Water-Powered Jet Packs

[Jeff Gerke]

There's got to be a near-future thriller that could use this:

www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,490426,00.html

The article is about a back-mounted jet pack that can allow the user to fly around up to 80 feet in the air and stay aloft for over an hour--using water power.

A big ol' hose goes down from the pack to the water (actually, to a little boat on the water), where it sucks up the water as propulsion fuel.

Imagine a squad of personal coast guards equipped with these. Imagine lifeguards or shark monitors or rescue diver team spotters. Imagine races using these. Imagine them being used as part of a high-tech theft or special operations assault.

And now imagine going up against these things if the bad guys have them. Imagine the noise and the spray. Imagine trying to get to the hose to cut it. Imagine hooking the little hose boat to an anchor and sinking the bad guy.

Oh, what fun we'll have.



Jeff

[Vaporwolf]

I wonder how much weight one can pull...

Imagine taking the technology and then putting a water tank on a hover-craft or wheeled vehicle....

[seraphim]

Actually I could see it used hooked to a water main and used as a rescue device to get to ladder/cherry picker inaccessible places.

I could also see it retrofixed as a steam based technology to serve as a Civil war era recon/signal or sniper platform.

[mongoose]

I'm into snipers at the moment. Whether it's with the sling (not to be confused with sling shot) before the era of the long bow, or with an M24 Sniper System weilded by a U.S. Marine, I think there's a lot of solutions there waiting for the kill authorization or whatever. Just blow a hole in the hose from anywhere from 500 - 1000 yards away (depending on many factors) and you're good to go.