Flying Segway?

Mark Pratt sent this video to me. Many thanks, Mark.

When I saw it, I was very skeptical .... thinking this was a fabulous internet fake .... but even SNOPES says it is real. It is still hard to believe.

Other websites claim there are four, very small 250 HP turbine engines in the device. Each one can be throttled and tipped in angle very rapidly in response to an onboard computer like the ones that control miniature quad-copter drones. The backpack the pilot is wearing is the kerosene fuel tank.

When I worked for General Dynamics Astronautics in San Diego just after HBS, one of the classified “special projects” I worked on was a personal flying platform to carry one soldier. Imagine a six-foot in diameter ducted fan ..... Wait! ..... now that we have Google, you don’t have to imagine anything anymore .... just look it up. And .... here it is. That’s the Army photo I had in my project notebook ... now unclassified.

This craft actually flew, many times, but was very difficult to stabilize with just one thrust vector blowing straight down and a throttle. The poor test pilot was standing right above a pair of counter-rotating propellers. The noise was awful. If he shifted his weight just a bit it would tip, slew sideways and try and turn over. The only “flights” I saw were inside a hanger and the rig and pilot were secured by a safety harnesses (edited out of this picture).