Join Special Forces and FLY!!

[edmulroy]

http://tinyurl.com/z4dp2
or, in its short form
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=389357&in_page_id=1770

. Ed

 

[Wolf King]

That's awesome! I'm sure the civvies will have it soon, also. I may even take up skydiving then.

 

[Gorilla]

Issues - The dude as pictured will be a popsicle by the time he gets to 1,000'. No gloves? And the radar signature will be enough to be tracked by modern AD radar. It would be grim to be smacked by an SA-6 flying an 8' carbon fibre wing.

 

[FN FAL]

Issues - The dude as pictured will be a popsicle by the time he gets to 1,000'. No gloves?

I parachuted three times from 900 feet off a bridge, it's a good thing they dint build that thing a hundred feet taller...you could freeze your butt off.

 

[edmulroy]

Look at the link again. They've changed the photo. He now is wearing a face mask. The wing is now labeled as "almost undetectable by radar" and two mini-turbojets have been added. Enought other things are described that it seems this might be something from the BatCave!

Note that the SA-6 is a very old system. I doubt that its radar would be reliable on this small a target.

Issues - The dude as pictured will be a popsicle by the time he gets to 1,000'. No gloves? And the radar signature will be enough to be tracked by modern AD radar. It would be grim to be smacked by an SA-6 flying an 8' carbon fibre wing.

 

[Gorilla]

"Two mini turbojets + 1/2 gallon will carry the soldier for 125 miles" Uh, don't think so, 1/2 a gallon of fuel will be burned by two turbojets in about 8 minutes. Even the minute amounts of metal on this rig will reflect plenty of radar. Those link things on his shoulder especially.

I'm sorry to be a stick in the mud. The concept is pretty cool, and it does look like batman, but every few years, they roll out something like this. Everyone oohs and ahhs until they find out the device is completely unrealistic.

Remember the "jet pack?" How about the personal saucer-shaped hovercraft? If the idea is to insert troops into bad-guy land with no warning, it can be done a lot simpler - we've been doing it for years - with black ops helos, or maybe a ram-air parachute opened at very high altitudes.

The other problem is landing. I'm assuming a parachute is deployed. Now what do they do with the wing when they touch down? If 200 jet-powered carbon fibre wings are found scattered about, the bad guys will probably figure out somethings up.