A marvellous example of a jetpack in use in mainstream media was the movie 007:Thunderball, where Sean Connery uses a Jetpack to escape the clutches gunmen. If James Bond using a jetpack doesn't make it 'cool' and relevant, I don't know what will!
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| The top cell of this poster shows 007's jetpack in action, as a selling point! - (Thunderball, 1965) |
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| Sean Connery wearing the 007 Jetpack during filming - (Thunderball, 1965) |
The jetpack used is actually a Bell Rocket belt (the earlier name for a jetpack), which I discovered whilst reading up on the 007 sequence.
The Bell Rocket belt is, insofar as I can gather, the original Jetpack, from which nearly all others have been based on to this day.
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| One of the original patent diagrams, filed June 10, 1960! - (U.S Patent Office, 1960) |
I wonder how different this technology could be had the original rocket belt been made differently. Would we be further advanced than we are now? Would we even need cars or would we be sailing through the skies with our own not-quite-rocket-belts?
Looking into the act of human flight in entertainment, I started looking at human cannonballs, seeing the modern performers on Youtube made me look into their origins, finding this:
The 14-year-old human cannonball, a young girl called Zazel (real name Rossa Matilda Richter), who was launched by Farini-designed contraption. The perceived danger of these acts caused protests and put the venue's licence in doubt but continued to drew crowds.
- (Shadyoldlady.com, 2011)
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| A human cannonball's trajectory caught on film - (Daily Mail, 2007) |
It's nice to know that even in 1877 the possibility someone might get splattered drew crowds (thrill seeking without the danger). Perhaps acts like this started the daredevil fascination that still exists today. (using popular examples like Evil Kineval, movie stuntmen adding to a film's appeal, and so on).
Even in ancient history, human flight features in myth, with the story of Icarus flying to close to the sun, melting the wax that was holding his wings together and causing him to plunge to his death. (Perhaps an ancient way of saying humans were not meant to fly?).
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| Mourning for Icarus - (Herbert James Draper, 1898) |
As much of a flight of fancy as it may be in my opinion (humans do not have the necessary shape of arm strength to fly like a bird), I think it acts as a wonderful demonstration of one of the earliest recorded dreams of flight by a human. It would be incredible to hear the reaction of an ancient Greek to seeing an aeroplane, or any airborn vehicle we have today.
When browsing google results I came across the same question time and time again, The Jetsons- Where are our Jetpacks?! Looking into what the Jetsons were I found them to be one of the early family sitcom cartoons (The predecessors of TV shows such as the Simpsons and Family Guy). The Jetsons was first aired in 1962, and frequently features flight technology - something that people seem to have associated with the future ever since, particularly in science fiction (As seen in movies such as Star Wars, The Fifth Element, Star Trek and so on).
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| The Jetsons- (Hanna and Barbera, 1962) |
Something that I personally have always found fascinating are the designs by Leanardo daVinci for his own flying machine. He had a fascination with flight, believing that man would one day achieve it (he was right!) I would love to try and design something as intricate and outlandish as some of his original designs, which at the time must have seemed even more peculiar!
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| daVinci's designs for a bat wing based flight machine - (Leanardo da Vinci 1485) |
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| The 'corkscrew' flight machine, which some believe to be the predecessor to the helicopter - (Leanardo da Vinci 1485) |
My personal favourite is the corkscrew design, which is theorised to have been a study on propulsion rather than a practical design (Perhaps I can adapt this method of working to create my own designs?).
It may also be worth noting that the top flying machine is strapped to your back - in a time before engines or any kind of contained propulsion, you could consider this the first jetpack!
The following information was included with the pictures above:
About 1485 he drew detailed plans for a human-powered ornithopter (a wing-flapping device intended to fly). There is no evidence that he actually attempted to build such a device, although the image he presented was a powerful one. The notion of a human-powered mechanical flight device, patterned after birds or bats, recurred again and again over the next four centuries.
(C.Gray 1998-2003)
Indeed, the designs have been referenced in the modern day for game mechanics and designs for modern inventions such as the parachute and the hand-glider, I have included a screenshot of the use of one of his devices below.
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| Using daVinci's flying machine in Assassin's Creed 2 - (Ubisoft 2009) |
It's amazing that we see much of this the technology I have talked about as futuristic, when it's roots go as far back as the 15th Century!
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