2008

Martin Jet Pack

Glenn Martin (Dates Unavailable)

It’s one of those dreams that has been around since Buck Rogers made it popular—a rocket backpack of some sort that would let anyone fly anywhere they want to go. The concept is easy, but the engineering has been challenging.

The first successful backpack system that let people fly appeared in the 1960s, and the basic design principles have been copied and reengineered several times since. The basic idea goes like this: Take highly concentrated hydrogen peroxide. Not the drug store variety—it is only five percent H2O2. Ninety percent H2O2 or better is needed for this device. Put the hydrogen peroxide in tanks on your back, and provide a pressurization system to push it out of the tanks toward two nozzles mounted near the pilot’s shoulders. Hydrogen peroxide has this useful property: when it comes into contact with a catalyst like silver, it immediately decomposes into water (in the form of high-pressure steam) and oxygen and can produce thrust.

This works. The only problem is that the fuel takes up a lot of space. The longest possible flight is just a minute or so.

The Martin Jet Pack is a much newer system that debuted in 2008 from the Martin Company in the United States. It had been in development for thirty years, when inventor Glenn Martin designed it in his garage. Despite the Jet Pack’s name, it is not jet-powered, but instead uses two ducted fan propellers connected to a 200-hp (150 kW) reciprocating engine. And at 250 pounds, it is not really a “pack” either. It is more like a lightweight flying platform. The advantage of this design is that it can hold enough fuel to fly for about 30 minutes and it has good performance.

Fitting a 200-hp engine plus the ducted fans, a chassis, and controls into 250 pounds is an impressive accomplishment requiring the extensive use of lightweight materials like carbon fiber and Kevlar. Despite a lot of high-publicity demonstrations, the Martin Jet Pack is not yet shipping at the time of publication.

SEE ALSO Carbon Fiber (1879), Kevlar (1971).

Pictured: The Martin Jet Pack in action.