Fly to work with a water-propelled rocket pack?
Will the day ever come when we see a car run on water? As we showed you earlier, Purdue is working on just that. What would the next logical step be? How about a jet pack that runs on water? Not what you were thinking, was it? Somebody out there is thinking of it, though, and here is the patent to prove it. I honestly can't imagine anybody flying around in the sky with a huge camelback strapped to their backs with a nozzle shooting water at super-high-pressure down at mere walking pedestrians on the ground, but what do I know? Maybe the pack can be flown over water only.
The patent says that this "persona; propulsion device" has a pump which could "provide a mass flow rate of water to the thrust assembly sufficient to lift 200 pounds a height of 30 feet for a sustained period of time." Sounds like good, safe fun to us!
[Source: Free Patents Online via Engadget]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Chris M 10:22PM (8/29/2007)
The distance would be limited by the length of hose, and the height by the pressure of the pump and the persons weight. It would make a neat pool toy, but it isn't practical for travel (except maybe over a lake?)
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TX CHL Instructor 10:36PM (8/29/2007)
"and here is the patent to prove it."
Having done a lengthy patent search in a couple of different fields, I have come to the following conclusions:
1) The patent system is severely broken.
2) Most patents are completely worthless.
3) The vast majority of patents are applied for by folks who don't bother to learn the basics of the discipline in which they are trying to invent stuff.
4) The patent applications with corporate sponsorship are always written to be so overly broad that they try to cover everything ever done in that discipline.
We would be better off without any patent system at all than we are with the gawdawful mess that we currently have.
The fact that something is 'patented' adds nothing whatsoever to its value -- and probably means that it actually has no value.
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A.Brien 11:44PM (8/29/2007)
I already saw a car that run on water. At least
it's in youtube. It change the water to hydrogen then feed the engine with it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1OWDcWoXHs
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grimmex 3:14AM (8/30/2007)
This was actually something invented back in the 60s, if I recall correctly. It can go maybe 100 yards before running out of fuel.
Unless, of course, you want to carry several times more fuel, but I expect there's a threshold for how much this thing will lift in the first place.
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dan 9:00AM (8/30/2007)
One of these jet packs were used in a James Bond movie in the 60's, right now I can't remember the name of it. Also, it was used in the TV series Lost In Space. I believe it was powered by hydrogen- peroxide.
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steven 10:33AM (8/30/2007)
Dan: I'll call my patent attorney to be verify, but I don't think the Bell Textron JetPack that James used in Thunderball would be in violation of this water-powered jetpack patent.
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dan 11:11AM (8/30/2007)
I was refering to comment #4 about the 60's invention. Not taking anything away from this "new" patented water propelled backpack. Us older guys dreamed of using these one day. Also, when I was a kid, I read a sci-fi novel where they used backpack gyro-copters on another planet. Too old to remember that title either. Just seems to me that none of this stuff is really new, almost all of it was thought of before (Buck Rogers, Flash Gordon, etc.).
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A.Brien 11:42AM (8/30/2007)
One thing that is not clear to me is if that thing is fuel by water or not? If it's fuel by water then it's a double invention, 1. water fuel and 2. a personal flying machine. The article must contain an error when it say that it shoot water through the nozzles. There don't seem to have a real invention to see, it looks like it's just a drawing with a theoretical patent.
But the water fuel car that i put the link in the number 3. seem to be real so water can be a fuel.
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dwf 2:11PM (8/30/2007)
It's not intended to be used to "fly to work" as the misleading title of the article says. Just by looking at the drawings, it is pretty obvious that is ONLY intended for use over water. The trailing pod (item #14) looks to be nothing more that the business end of a Jet Ski in a small streamlined package, with the water spray redirected through the hose (item #16) and out the controllable nozzles (#44 and #46). The pod says in the lake, river, or pool, sucking up water and shooting out the nozzles. By directing the nozzles downward, laws of physics kick in (equal and opposite reaction) and the person strapped to the contraption is lifted off the ground. Ever wonder why it takes two or three firemen to handle a fire hose? Ever see the comical (and rigged) movies, or cartoons of one person trying to handle a fire hose and end up flying around on the end of it? Now you know the principle involved here! Just as the Jet Ski was invented as a water toy, this is a flying water toy.
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A.Brien 5:59PM (8/30/2007)
Ahh...oupps i been mislead by this article . it's just some hose attached to someone and the double tips are downward so when feed by high pressure water you fly but not far away, LOL.
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