Will jet packs make the dream of personal flight come true?

From the Greek myth of Icarus and the sketches of Leonardo da Vinci to the pages of science-fiction novels and big-screen superheroes, we have dreamed of finally achieving the freedom of personal flight more than we have dreamed of any other superpower. 

And, surely, nothing in our collective history of this preoccupation has captured the imagination quite like the jet pack. Doubtless, in no small part, fired by Sean Connery making a rapid, yet suave, get away from the Spectre Chateau in 1965’s Thunderball, which was notably the same year as the first spacewalk by the USSR.

While rocket propulsion was for decades explored as a safety solution for drifting astronauts, the jet pack as a specific concept was originally explored by the military as a way of inserting or extracting single soldiers at targeted locations. While this potential is still tightly researched – enhanced by the latest autonomous technologies – so far it is within the international entrepreneurial community that the biggest developments have been launched to-date. 

The most prominent, and advanced, being the JB programme of jet packs developed by JetPack Aviation, based in California, headed by CEO and pilot, David Mayman from Australia. It is the only company in the world to have produced a true jet pack – defined as a device that you wear on your back, that is portable so you can walk with it, and that takes-off and lands vertically.

Back in the 1960s, Bell Aerospace developed the pressurised hydrogen peroxide ‘rocket belt’, the precursor to the jet pack, which in 1962 flew for a few seconds in the Pentagon courtyard in front of President Kennedy, and is technically also what James Bond would have flown. However, this technology was only capable of delivering a 25-second flight time, not to mention being highly explosive. A decade later Williams International and Bell worked together on a turbine-powered jet pack but it was far too heavy to be practical – it could barely lift the pilot off the ground. 

After two decades of his own frustrating solo development, David's efforts finally saw the light when he met industry luminary and three-time technical excellence Academy Award-winning designer, Nelson Tyler. He and Nelson have worked together for the last 12 years. As David explains, it is really only through the technological advances of the last decade that it has become possible to make the true jet pack dream a reality.  

“The sensors and control systems required to do what we do were far too expensive, big and heavy even 10 years ago. For example, aviation quality gyroscopes were the size of a shoebox, weighed several kilos and cost several hundred thousand dollars. We can achieve the same result now with a component that costs less than $100 and fits on the tip of your finger.” 

The JetPack Aviation team focuses on turbojet engines since the power-to-weight ratio and reliability of these has improved significantly over the last 15 years. The concept relies on these small, powerful engines so the pilot effectively rides on a stable column of high-speed exhaust gas. The engines can be vectored to provide thrust anywhere from vertical to 36-degrees from vertical – if the engines are vectored backwards then the jet pack flies forwards and vice versa. Roll is controlled in the same manner, and thrust is managed via fuel flow to dictate the speed of the turbines.

In the early days, its prototype used 12 turbojet engines, but this proved very unreliable – it was impossible to get all the engines to start at the same time, let alone run in unison with balanced thrust. The team then experimented with different counts of engines before settling on just a pair for the JB9 model, with which David spectacularly flew around the Statue of Liberty in November 2015. The footage of this incredible and very real achievement has been viewed over 2.5 million times on YouTube. 

The similarly dual-engined JB10 followed, which David has flown at sites across the world over the last couple of years, as he clocks up hundreds of tests flights, now over land too and not just water – with flight times for the pack steadily increasing, currently up to around 12 minutes.

And now, 2018 has seen the launch of Jetpack Aviation’s most advanced, stunning model yet, the JB11 – which David will be piloting at Goodwood, in its very special European debut, marking a new milestone in innovation at the 25^th Anniversary of the Festival of Speed presented by Mastercard, alongside presenting it in the FOS Future Lab pavilion.  

The design of the sizeable and exceptionally powerful JB11 uses six specially modified turbojet engines, each producing 50% of the thrust generated by the previous engines. And, like each preceding iteration, the jet pack also integrates a more advanced computer support system. 

“We have created a triply redundant thrust-balancing computer system, which ensures that all six engines are always synchronised and that in the unlikely case of an engine failure, the remaining engines continue to provide balanced thrust,” stresses David, with his trademark calm and considered approach to explaining the sheer might of the engineering challenges that they are overcoming every day of their extraordinary journey. 

The challenges to date have been many and varied, mainly focussed around engineering a turbojet engine that works effectively when vertical, with a high power-to-weight ratio; developing an automated balancing system so all engines continuously produce the same amount of thrust; and designing an engine control system that would be stable yet enable highly dynamic and steerable flight. 

Then there have been years of working steadily and patiently with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in the United States, to achieve certification of a unique type of craft that had never previously been considered – not to mention finding suitable test sites around the world, and also the small matter of there being no experienced jet pack instructor to train David, who has had to teach himself to fly. Although he credits Bill Suitor, the original pilot of the Bell rocket belt (and stunt double for Sean Connery), for his early training, guidance and vision.

David, a very rare pedigree as the world’s most experienced, professional jet pack pilot, explains this journey, “I have flown many different types of aircraft including jet and turboprop fixed wings, piston and turbine helicopters, paragliders, paramotors, hang gliders and I have done nearly 1000 skydives. But there is nothing quite like flying a jet pack. It’s about as close as you can come to a magic carpet. Although it is pretty noisy it actually lifts the pilot very gently and can be extremely dynamic and highly manoeuvrable. With practice, it is possible to fly very accurately and to land within several centimetres of wherever the pilot chooses.”

In celebration of this exceptional achievement in both innovation and pioneering spirit, not only will the JB11 be making its European debut at FOS 2018, David will also become the first jet pack pilot ever to fly at Goodwood. 

However, in terms of David’s dreams, the development of this incredible piece of technology is really just the beginning. His vision is to create a practical, efficient VTOL (vertical take-off and landing) vehicle for between one and four people, that can fly from one side of a city to another in complete safety. He specifies the key design requirement be that the vehicle is very small – much smaller than propeller-based vehicles – hence his focus on using jet engines which produce far more power for their size. This vehicle would either be piloted, with computer assistance or automatically controlled via an autopilot and flight control system.

“As I often say, right now we are on Chapter 1, Page 1 of the epic novel War and Peace, in terms of the development of small VTOL craft,” he concludes. “It is going to be a very interesting and exciting next decade.” 

Visit the Jetpack Aviation exhibit in FOS Future Lab, to get up close to the new JB11, and check the track programme for flight times to see David make history on the Hillclimb.