No.8 Re-wired: The Martin Jetpack

Martin was used to tricky challenges. As a child, his father used to task him with ‘intellectual exercises’ where he would have to solve interesting theoretical problems. So he went to the Science Library the next day and, after reading about the Bell Rocket Belt, set himself the challenge of design- ing the world’s first practical jetpack – one that could carry a 100kg person for 30 minutes using normal petrol. How hard could that be? That was in 1981.

In 1984, after three and a half years of calculations and research, where he would often learn the maths theory he needed by sneaking into maths lectures he wasn’t enrolled for, Martin had a eureka moment. He realised that the jet engine was entirely wrong for the jetpack, but that a ducted fan would be perfect for the job. Doing the maths, he confirmed that his challenge was entirely possible with a ducted fan – theoretically. Now he couldn’t give up.

To support his obsession, Martin and his family moved to Christchurch to be near the University of Canterbury College of Engineering. He would spend a few years working, then take a few years off to work on the jetpack, and then repeat the process. Over the next 30 years Glenn mortgaged his house three times. It was an arduous process, cloaked in strict secrecy, and rewards were few and far between. Many jetpack prototypes were designed, built, tested, then discarded – all on paper. The first test flight didn’t come for 16 years – about 15 years after most people would have given up.

In 1997 the jetpack was ready for its first test flight. Martin chose his wife Vanessa as the test pilot: ‘Her qualifications were that, unlike me, she was under 55kg and she could keep her mouth shut.’ She and the jetpack were attached to a pole in the garage and the jetpack simply picked her up and put her down.

Martin can’t even remember his own first flight exactly; the tests were so gradual. He spent hours wandering around with just enough power to keep him on tippy-toes to test the control system. Then he would be a centimetre off the ground, then half a metre. As confidence in the machine grew, the flights became longer and higher.

In 1998 Martin finally quit his job, started Martin Aircraft and became the full-time chief executive of an aviation company.

The first public demonstration of the Martin Jetpack was in 2008 at an air show in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, and for a while it looked like the unveiling of the jetpack was imminent. In 2010, Time magazine

named the Martin Jetpack among their top 50 inventions of the year, and the company announced jetpacks were soon to be delivered.

In 2011 New Zealand went jetpack crazy. TVNZ’s Sunday programme filmed a demonstration of the potential of the jetpack, which flew perfectly in control to 3km high, piloted by a dummy called George Jetson. Then, in a simulated engine failure, the ballistic parachute deployed perfectly and George and the jetpack floated safely back to Earth.

At the time of writing, the commercial release once more seems imminent. A brand new prototype has been made – the P12 – with the ducted fans repositioned from pilot’s shoulder height to waist height, and new improvements are being made to the engine. The Martin Jetpack weighs 144kg and uses a 2-litre V4 petrol engine, which powers twin ducted fans pointing downwards for lift. Of course, it’s Martin’s own specially designed petrol engine, not just the motor out of your average Camry.

The P12 is designed for the needs of its first customers – search and rescue, paramedic, ambulance, fire and border control services. In August 2013 the Civil Aviation Authority gave approval for New Zealand testing of the P12 after looking at it long and hard, and scratching their heads over exactly how to class the aircraft. It isn’t a plane and it isn’t a helicopter. They ended up classing it as a microlight, and the prototype P12 is officially registered as ZK-JME.

Nobody is yet willing to put a date on when the P12 will be released for sale – Martin is hoping it’ll be 2014 – but the company is busy developing the necessary training manuals and maintenance programmes for the product.

For his part, Martin is determined to be the first to fly the Martin Jetpack across Cook Strait and the English Channel, ‘although I’ve had a few arguments with a certain guy called Branson about who’ll be first to do that!’

Meanwhile the aviation world is watching and waiting with bated breath. When asked how he hasn’t given up sometime between 1981 and now, Martin says it’s the conviction that jetpack flight is possible

– a conviction based on science and mathematics. That, and ‘bloody-mindedness and stupidity’.

After 32 years of development, it must be odd for Glenn Martin that his jetpack won Popular Science magazine’s ‘Best of What’s New’ award in 2013. But that’s the thing with the future – no matter how long it takes, it’s always new when it gets here.