Wendell F. Moore opens a new chapter

[zakiyatasnim]

This development formed the basis of the first jet pack or “jet vest,” as its creator, engineer Thomas Moore, called it. In 1952, the US Army became interested in his research, paying the designer a grant of $25,000. Taking into account inflation, this amount would be approximately $244,000 today.


During the test trials, the vest managed to lift a person into the air for a few seconds, but this dubious success was the only one in the history of Thomas Moore's invention. The main failure of his concept was the uncomfortable control of the device using a box with a pair of flywheels. Having not achieved any success for several years, the US Army canceled the project, but did not reject the idea of ​​creating mobile soldiers. The idea penetrated so deeply into public opinion that the rocket backpack became an object of mass culture. It began to be worn by characters in comics, films, and later games.



In general, there are two belts
The Thiokol company, counting on investments from the kuwait number data military, decided to go to the jet backpack in gradual steps and introduced the “Jump Belt” in 1958. With the help of this device, it was possible to make large jumps (up to 7 meters) or move along the surface at a speed of up to 50 km/h. The developers achieved stable operation of the device in terms of jumping (the project was called “Jumping Grasshopper”), but for some reason they forgot that the pilot still needed to land. Almost all tests ended with the pilots’ grass, but the creators did not notice any problems. Probably, that is why the design bureau never managed to get to a full-fledged model of the rocket backpack.


and makes a real leap in this area. In his version of the jetpack, the control was divided into terrestrial and aerial: the operator from the ground controlled the supply of nitrogen fuel, and the pilot controlled the angle of the nozzles. In the same 1958, Moore's "Flying Belt" was able to lift a person to a height of 5 meters for 3 minutes, so the US military chose Wendell Moore's development. He wanted to pilot the device himself, but broke his leg during the tests, so the first pilot in history is considered to be Harold Graham, an employee of his company "Bell Aerosystems". Until then, all flights were carried out with insurance, but additional funding allowed Moore to create a fiberglass lightweight backpack, which had a thrust of 127 kgf. On April 20, 1961, the first flight on a jetpack took place. During the tests, the pilot flew about 35 meters in 13 seconds at an altitude of just under 2 meters and made a soft landing.