The jetpack-wearing joyrider was David Mayman, an Australian entrepreneur who has spent the past 10 years designing and building prototypes of the wearable flying device. He’s been helped in this effort by Nelson Tyler, a Hollywood-based inventor best known for developing helicopter camera systems and other movie-ready technologies, three of which have earned him Academy Awards.
This is a video of David Mayman, president of Jetpack Aviation and inventor of the JB-9 jetpack, taking the thing for a trip across the Hudson River to the Statue Of Liberty. David claims the jetpack is the only ‘real’ jetpack in the world because
1. it’s small and light enough to be worn on the back and doesn’t require a stand to support its weight
2. it’s jet-engine powered and runs on kerosene (with a flight time of around 10 minutes) and
3. is capable of vertical takeoff and landing. Is it really the only pack that meets those criteria?
The JB-9 pack works just fine, but Mayman and Nelson (along with the other team members at their company, Jetpack Aviation) have already developed a new model of the jetpack, the JB-10. The new flying machine will function similarly to the JB-9, but it will also be quite a bit faster, zooming its pilot across the sky at a breakneck speed of 100 mph (160 km/h).