Calling all inventors: Win $2 million for a ‘Jetsons’ jetpack
U.S. president Franklin Roosevelt’s aviation chief had a New Deal plan to get everyday Americans up in the air. But he needed help.
So Eugene Vidal sparked a competition among the nation’s tinkerers, engineers and aircraft makers. His challenge: build a “rugged, safe and simple” aircraft that would be as easy to drive as a car and cost roughly the same, about $700.
“In a short time,” he predicted, “America will become a nation of pilots.”
It didn’t. But more than 80 years later, a new wave of flight buffs is doubling down, arguing that breakthroughs in propulsion, materials and autonomy have opened up a new path to that old dream.
This week, a group called GoFly, funded by aerospace giant Boeing, launched a $2-million competition to spur the development of jetpacks, hoverboards, human-bearing drones, flying mopeds and assorted other flying objects for personal use. Unlike the flying taxis being pursued by Uber and many others, the contest is about strapping in a single individual.
The GoFly Prize is of a kind with myriad contests that have come before, helping to propel driverless cars and private rockets forward, and it’s reminiscent of what Elon Musk is doing by encouraging development of his idea for a speedy Hyperloop underground pod conveyance system.
The two-year GoFly contest offers $20,000 prizes for the best-written plans, $250,000 awards for the quietest and smallest entries, and a $1-million grand prize.
The rules are highly specific. The device has to be simple to use, safe and capable of travelling 32 kilometres without a recharge or refuelling. It has to be luggable by a single person (a dolly’s OK, but not a motorized one). And it has to take off and land pretty much vertically.
As for form, “we leave open a huge white space for innovation,” said Gwen Lighter, an entrepreneur and chief executive of GoFly who brought the idea to Boeing. “While we love jetpacks . . . there could be flying motorcycles. There could be flying people. There could be something you stand on. There could be something over your head.”
For decades, jetpack prototypes have shown up at military demonstrations and Super Bowl stadiums. They and their new-era brethren play into what boosters call the “universal dream of pure human flight.”
“There’s a convergence of so many breakthrough technologies that make this the first moment in history where it’s actually possible to build a device where people fly,” Lighter said. The new potency of battery power, 3-D metal printing, lightweight materials, and the software and equipment that keep drones in balance and autonomous cars on the road are all part of the new mix, she said.
It’s a thrilling moment for people like her, Lighter said, recalling how as a girl she would throw herself “out of trees for another millisecond of lift.”
Roger Connor, curator for vertical flight and unmanned aircraft at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum, said “things are wide open.”
“It’s hard to think of anything in my lifetime that’s been as dynamic as this in the aerospace field, Connor said. “Not since the early days of powered flight have we seen so many new and interesting approaches to flight appearing simultaneously.”