Caroline McCarthy
First Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo unveiling and now a new jetpack? Somebody forgot to tell me that it's Worldwide Wacko Futurist Pipe-Dream Week.
A company called Thunderbolt Aerosystems announced this week the release of the Thunderpack, which "represents more than a decade's worth of effort to apply modern rocket fuels and propulsion technologies to create a practical and economical personal air vehicle". It'll fly you around for a total of 75 seconds. That's certainly an improvement over a jetpack at the Wirefly X Prize Cup in 2006 that could stay aloft for a mere 30 seconds.
Thunderbolt, which was founded by San Francisco Bay Area entrepreneur Carmelo Amarena as a strategy for dealing with a stressful commute, hopes that technological improvements within a year will enable up to 35 minutes of flight.
The machine can run on either "specially promoted" hydrogen peroxide in a dual-fuel mode -- available starting in August -- or standard high test peroxide -- available in May. A dual-fuel capable jetpack has a longer flight time -- the full 75 seconds, as opposed to 45 seconds -- and can go faster -- 75mph compared with 65mph, giving it the ability to go twice as far on one tank -- but that's still only about just over 1,000 metres.
With further development, though, Thunderbolt hopes that its jetpacks will ultimately be used for a "host of defense, commercial, and personal purposes, including support of military missions, disaster relief efforts, border patrol assignments, and even overcoming those snail-paced commutes". That's good, seeing as most of us live farther than 1,000 metres from our offices.
The market price for the dual-fuel Thunderpack is expected to be in the $100,000 (£50,000) range, with the high test peroxide model selling for $90,000 (£45,000).
Oh, please. For just twice that, I could spend a whole four-to-five minutes weightless in space aboard Richard Branson's suborbital party plane.
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