The wing at rest. The cost to develop and build it? Some $285,000, paid out by Rossy and his sponsors, most prominently the Swiss watchmaker Hublot, the AP reported. Given both the expense and the demands of the flight itself, there are no plans to come up with a commercial version. (Meaning the niche for jetpack manufacturers is safe for now.)
This week's flight wasn't Rossy's first with this kind of contraption.
In 2005 and 2006, he made several flights with earlier prototypes, including one with two engines instead of four. (An even earlier version had engines attached to an inflatable wing, which was soon rejected because it wasn't sufficiently rigid.) In a test flight in 2007, he had to jettison the wing structure before landing.
Photo by Splash News
Caption by
Jonathan Skillings
AT&T Tech Support 360
