WORD WRAP ON

Personal Jetpack

Although perfectly feasable, this aircraft, in practice is totally impractical due to the weight of the fuel needed to give it a useful endurance.  You don't see strap-on helicopters for the same reason.

Unlike the Bell rocket pack that inspired it, this aircraft would have a state-of-the-art jet engine giving you considerably longer air-time than the 21 seconds of the Bell original.  You'd still be limited to around 15-20 minutes though and a range of 25-30 miles.

The model is quite detailed and features animated nozzles that tilt fore and aft, together and differentially.  Roll control is taken care of by an internal valve that varies the lateral thrust and you can't see that bit.  :-)


Installing:

Drop the JetPack folder into your main Aircraft Folder.  The aircraft will show up as Unreal Aviation Personal Jetpack.

Drop the fx_v_heat_haze.fx file into your main Effects folder.  This is a modified light-driven smoke effect by Nick Needham and is used with kind permission.  Press L to toggle the effect.

There is no 2D panel but I recommend the amazing 'Heli-HUD' gauges by Stephen Hanley available from Hovercontrol and other sources.


The aircraft will work perfectly without a panel.


Flying:

It's a helicopter - crash in the normal way.

CTRL SHIFT F4 to start the engine.
It is not the easiest model to fly as I wanted it to be reasonably realistic.  Remember, you're supposed to be perched on top of two narrow columns of air, not under a ruddy great disk.  She is sensitive but carries a fair bit of inertia depending upon how big a lunch you had and can take a bit longer to respond than you'd think, especially if you've over-cooked it.  Sensitivity goes up and stability goes down as you (rapidly) use up the fuel so your landings can be tricky if you're aiming for a particular spot on top of that narrow building...

Performance is good.  She'll blat along at 110-120kts but range is shortened at high speed.  Throttle back to just enough to remain in the air and your endurance will be doubled.

As it IS really a helicopter an engine failure isn't that traumatic as you just might be able to autorotate to a safe landing.  You will most likely fall over though.  :-)

In real life the pilot would deploy his emergancy parachute bringing both him and the JP to earth.  This cannot be simulated, unfortunately.


This model is dedicated to Captain Slug who's own FS98 JetMan, along with his other models, I found so inspirational and always great fun.

That's it.  Have fun.


Kevin Bryan
Unreal Aviation
whirlybug@cix.co.uk
