Yves, Not Buck

So here’s Swiss adventurer/inventor Yves Rossy aloft in his newly redesigned jetpack.

His last, slightly larger jetpack carried him across the English Channel.  This one can loop.

Yves Rossy, the Swiss adventurer who has already flown across the English Channel using a winged jet-pack, pulled off another exploit Friday, flying two aerial loops in a new version of his invention.

Rossy, who was testing a new, more aerodynamic model of the jet-pack, jumped from a hot-air balloon at 2,400 metres (7,900 feet) and performed the stunt during an 18-minute flight before making a parachute landing.

Personal jetpacks were not precisely the stuff of my youth— the original Buck Rogers was pretty much before my time— but they’re still very much a part of my imagination, especially when I’m stuck in traffic.

Though the parachute landing would be cumbersome and messy.   And come to think of it, we never saw Buck Rogers actually land, now did we?

[via Andrew Miller]