The Internet, like jet propulsion, moves the human race forward at supersonic speed. My name is Dr. Jacob Robert Shrum, and I've established the Project Jet Pack Blog to update the public about the amazing progress my team is making in developing and refining jet pack technology.
Project Jet Pack is my personal passion, but it finds its roots in personal tragedy.
In July 1992, I embarked on a nature hike along the Tahquamenon River with my sister, Jennifer. Three days into hike, now at the Gogebic Gorge, Jennifer was struck by a small boulder. While I tended to her injuries, Jennifer began experiencing heart palpitations. I radioed for medical assistance, but given our location 40 kilometers from the nearest road and deep within the gorge, a medivac was Jennifer's only hope. Over the ensuing 30 minutes, Jennifer slipped in and out of consciousness while I performed CPR. When I finally heard the whir of the approaching helicopter, I thought our ordeal was nearing its end.
I was wrong.
Medivac personnel lowered a lift harness from the helicopter hovering overhead, but the straps were woefully undersized, and we were forced to waste precious minutes adapting a livestock harness to fit Jennifer. However, this was not to be the last indignity. Struggling against the gorge's swirling winds, the copter made four attempts to ascend without sending Jennifer swinging into the rocky cliffs of the Gogebic. Each time, the helicopter's conventional rotor engines came up lacking, incapable of lifting Jennifer's 225 kilograms to safety. Running short of fuel, the Medivac team relented and left Jennifer in the gorge to die.
I vowed that day, over my beloved sister's still-warm corpse, that I would make a difference that would ensure tragedies like this were a thing of the past. I would harness a technology well within humanity's grasp and turn it to the Lord's work. That day, beside the roiling waters of the Tahquamenon River, Project Jet Pack was born.
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The Project Jet Pack team has narrowed the candidates for the next stage of development to two engines: the Bell Aerosystems design (pictured above) and the GE 4900 Jet Thruster. Testing on the two engines indicates similar thrust statistics, with the Bell engine providing 1418.098 lbf thrust, and the GE model 1301.8 lbf thrust. Dr. Shrum remains concerned about the stability of the Bell Aerosystems design; at full thrust, engine mounts showed readings of 47,000 Hz. However, the Bell system has shown superior subterranean metrics, a potential advantage over the GE 4900 for deep gorge and river bed missions.