Sometimes you see videos on the internet that force you to say to yourself, “That can’t possibly be safe.”
This particular video, however, was carefully choreographed between Emirates A380 and the two thrill seekers wearing jetpacks. Emirates A380 is the world’s largest passenger aircraft, so it makes sense that it looks massive flying next to the Jetman Dubai duo wearing the smallest jet propelled wing. The Jetman Dubai duo, also known as Yves Rossy and Vince Refet, are actually both pilots, hence their jetpacks.
Just for comparison, the passenger plane has GP 7200 engines with 70,000 pounds of thrust each, a max speed of 490 knots, and a total weight of about 560 metric tons. It’s a massive plane even among other passenger planes.
The tiny jetpacks flying so close to this behemoth have four JetCat P400 engines with 88 pounds of thrust each, a max speed of between 140 and 170 knots, and weighs in at about 331 pounds. They’re made from Kevlar
Just to be clear, the passenger plane weighs 560 tons, and the jetback weighs 0.15 tons. The Rossy compares them to a mosquito flying next to a condor.
Again, this does not seem safe.
The formation flight showcased in the video had the plane holding at 4,000 feet, with the two pilots dropping in from a helicopter hovering at 5,500 feet.
The background of the video features the city of Dubai, but I doubt you’ll take your eyes off the plane.
The focus was obviously on safety during the design and planning process, and every straight and corner was choreographed. First, they set up a confined airspace and ran some numbers to see if it was even possible to do this with the passenger plane. Then they looked at the Jetman parameters to see if they could operate in the confined space. Jetman was limited by performance time, which was a maximum of 10 minutes. As an added bonus, they also needed additional–up to four total–aircraft in the area.
The below video is basically focused on what it took to get ready for the flight.
The lack of capes suggests they visited Edna Mode before entering the design phase.
Filed Under: Aerospace + defense
