evans@mhuxt.UUCP (crandall) (08/25/85)
Having been debriefed by friends who went to Oshkosh and having been to a couple of airshows this Summer my mind has been wandering to some of the wierder things to fly. Does anyone know what the current status of the Williams Research Jet Belt is? Historically Bell Aerospace developed a series of rocket (H2O2 on platinum) belts in the early to mid 60s. These showed up everywhere - county fairs (I was in a cub scout troop about 30' away from one when it flew on what seemed to be more of a column of sound rather than steam), James Bond movies, Popular Science, etc. They weren't practical with 30 second durations, but this was Buck Rogers. In the late 60s the Army wanted a manned vehicle that could fly in very tight spaces. Bell mounted a Williams WR19 turbofan upside down on one a fiberglas corset, attached a large dual nozzle assembly, fuel tank, mortor deployed parachute (the L/D of one of these things at 0 thrust is the same as a rock), and flew the thing. The engine is a very impressive device for the time - it weighed well under 100 pounds, was a turbofan (I can't remember the sfc, but it was much better than the > 1.0 pound/pound-thrust-hr that is the norm for tiny turbojets), had twin counter-rotating fans and turbines to take out any torque, and belted out well over 500 pounds/thrust. The things was flown for awhile and the rights to all small lift devices (as the military calls them) were sold to Williams. The last I heard of these things was a report dating from 1975 on the Willaims WASP - a two man turbofan platform with a 700 pound of thrust variant of the WR19. Williams is still very much in business (cruise missile engines which tend to be very exotic and impractical - their bearings are only good for a few hours), but I haven't heard anything more on the SLDs? Comments? Steve Crandall ihnp4!mhuxt!evans
nathanm@hp-pcd.UUCP (nathanm) (08/28/85)
Well... someone flew a jet belt at the opening (or was it closing?) ceremony for the 1984 Summer Olympics. There seems to be one still in existence. Nathan Meyers hp-pcd!nathanm
al@mot.UUCP (Al Filipski) (09/23/85)
> > Well... someone flew a jet belt at the opening (or was it closing?) > ceremony for the 1984 Summer Olympics. There seems to be one still > in existence. Are they obsolete? What was wrong with them? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Alan Filipski, UNIX group, Motorola Microsystems, Tempe, AZ U.S.A {seismo|ihnp4}!ut-sally!oakhill!mot!al | ucbvax!arizona!asuvax!mot!al ------------------------------------------------------------------------
ewiles@netex.UUCP (Ed Wiles) (09/25/85)
In article <284@mot.UUCP>, al@mot.UUCP (Al Filipski) writes: > > > > Well... someone flew a jet belt at the opening (or was it closing?) > > ceremony for the 1984 Summer Olympics. There seems to be one still > > in existence. > > Are they obsolete? What was wrong with them? > What is wrong is that they tend to weigh so much, that the user has trouble just walking around in them. I have, however, heard of a one-man flying platform, powered by the same sort of engine that is used in a cruise missile. It is being developed for the army, and is not expected to hit the public market for some years yet. The developers do have a working model, that works quite well. (It is also equiped with a parachute. :-)) I saw this on a "factual" television show. (As opposed to a rumor program.) There were several clips showing the flight capabilities, and its excelent maneuverability. E. L. Wiles