Gravity Industries
4 HN mentions · mentioned in 3 months, 2020–2022
5:58 · 6.3M views · Sep 29, 2020
Gravity Industries tests its jet suit for paramedic mountain rescue with the Great North Air Ambulance in the Lake District, reaching a casualty in 90 seconds versus a 25-minute climb.
HN cites it as a practical use case for jet suits in emergency response, though some doubt how usable the suit is.
4 comments from Hacker News
"Antiquity" is conventionally considered to end about 1500 years ago, though this really only applies to Europe: [LINK] The reason for this is the very sparse historical record from the European Dark Ages. Scholars in the High Middle Ages like Petrarch could look back on their own recent history, and then a vast gap of mostly unknown, and then the impressive cultures of Antiquity among whose ruins they lived. We know more about the Dark Ages now than we did then but still not that much. Here you can see people flying like birds without being canned in metal tubes: [LINK] [LINK] this video [LINK] It seems likely that we have changed. I suspect Merer's workers, even if they had grown up in modern civilization, would not tolerate being employees, being disarmed, and having their children taken away for education; and probably more of them were dyslexic than in modern populations. But I don't really know. Generally the rule is that domestic animals are stupider, smaller-skulled, more submissive, weaker, more neotenous, less aggressive, fatter, lower in testosterone, less sexually dimorphic, and possessed of smaller teeth than the wild type ( [LINK] ). Modern humans have these traits to a very notable degree compared to, as you allude to, chimpanzees and even Neandertals or Denisovans; but perhaps we have also been substantially domesticated over the last 4500 years, maybe even over the last 2000. Not because of driving cars, but because of having kings. Are we the Eloi? I don't thin
Gravity Industries in the UK have a working jet pack, although flight time is extremely limited, I think in the order 5-10 minutes, and it isn’t designed to fly at altitude. The founder demonstrated using it for rapid casualty assistance in mountains recently, although I’m dubious about the actual usefulness given the difficulty in actually controlling the thing - it’s more like a paramedic would end up smeared across the mountain themselves than actually assist a casualty in anything but the calmest weather. this video
The jet suit's performance looks impressive to me everytime I see it again. I wonder how much arm and upper body strength is required to use the device. The engine on the back might certainly help to reduce that though. You might also like it as quick way to move for emergency personell. this video
You consider a transportation device "murder"? Interesting, seeing as it also can be used to do the opposite: this video