist interpretations. While Bell Aerosystems toiled with its Nazi jetpack spoils, the US public was distracted by Rocket Man, a character that appeared in a number of movie serials through Naturally, Rocket Man's suit is powered by "atomic power" not Inertron or Element X which helps him recover the stolen "Decimator" from evil genius, Dr.
Vulcan — a device powerful enough to convert the US from imperial units to the decimal system. Scary stuff. Hey, is that a Tesla coil? In , the Navy, with the help of Hiller Helicopters, was busy with its "flying pie pan.
The pan's two engines created horsepower. Should either engine fail, "the thing will fall like a brick," says the Popular Science article, "When that is overcome, pie-pan commuting from the back yard to the office may be a possibility. We're calling it: December is the date when the jetpack over-promising began. Just look at the breathless introduction to this Popular Science exclusive featuring a demonstration of Thiokol Chemical Corporation's flying belt.
Face it, we've been Tozered. The December issue of Popular Science contained photos of two previously unseen jump belts. The image to the right is a "crude early version" of the one-man jump belt shown assisting an unknown soldier to a world record broad jump. If you lean in closely you can just about make out the outline of Sasquatch lurking in the forest. The five-canister "jump belt" aka, Project Grasshopper from Thiokol Chemical Corporation was built from off-the-shelf hardware.
Each canister could be burned separately for several seconds, or all at once for full power and would last about a minute if the canisters were burned in sequence.
The propellants would not explode if dropped or punctured and new cans of propellant could be snapped in to replace spent canisters in "less than a minute. This thrust nugget appeared in the same December issue of Popular Science.
It's the first time that we've seen an early prototype of what would later become known as the jetpack. This "flying belt" was built by Reaction Motors. A workable solution in "two years" that could fly "miles," you say? Tell us more, because the first successful flights would be measured in feet and wouldn't start for another three years. Fast-forward to the s and jetpacks have become a reality again , if not quite in the form of the personal backpack we thought we would all be dangling from.
The big difficulty here is still the scarcity of hydrogen peroxide. More hopeful is the offering from Jetpack Aviation, who specialise in personal vertical takeoff and landing devices. It demoed its JB10 in Monaco two minutes aloft and in London in October four minutes aloft last year to some acclaim.
The brain power behind it? Online footage shows Rossy confidently executing loop-the-loops and roaring over the Grand Canyon strapped into his device. Drawback: one must throw oneself out of a plane, which makes for a rather awkward commute. Perhaps the most promising development, which is already on the market, is that made by Tecnologia Aeroespacial Mexicana.
You can even train to use one using a JetLev. We might soon be able to fly about strapped into jetpacks, but whether we should is another matter. Nobody would be safe. Could you imagine every idiot who could afford one flying about? Jetpacks: why aren't we all flying to work? The peroxide instantly expands into superheated steam, producing a few hundred pounds of thrust at the exhaust nozzles. It has the glide angle of an Acme anvil. By the Bell team had a patent, and a flying rocket belt.
It flew in trials, in the Pentagon courtyard, in front of President Kennedy. But as soon as you took off, you had to find a place to land. And rocket belts are hard to build, maintain and control, expensive to fuel and relatively dangerous. But oh man, what a ride! Such failures are frequent in technological innovation. It was obsolete the day it came out of the shop. Still, the device works—within strict limits— and it speaks to the age of space travel and to the Rocketeer in every one of us.
Every so often Bell rocket belts turn up in movies and on television. Since then, the handful of packs ever built have made it into civilian hands and become air show mainstays and popular halftime attractions.
The crowd on its feet below you, roaring. Those awed and upturned faces!
0コメント