People Flying Around With Jetpacks Might Soon Become a Reality

Mar. 14, 2020

When it comes to flying, we tend to picture an aeroplane, a helicopter or if we are a tad bit futuristic, a flying car, maybe. However, the idea of flying in the air without being inside something is just plain insane.

Vince Reffet is a professional skydiver and was also the partner of Rossy. He recently took one of Jetman’s Jetpacks to set a new record by autonomously taking off from the ground and fly up to 6,000 ft. above the ground. In a recent video (below) from Jetman Dubai, Reffet carried acarbon-fiber wing, powered by jet engineson his back at the Skydive Dubai runway. After about 50 tests, using safety cables and fall arresting system, Vince was able to perform this stunt.

At the runway, Vince was first seen to take-off from the ground andhover above the Arabian Gulf watersfor about 2 minutes. This was to test the movements of the jet-man using the newly improved Jetpack. After testing the controls of forward and backward movements, stops and turns, Reffet came back to the ground.

Right after coming back, the pilot took off from the ground again. Only this time not just to hover at low altitudes. The pilotrocketed off towards the Palm Jumeirah Beach Residence at an average speed of 240kmph. According to the blog post by the company, the pilot reached heights of 100m in 8 seconds, 200m in 12 secs, 500m in 19 secs and1000m in just 30 seconds time. After performing a loop and a roll at 1,800m above the ground, Reffet opened his parachute at 1,500m and landed safely back at Skydive Dubai.

“We are so happy to achieve this incredible flight. It’s the result of extremely thorough teamwork, where each small step generated huge results.”,said the jet-man, after landing on the ground.

Now, as I am finishing this article, Elton John’s “Rocketman” started playing in my ears (sheer coincidence) from a random YouTube playlist. This reminded me of the time when I used “Rocketman” to get a jetpack to fly over the city of Las Venturas (in GTA: San Andreas, of course). Well, flying with a jetpack in a game is cool and all, but in real life, it is just mind-boggling.

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