But the pioneers in this field have spent untold hours developing and honing their remarkable aircraft and their skills, and they’re as keen as anyone else to see a return on their investments. And military organizations the world over have deep pockets, a wide range of mission capabilities they need to continue honing, and perhaps more to gain than anyone else from the shock and awe potential of airborne super troopers that can approach a situation vertically, riding on ear-splitting personal jet devices.
But how does that look in the real world? Gravity Industries is happy to show us. In a video released this week, three jet suit pilots demonstrated how their unique capabilities could assist in a ship boarding operation.
In one exercise, a jet suit pilot launches from a rigid inflatable in pursuit of a mid-size ship, lands on deck and drops a ladder over the side for the rest of the team to climb up on. In a second, he demonstrates the ability to quickly zip back and forth between the ship and the moving RIB, landing on the small boat even as it bounces around in gentle swells. In a third, three jet suit jockeys land on the deck of this ship in quick succession.
And thus, there you’d be standing, alone and loudly announced, on the deck of an enemy ship with 5-10 kg (11-22 lb) of highly flammable jet fuel strapped to your back. The bad guys would want to put a bullet in your backpack just to see if you’d go flying about like an untied balloon. You wouldn’t be able to defend yourself until you’d wrestled your hands out of your jet gauntlets, hung them up somewhere and got your gun out. And even then, you’re gonna find it hard to run, roll, hide or squat with that giant, explosive turtleshell on your back.
This latter point is something Gravity is working to address; it’s been working with YouTuber and robotics specialist James Bruton to develop a head-tracking shoulder turret that would allow jet suit soldiers to aim and fire a rifle in-flight or on the ground, aiming just by looking.
Will these things end up seeing action? Who knows. They certainly offer some pretty unique capabilities, but they’re not without their risks and drawbacks, and a man swooping through the sky has zero cover and a great big target on his back. Either way, we’ll be keeping an eye on this sector just because these things are so freakin’ cool.
Source: Gravity Industries
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I kept coming up with many ideas about how to improve this setup.
Like having a pivot point attached to the backpack with servo powered joints to releave the operator having to use muscle power as much.
And mostly I feel having the gimbal horizontal axis only move 20 degrees, no reason for 90 degree of rotation but 20 or so would definitely help instead of the operator trying to pivot to the sides to aim.
I want to fly one.
Phil Spector