I thought that the regulation in the USA meant that anything the ultralight category can not be flown over populated areas[1].
regardless, the USA may be very liberal in terms of regulations for ultralight aircraft, but other nations are definitely not. In most other places there are certification and licensing requirements for anything above an unpowered hanglider. In Australia and Europe you need a pilots license for an ultralight craft.
If this does make it to production, and does manage to take advantage of ultralight regulations, I can see the laws being changed to require certification and licensing (or outright bans) in the same way many cities, states etc. responded to the Segway and low-powered bicycles.
There is just no way that they are going to allow people in suburban areas to take off in one of these without a license and without certification - and very likely not at all
I could see suburban area enacting regulations ("it is illegal to land or take off without a license"), but there is so much space with nothing in it in the US that I hope it doesn't become a nationwide regulation. Who cares if I zoom around Uncle Bob's farm in Kansas? That might take my entire flight time.
It would be fun to use but I wonder about the practical uses, if I flew to work with it am I going to be able to bring anything with me, or am I going to look like I just walked through a tornado, and finally where do I put it when I do get to work?
I think this is mostly going to be seen at high-end amusement parks for the moment. I'd be willing to pay more than $50 for a few minutes with this thing. But perhaps insurance would be the real cost of doing business in that case?
Other applications might include law enforcement, or perhaps search and rescue? Helicopters can't get everywhere...
If you did fly it work, I'd imagine you'd look like you rode a motorcycle to work. So, pack a a change of clothes and wear a helmet.
Great example of how a lot of books/advice about marketing work, in one sentence, thank you! The author observes his/her behavior (first thing I noticed is shoes), thinks all people do the same (most people notice shoes), cites one or two examples as a proof, and says that marketing people know this. Works best with the surprise factor (shoes is such a tiny detail compared to jetback).
Haha, well said, but I had an "awwww" reaction. One of my corporate mentors once scolded me (in a helping way) for having bad shoes & a bad haircut, and told me to pay more for both.
But The Shawshank Redemption taught me no one ever looks at a man's shoes! Or has that reached enough critical mass to make it so people notice shoes now? Or are you just implying people's brains notice, but for most people it won't be a conscious notice and they'll just subconsciously want nice shoes or respect/disrespect someone?
$100,000. Rent out for $500/ 1/2hour after 5 lessons at $100 - $200 a piece (not in the air -- or closely tethered at 2-3 ft). Gimp the flight controls a bit by the fly-by-wire controller for an extra measure of safety.
If you can book 10 hours a month, the machine is paid for in 10 months. Since you'd likely get a lot of press right off with very little effort, you could probably book a lot more time than that.
OF course your clients would have to sign away all liability and no one would insure it so you'd have to figure out how much this thing is to repair but I could see someone making a tidy living off of these things.
Sounds awesome, but I wonder about reliability and the consequences of engine failure. You can land airplanes and helicopters without power, but if that two-stroker kicks it in air I fail to see how there'll be anything but a big splat. And two-strokes aren't exactly known for being the most reliable either...
"The good news is that due to it being in the ultralight category, should you decide to get your hands on the jetpack, you will not be required to have a license of any sort."
Why is this good news? Half an hour in the air with a max speed of 63mph is something we don't want to regulate?
I'm hoping these things will become mainstream in the future. Of course there'll be regulations and I'm not sure they would be safe if a lot of people would use them, but they're still nice!
Safety issues aside, how practical is this really for a daily commute? Even if you halve the 60mph for 30 minutes estimate, that still works for a lot of executive's commutes.
I think a sportscar will impress the ladies more..... or angel invest into YC Start Ups. Both allow you to be up in the clouds as well. (positive sense)
Is your batting average sufficiently high that 5 start-ups would be enough to get one 'winner' at the percentage you'd invest to make back your 100K?
Especially if you've never done this before I'd expect that you might need a bit more runway than just 100K. YC pulled it off to have reddit and loopt in their first batch but it did take the combined efforts of Robert Morris, Paul Graham, Trevor Blackwell and Jessica Livingston to decide on those five.
It may have helped that for none of them it was the only money they had.
I applaud you for being daring but typically the failure rate of start-ups is such that you'd need pretty deep pockets as an inexperienced and relatively unknown investor to make a go of it.
On top of that you'll be in competition with other incubators with more visibility which likely will attract the 'hot' ones first.
As it said, it's an ultralight which means that (at least in the US) you apparently don't need a license. You probably still need to conform to some FAA flight rules, so I doubt they would like you to meander into SFO Class B airspace...
I doubt you will be able to just fly around with it anywhere you want. They probably will give you training since you are paying $100,000 and there is no other way to get any training.
This looks appealing, especially if you have a short commute you take regularly, and assuming the unit is rugged enough to be used on a regular basis.
The interesting question to me is what kind of flight profile I'd use. 1,000 feet and fast? Or low and slow? If you knew where the power lines and towers were, it'd almost make sense to do something like fly at 100-200' or so at max speed. Assuming you had ten seconds or more of notice before the thing shut down, you could probably plop yourself quickly into some kind of landing. Much easier that screwing around with the parachute. If I were going to be doing engine diagnostics and parachute drills, I'd want to be up in the 3000-5000' range, and personally I'd get a little woozy at that altitude zooming along without nav lights, a transponder, or even a big profile. But perhaps that's the recommended operation?
