Tuesday, January 10, 2006

Jet Screamer




Here's a round up of new jet powered stuff that I've come across lately

It's good to see there's plenty of current amateur research regarding mounting things to jet engines.

1. Jet powered surfboard. Apparently, this product has been on the market for a while, but it looks as if the company that makes it has come up with a new and improved model. Unfortunately, the company website seems to be broken, but this Gizmag write up describes it well.

2. Jet powered kayak.
I can only find bits and pieces of this story. A well known kayak named Shaun Baker has developed a jet powered kayak in which, as far as I can tell, he hopes to set speed record on the River Thames. According to natives.co.uk, there was a recent outdoors and film event in which:


Shaun Baker introduced his jet powered kayak for the first time to a public audience, and showed footage filmed a few days earlier of the jet powered kayak performing on water for the first time ever ahead of a planned world speed record mooted for the Thames!
In an interview with the British site themeswierproject.co.uk, Baker says that:
It's still kind of under wraps at the moment, but I'm working on a "rocket-powered" kayak. Well, it's actually jet-powered - we were having a few issues with the rockets. A couple of guys from Brunel Uni are helping with the build of the project and Red Bull are backing the early World Speed Record attempts
I'd like to know more, and will try to update later.

3. Jet Powered Skydiver
This is an update to the Bird-Man suit article published last week. Here's a link to an outstanding video of a skydiver wearing a bird suit with a jet engine strapped to his feet. The noise the turbines make when he tests them sitting on a truck bed is tremendous by itself. The shot of the sky diver screaming, jet-powered, through the sky is very good.

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