
Airline pilots landing at LAX report “a guy in jetpack” flying alongside them - x43b
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/36096/airline-pilots-landing-at-lax-report-a-guy-in-jetpack-flying-alongside-them-on
======
peeters
Took me a while to find on LiveATC as this wasn't actually on the Tower
frequency, but here is the full feed: [http://archive-
server.liveatc.net/klax/KLAX-Final-Aug-31-202...](http://archive-
server.liveatc.net/klax/KLAX-Final-Aug-31-2020-0130Z.mp3). At 5:23.

Unfortunately their web player is not linkable, but this is the KLAX
North/South Final Approach feed
([https://www.liveatc.net/archive.php?m=klax6](https://www.liveatc.net/archive.php?m=klax6))
from Aug 31, 0130-0200 UTC.

~~~
lightlyused
That is a friend of mine's site. If you live near an airport and have a good
internet connection volunteer to provide a live feed.

~~~
Teelo
I live close to LAX. I'll send them a message.

~~~
henvic
I bet there is plenty of coverage there for LAX already. In my impression,
services like this (and even Flightradar24) at this day and age are mostly
interested in coverage in spotty areas in rural areas and far away from
civilization.

Don't get me wrong! I'm not trying to demotivate you. Just letting you know
that maybe they'll turn you down. However, even if they do so, you can always
learn a lot by doing so... and it's quite cheap, and redundancy is always
welcome, right? :)

------
sandworm101
>> They are also very high-profile in nature and require a mothership to
launch from, such as a helicopter, or at least a very high point to leap from.

No. Yves "Jetman" Rossi's design can now launch from a standing position on
the ground. It is able to launch, hover, transition to forward flight and
zoom-climb to several thousand feet. Other than the landing, which is
currently still via parachute ... ironman.

~~~
imglorp
Even if it's not Rossi, whose design has been years in the making, I think a
copycat is most likely here. Rossi's wing operates at 4000+ feet and 189mph,
which is comparable to jets slowing down on long final. Those hobby jet
engines are very expensive but off the shelf, and anyone can build a wing in
their garage. The FAA would classify it as an aircraft (already has), and
would like to talk to this operator.

I think you can rule out the multirotor bathtubs for now.

~~~
sandworm101
It is also odd that they said "in a jetpack" rather than wearing or riding
on/under a jetpack. Might this also be a very small but conventional aircraft?
Might it be a mannequin mounted _inside_ a smaller drone? Size gets distorted
in these situations.

(FYI those hobby jets are one option, but there are considerably more capable
small jets available, mostly used for cruise missiles and heavy drones.)

~~~
pc86
Airline pilots typically earn their 1500-hour minimum for their license in
"small but conventional aircraft" so the odds of them mistaking one for a
jetpack is approximately zero.

~~~
sandworm101
And I probably have 5000+ hours driving cars. That doesn't mean I don't
occasionally confuse one type of road vehicle for another, especially when
dealing with odd/rare types.

~~~
cglace
You often confuse motorcycles for cars?

~~~
mstade
At night, sure. Many times I've met a car with a broken headlight, only
realizing it's not a motorcycle as we're passing. I don't know if this
happened at night, but visibility can be reduced for other reasons as well.

~~~
IgorPartola
This one is scary to me, as a motorcycle rider. The other one that’s not fun:
some motorcycles have two separate headlights on the front (low and high
beams) and can be wired so that both can be on at once. What are you looking
at? A car that’s really far away or a motorcycle that’s really close?

Please watch out for motorcyclists. The blindness people have for us is
astonishing. And terrifying.

~~~
hazeii
I've had that on a bicycle. The bike had two small side by side halogens on
the handlebars, I was on a main road when a car pulled straight out of a side
turning and into the side of me. I released afterwards he'd glanced down the
road, seen two small lights and assumed it was a car far enough away for him
to pull out.

On motorbikes I've had drivers in side roads look me in the eye and then pull
out. On occasion I've ended up having words, and it's always "Sorry mate I
didn't see you".

~~~
kingaillas
>it's always "Sorry mate I didn't see you".

Ah, the SMIDSY:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqQBubilSXU&t=387s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqQBubilSXU&t=387s)

That video covers the optical illusion that leads to it and what motorcycles
can do.

------
Johnny555
As amusing as this is, it highlights how fragile air travel is -- someone
managed to fly a 200 lb payload within a couple hundred feet of an airliner on
final approach. And apparently did so anonymously since there was no mention
of who or exactly what it was.

It wouldn't be hard to maneuver it right in front of the airliner and cause a
collision. While the aircraft would likely survive an engine strike, at only a
few thousand feet of altitude it doesn't give much time to recover.

~~~
ckocagil
All sorts of transportation are very fragile. Everyone with a driver's license
is trusted with operating tons of steel that can move at enormous speeds.

Society's based on some amount of mutual trust. We can't lock everything down
and treat every person as a potential criminal. That leads to an inefficient
and dystopian country.

~~~
achow
Well at the risk of sounding pedantic, things on rails - railways,
metro/subway etc. are not in same category.

~~~
pjc50
Wasn't there a guy who crashed the train he was driving because he'd been
radicalised by Q nonsense?

~~~
kens
Yes, a train engineer at the Port of Los Angeles intentionlly crashed his
train in April because he was suspicious of the nearby Navy hospital ship
_Mercy_.

'“You only get this chance once. The whole world is watching. I had to,"
Moreno told investigators, according to the complaint. "People don’t know
what’s going on here. Now they will.”'

(Nothing about this story makes sense to me.)

[https://www.navytimes.com/news/your-
military/2020/04/02/trai...](https://www.navytimes.com/news/your-
military/2020/04/02/train-engineer-intentionally-derails-locomotive-near-
hospital-ship-says-usns-mercy-was-suspicious/)

~~~
_underfl0w_
He must've been hoping the earth was flat enough that he could drive the train
across water or something. Simultaneously amazing and terrifying that he could
be put in charge of something so deadly despite what I'm sure is obvious
mental instability.

------
elteto
ATCs have a reputation for never losing their cool and that really shines
through here:

“Tower, there’s a guy in a jetpack flying outside.”

“Copy. To your left or your right?”

~~~
martinflack
Incidentally, do pilots say left and right? They don't have a special word
(port / starboard) like naval vessels?

~~~
rmccue
They say left and right as others have noted, but the main boarding doors on
planes are supposedly on the left for the same reason the left is called the
“port”. It appears to be a relic of the flying boat era of aviation.

~~~
justsid
There are a lot of such relics in aviation, for example distance is measured
in nautical miles, speed in knots and the uniforms and ranks are also very
much like their naval counter parts.

~~~
emilecantin
Nautical miles are used in navigation because one nautical mile equals one
minute of latitude when you're traveling North/South, making it a very useful
unit of measurement on oceans. Planes use it for the same reason. A knot is
simply a speed of one nautical mile per hour, so it's a useful unit for speed
when you're using nautical miles for distance.

So I wouldn't call these two specific examples relics, but I agree with you on
uniforms & ranks.

~~~
rocqua
Specifically, the nautical mile thing means that any chart with coordinates on
it also has a scale in miles built-in.

------
princekolt
I don't think there's any question the pilots would describe it as "a guy in a
jetpack" if they weren't sure that's what they were looking at. Spotting
traffic around the plane is part of pilot training.

With that being said, if it zipped by the plane very quickly, there's the
possibility it was maybe a very large RC plane shaped like a guy in a jetpack,
which I think could be a bit more plausible.

~~~
sandworm101
I wonder about this. If he was off the wing, could the pilots actually see him
with their own eyes? Off the wing tip is actually rather far back on a modern
airliner. Pilots wouldn't leave the cockpit to look during approach. I have to
assume these were reports passed on by people in the cabin. If so, where are
the pictures?

~~~
princekolt
No, I believe what happened is that the "jetpack" was either hovering or
flying at low speed, and the airplane flew by it. So the pilots could see it
approaching and get a visual on the jetpack before it zipped by the side.

~~~
sandworm101
So a relatively fixed object that they passed at speed? There is even more
room there for size distortion. A doll hanging from a drone? A partially-
inflated balloon of some sort? Once one person radios "jetman" then subsequent
spotters will tend towards that description too.

------
callumprentice
I don’t imagine it was these guys but another “Ironman” type flight suit I’ve
been following is the tech from [https://gravity.co/](https://gravity.co/) \-
it looks like so much fun although I’m sure it’s much harder to use that the
videos suggest.

~~~
rozab
I think those look really exhausting and unnatural since you have to carry
your whole bodyweight on your arms.

Seriously, try suspending yourself with your hands on two chair backs. Now
imagine doing that for many minutes at a time, while also withstanding heavy
vibration and precisely controlling your flight.

~~~
MayeulC
It looks like the arms are just here for controlling the direction, the jets
look supported by a belt attachment:
[https://youtu.be/aFQSFke0wFc?t=35](https://youtu.be/aFQSFke0wFc?t=35)

That video was one link down in the article, several other interesting
concepts are shown, that generally seem to be platforms with thrusters.

I feel like a more practical design could be something a bit like "falcon" in
the avengers: back-mounted thruster that gives a lot of forward thrust, with
deployable delta wings à la jetman. Since the thrust is forward, you'd need
something to right up for landing. Either with a physical movement, or
aerobraking above the center of gravity (could be using the wing?).

For now, designs that only rely on thrust, and not lift, are probably doomed
by their fuel efficiency and noise.

~~~
pqdbr
I remember watching an YouTube interview with the founder, and he explicitly
said that he could suspend his entire body weight on his arms alone, on
pilates or something, and that was the base idea for the design he went with.

He is a former marine and I think one would need considerable strength to use
his jetpack.

One very, very interesting project is Frank Zapata's Flyboard Air
([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-kB-
BGMXxZc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-kB-BGMXxZc) and
[https://www.zapata.com/](https://www.zapata.com/)). You basically stand on a
hoverboard.

I wonder what these guys could accomplish if they partnered with, say, DJI or
something. Their flight controllers are very small and have years of
development in automatic flight stabilization. Anyone that has flown a DJI
drone knows what I'm talking about. It would take balancing out of the
equation and make these much more feasible for a general audience.

------
throwaway9870
Reminds me of lawn chair Larry.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawnchair_Larry_flight](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawnchair_Larry_flight)

~~~
MattGaiser
One would think that there would be higher fines for this sort of misbehavior.

~~~
NikolaeVarius
As it turns out, you can't just make up laws just because someone did
something unsafe for the purpose of punishing said person

~~~
ceejayoz
You can absolutely pass laws to punish the _next_ person who tries it, though.

~~~
Maximus9000
or the same person who tries it again.

------
mdorazio
I'm surprised that there's not a single picture of this from any of the
passengers on the landing flight and that ATC didn't seem to confirm it via
radar, either.

~~~
anderiv
ATC primary radar can’t resolve objects that small, and the jetpack-person was
unlikely to have the requisite transponder to make it visible to secondary.

~~~
throwanem
And you'd need a very long lens to get a worthwhile shot of a human-sized
object a fifth of a mile (~300 yards, so ~900 feet, ~0.3km) away. No phone
camera can come anywhere close.

I do actually own a lens that could do it. Extended to full 500mm focal length
and mounted on a camera body, the whole package is about three feet (0.9m)
long. That's a lot to wrestle in economy class, especially if you're not in
the window seat! Given advance knowledge of the opportunity, with time enough
to prepare, it wouldn't be too hard a shot to get, I think. But taken totally
by surprise? Even if you spot me the camera being out and ready to shoot -
which is no triviality given that this happened on final - and the jetpack guy
being perfectly visible out the passenger windows, I'd still need a very large
helping of good fortune, not to mention a good deal of tolerance on the part
of whoever _is_ in the window seat.

~~~
sudosysgen
In theory, a sharp enough crop body and a 300mm lens could do it. But yes, you
really do need a good lens.

------
ohples
How is it 2020 and no one got a video of this. Hopefully some airport security
camera got it, and they will release the video at some point.

~~~
mrlala
Surprised there are not cameras recording what the pilots can see outside?
Even if it's overwriting itself every few hours or something.. just to keep a
record in case of something weird like this.

~~~
vultour
There aren't even cameras recording what's happening inside most airplanes.

~~~
TT3351
This is fascinating to me, so many municipal buses are loaded with cameras
(thinking particularly of Washington, DC), but they also are dealing with
everyone who wanders in the bus off the street.

------
bgun
This sort of cowboying is how cool technologies end up getting banned and set
back years.

~~~
anonymfus
It's better when problems with technology are recognised during its
development than when that technology is already widespread.

What good can bring one of the most wasteful ways of travel imaginable to be
worthwhile? It is not cool to emit an anual carbon footprint equivalent of
small city in the poor part of the world to take off. Hence it will be better
to ban jetpacks for personal travel.

------
peter303
A hoverboard with fuel container on back looks like a jetpack. One guy crossed
the English Channel on one in two hops. He had to refuel midway. Thats more
distance in a flying device than I had heard before.

[https://www.theverge.com/2019/8/4/20753648/jet-powered-
hover...](https://www.theverge.com/2019/8/4/20753648/jet-powered-hoverboard-
english-channel-crossing-franky-zapata-success)

------
anotheryou
Maybe an RC plane like this?
[https://youtu.be/P5xPtOAbt70?t=35](https://youtu.be/P5xPtOAbt70?t=35)

At least mostly foam board.

------
snarfy
I recognize those 'jetcat' engines.

[https://www.jetcat.de](https://www.jetcat.de)

~~~
intotheabyss
Those are a lot cheaper than I expected them to be

~~~
sudosysgen
Swiwin makes even cheaper, more powerful ones. 6000$ retail for a 400N jet.
Though, it is a Chinese company, so I would test the engines pretty carefully
and a carry a parachute just in case.

~~~
nradov
The trouble with jetpacks is that there is a large dead zone in the flight
envelope. Too high to survive a crash but too low for a parachute to be
effective.

~~~
sudosysgen
Very true, but to be fair with four engines and a wing you'd need 3 engines to
fail out of four to be in a catastrophic situation.

------
ggm
If we have come to the place where individuals can violate controlled airspace
either in a flying suit or a drone and our reaction is to shut down transport,
we've come to a very strange place. I say this because some responses here are
exploring the catastrophic consequences. Catastrophic consequence in flights
are a fact of life.

We've had these consequences for some time, in other ways which really aren't
that different. You can buy materiel on the open market and devices like
drones without gps lockouts, or I guess flying suits.

El-Al has been flying at a higher risk profile than others for some time. So
has cargo in the "stans" and the middle east and Africa. I'm not saying "shoot
him down" is the best choice but there surely exist a range of choices here up
to and including defensive action?

Commercial ships can request rights to armed force on deck in the pirate
zones. Lethal force. We lock the guns up otherwise but the reasons the Gatling
guns are fitted (if that's what they are) are understood. Aircraft can have
anti missile systems. We've had that for years.

I think the ways we will deal with this will be broadly similar - perimeter
defences, on aircraft detection systems, IFF and boots on the ground.

We probably don't have a systemic risk profile change here beyond the
breakdown in the social contract: its funny to play but things work better
when grown-ups don't do some things. Maybe 2nd amendment rights to a flying
suit as a weapon is a thing?

WINGMAN FUNNY NOT FUNNY

------
nimbius
Glad to see Spirit Airlines is back in business.

------
lawlessone
There are toy drones shaped like a guy in a jetpack.

Not sure they go high enough though.

------
ethbr0
I guess Elon finally finished the Mark II.

~~~
anaganisk
Im pretty sure Elon is not an inventor of any of the tech he promotes/owns or
invents. He is no Tony Stark.

------
mannykannot
Until a humanoid balloon inflated with helium is definitely ruled out, that's
my default assumption.

------
sizzle
Why didn't the FAA get the cops or military to scramble some jets to apprehend
this individual? How is this not a national security threat?? Who knows if
they were strapped with IED type device.

~~~
icebraining
If you want to get a flying IED, you can use a commercially available RC
plane. Nobody with the means to build a working jetpack would use it to do
something so pedestrian as a suicide bombing.

The FAA should still have a stern talking to the guy, of course, if he flew in
the path of airplanes.

------
LinuxBender
Every inch of that airport and all runways are covered by video cameras, many
of them. There should be no ambiguity here. Let's hope they release the
footage.

~~~
shagie
Of what? Something 6' long at 3000' up? That's a 1/10th of a degree across.

Even if you want to do the 6' long at 900' (300 yards), that's only about
4/10ths of a degree across.

Those aren't things that are captured on camera well. These are angles that
are similar to a 110' long airplane cruising at 38000' (that spec in the sky
leaving a contrail).

------
yalogin
Wow are they supposed to be this emotionless when talking to pilots? Its
amazing how calm they were even after hearing a person in jetpack.

------
dreamcompiler
My money's on this guy:
[https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCkHr2Z0JWH8KGmQNDp4QXLw](https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCkHr2Z0JWH8KGmQNDp4QXLw)

~~~
anotheryou
mine on this one
[https://youtu.be/P5xPtOAbt70?t=35](https://youtu.be/P5xPtOAbt70?t=35)

it also happened in the evening if I'm not mistaken

------
wonderwonder
Do we think this is going to get elevated to a major plot line in this season
of "2020: The longest year" or just fizzle out unexpectedly like the Murder
Hornets episode?

------
grumblepeet
There is also Richard Browning in the UK:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAJM5L9hhBs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAJM5L9hhBs)

------
shadowgovt
Does the government have the legal and executive resources it needs to
investigate these claims of rocketeering in the airline industry?

Serious allegations if true!

------
dghughes
I've always been of the belief that a jetpack could never exist until flame-
proof pants/trousers were made first.

~~~
bufferoverflow
Jetpacks have been around for years, tons of youtube videos of people flying
them. You can even buy one.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nj-
Iwv5NJKg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nj-Iwv5NJKg)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yBe9bucYPcY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yBe9bucYPcY)

~~~
egfx
Is there a reason why the flights are all over water? LAX doesn’t have a body
of water surrounding it other then the Pacific Ocean. Is that a requirement
for the jet pack?

~~~
geerlingguy
I'm pretty sure its because falling hundreds of feet into water is more
survivable than hundreds of feet into earth or concrete.

There are flights, however, over land, but they usually involve a lot of
practice and permitting.

~~~
mamon
>> falling hundreds of feet into water is more survivable than hundreds of
feet into earth or concrete.

No, not really - hitting watter as damaging as hitting concrete once you get
above 100 feet high. But at least you're not going to kill an unlucky
pederastian by falling on them.

~~~
oh_sigh
The world record for cliff diving is 192', so I'm sure there is some special
way you can enter the water, if not safely, at least more safely than entering
land.

~~~
outworlder
Just up to a point. Go fast enough and water won't be able to get out of the
way in time.

------
krm01
I would imagine there are passengers who caught this guy on camera. Would love
to see some footage.

------
prtkgpt
I am glad they saw me because I took a power nap around 3000ft alt. Cool
beans.

------
sahoo
So, which one of you was this?

------
TazeTSchnitzel
If someone wanted to fake this as a prank, could it be something attached to a
drone?

------
tus88
It's 2020 guys. Haven't you seen that documentary Iron Man yet?

------
zw123456
The two video trailers at the end of the article are pretty fun to watch.

------
Animats
Inflatable display got loose?

~~~
aaron695
That would cause the illusion.

Even if it was a donkey. It certainly won't be an inflatable 'guy in a jet
pack'. I assume the other pilot heard the jet pack sighting which is why they
said it.

But is it the most probable cause of the illusion?

------
cronix
C'mon, Elon.

------
nestlequ1k
It’s like the Liar Liar scene but with a jet pack.

------
topkai22
Is Disney doing another reboot of the Rocketeer?

------
markstos
Elon?

------
josephpmay
How are there no passenger videos?

------
hourislate
People are Awesome...

------
tibbydudeza
The Rocketeer.

------
IgorPartola
You know it’s true because it’s 2020. Remember that whole alien thing back in
April? Me neither because about 10 years worth of events has happened in the
past four and a half months.

~~~
paranoidrobot
On this, a Youtube creator Julie Nolke had a fairly popular couple of videos
on "Explaining the Pandemic to my past self"[1] in April and a part 2 in
June[2].

The first one was hilarious, and I struggle to believe that was only in April.

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ms7capx4Cb8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ms7capx4Cb8)

[2]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdyDpP2s-og](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdyDpP2s-og)

~~~
ibejoeb
"You're gonna wanna pull all your investments..."

Markets are rockin'

~~~
ant6n
Not between Jan and April

------
AS126
I've seen speculation that it's one of those person shaped disney balloons
they sell at grocery stores.

------
SeanFerree
The Rocketeer is a great movie :)

------
peterkelly
Sacha Baron Cohen.

~~~
hinkley
Very nice!

------
dhosek
2020 gonna 2020.

------
2rsf
Tony Stark ?

------
tezza
Maybe it was Elon Musk, bored with the Pig already ?

~~~
hinkley
"God damnit Elon, this is not an appropriate way to celebrate jumping to #1 on
the Richest People list."

Seriously though, pissing off the FAA would be, I think, the last thing a
board member of SpaceX would want to do.

------
tiku
And nobody on the plane recorded it?

~~~
jaywalk
The passengers probably couldn't see it.

------
mas3god
Its LA some rich kids are having some risky fun

------
ck2
Which brings up a question of why multi-million dollar airlines don't have
"dash cams"

~~~
HumblyTossed
Plausible deniability.

~~~
oh_sigh
They want to deny seeing a man in a jetpack, despite transmitting the fact on
the radio?

~~~
HumblyTossed
I was thinking more broadly than just this single incident.

------
jansan
Bicycle Repair Man comes to mind.

"Look! Is it a stockbroker? Is it a quantity surveyor? Is it a church warden?
NO! It's Bicycle Repair Man!"

[https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2howud](https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2howud)

------
degenerate
Nobody is going to mention how this is an overly-hyped PR stunt?

edit: Nevermind, I thought the embedded youtube videos in the article was
footage of the event described in the article. I didn't realize the video
footage was a separate flight from 2015.

~~~
kingbirdy
The jetpackers in the video at the bottom of the article aren't the same
jetpackers the article is about. The people in the video clearly have
permission as you pointed out, but I don't think we can say for sure as to
whether the person at LAX did.

~~~
Turing_Machine
I think it's a near-certainty that this person didn't have permission.

It's extremely unlikely that he'd be given permission to fly his jetpack in
the approach to LAX, and even if he were, you can bet that air traffic control
would be fully aware of it ahead of time.

