back to article DARPA-backed jetpack prototype built to make soldiers run faster

Students are working on a test build of a wearable jetpack that could help soldiers run faster on the field of combat. The project dubbed 4MM, or 4 Minute Mile, has been backed by the US defence agency DARPA. It was dreamed up by Arizona State University faculty mentor Jason Kerestes, who built a prototype of the jetpack. …

  1. K
    Facepalm

    Wonder if this would work with roller blades!

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      "Wonder if this would work with roller blades!"

      I bet it would, and put paid to that dirty mutt chasing you in the bargain.

      1. VinceH
        Joke

        That's not a very nice way to describe his other half!

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      re: Wonder if this would work with roller blades!

      You tube is full of videos of people who attached various model level engines to themselves, their bikes and their skateboards.

      http://www.youtube.com/watch?annotation_id=annotation_955706&feature=iv&src_vid=ZFyvLz74X_E&v=EkZt9ercxqE

      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRDQTWWt-7A

      and countless others.

    3. Yesnomaybe

      There is a cheaper way of doing this:

      http://www.milweb.net/webverts/58508/c.jpg

  2. cirby

    Or...

    You could just buy them a nice bicycle and not need fuel.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Or...

      You could just buy them a nice bicycle and not need fuel.

      Not sure that'd work well in combat. This would probably be made as part of the backpack, and so all they have to do is turn it on. They don't have to run to the bike, jump on, and start pedalling.

      Plus, the amount of gear they carry, I think the bike would soon start to fall to bits.

      This bike goes through a pannier rack every 2000 km or so with a load of approximately 10kg. I had to replace the original wheels (pictured) with newer ones designed for downhill mountain-bike racing as I started popping rear wheel spokes at an alarming rate. Ohh, and I've managed to strip the thread in the bolt-holes for the pannier rack: I've had to make modifications and customised brackets to fit everything.

      My take-off times are not stellar: I accelerate like a heavily laden semi-trailer.

      Admittedly the military should be able to do better than the made-in-Taiwan stuff that I can get my hands on and a soldier should be a good bit fitter than I am, but I have my doubts about bicycles in this scenario.

      1. Rampant Spaniel

        Re: Or...

        That depends on the bike, I had an specialized a1fs that spent its days commuting (~ 12 miles each way) and evenings and weekends launching me at rocks, into rivers etc and it didn't miss a beat. It did as few longer camping trips with a decent sized rucksack and that was on top of a well kebab'd rugby player. It was frequently maintained but besides consumables in 4 years nothing died \ broke (other than the obligatory new inner tube every 13 minutes).

        That was a basic consumer bike, I'm pretty sure DARPA (motto: making schtuff that would give Batman a boner) could rig up a bike, in fact the only thing stopping them would be it would be far too boring for them. A nuclear powered, obsidian framed bike with air conditioned trailer for a mine sniffing dolphin perhaps.....

        How well it would work with regard to practicality is another question.

      2. Will Stephenson

        Re: Or...

        Sounds like you need one of these: http://www.en.tout-terrain.de/bicycles/panamericana/ for a "rack" that will go on forever.

  3. James 51

    we could call them swift claws

    40K come to life then.

  4. Flocke Kroes Silver badge

    DARPA has a budget problem: How to spend it fast enough

    Jets are loud. Small jets are really loud. I bet this one just screams 'shoot me' to everyone within a mile. After running a mile, the soldier is knackered and has a hefty burning hot jet pack with no fuel strapped to his back.

    1. The_Idiot

      Re: DARPA has a budget problem: How to spend it fast enough

      Not just loud - but emitting enough IR to make any IR-targeting or sensor (smart bullets?) send a thank you letter to Santa.

      Or maybe I'm wrong - after all, I'm an Idiot (blush).

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: DARPA has a budget problem: How to spend it fast enough

        And when they are not using it, which is the other 99.9% of the time, they will be further bogged down with yet another piece of heavy kit.

        1. VinceH

          Re: DARPA has a budget problem: How to spend it fast enough

          "And when they are not using it, which is the other 99.9% of the time, they will be further bogged down with yet another piece of heavy kit."

          Quite.

          And, although it's still at an early stage, the time saving versus the extra weight etc is currently not particularly inspiring.

          Just concentrate on developing a personal site to site teleport.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: DARPA has a budget problem: How to spend it fast enough

      Apparently it's battery powered. More a ducted fan than a jet in my book.

    3. Vladimir Plouzhnikov

      Re: DARPA has a budget problem: How to spend it fast enough

      "After running a mile, the soldier is knackered and has a hefty burning hot jet pack with no fuel strapped to his back."

      But just what would you not do when death walks behind you?

    4. Trigonoceps occipitalis

      Re: DARPA has a budget problem: How to spend it fast enough

      Don't pick a fight with a man until you have walked a mile in his shoes. Tha way he'll be a mile away and have no shoes.

      1. Charles 9
        Joke

        Re: DARPA has a budget problem: How to spend it fast enough

        Until you discover the man is still right behind you...because he's lived most of his life without shoes and therefore routinely runs barefoot.

      2. Trigonoceps occipitalis

        Re: DARPA has a budget problem: How to spend it fast enough

        Found the quote:

        Before you judge a man, walk a mile in his shoes. After that who cares? He's a mile away and you've got his shoes!

        Billy Connolly

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Ve haff vays uff making you run fast...

    Looks less like battle kit and more like what you would strap onto an enemy. Anyone who has run down a steep hill and lost control will understand what I mean.

    1. Richard Jones 1
      WTF?

      Re: Ve haff vays uff making you run fast...

      My thoughts exactly and yes in my youth I did discover it was not the speed part that was too hard, it was the brakes and steering that mattered! So we have the battle scene;

      80lbs of kit, check;

      jet pack, check,

      fuel, check;

      running shoes disguised as boots, check;

      uneven terrain, check.

      Ignition, check;

      large tree or rock or wall or steep down hill descent on soft soil or sand (delete as required), check; Medic... Medic...

      Oh well back to the drawing board.

  6. Mark 85

    A four minute mile is necessary?

    Not all terrain is flat. And zipping from building to building or point to point to maintain some degree of cover is usually very short distances. It used to be that the military did long marches and runs for the thinking that the troops would be in a lot of open terrain, now the training is for sprints of short distances. I guess I'm not seeing the thought process or need behind this one.

    1. Steve Evans

      Re: A four minute mile is necessary?

      I think if I was carrying a pack plus an 11Kg jet accessory along a road, I wouldn't be thinking "Wow, I can do a 4 minute mile now", I'd be thinking "Where's the bloody APC, this shit is heavy".

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    When will these academic Kardashians realize

    that nobody on the planet is interested in looking at them hunched over a laptop.

    Show the device, wrap it up.

  8. Hipsterina

    Run faster...

    ... than a friendly fire drone?

  9. Johndoe888

    Looks like a pair of these http://www.wrenturbines.co.uk/turbojets/wren-80-i-kero

    They run on aviation kerosene, it is a requirement to have a fire extinguisher on hand when operating them, and are a lot quieter than you would expect them to be.

  10. lawndart

    says

    Definitely not going to be advancing in column formation then.

  11. Matt Bryant Silver badge
    WTF?

    Alternative paraglider, maybe?

    As a means of boosting running performance it seems a bit of a minor advantage for a lot of additional logistical burden. However, it could be an alternative to the current backpack fans used by paragliders (http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powered_paragliding), which are notoriously noisy. A jetpack alternative might even have range advantages.

  12. Joe User
    Joke

    Low-tech method

    Tie a steak to the soldier's backpack and turn the dogs loose.

  13. frank ly

    In the Arizona desert

    A company called ACME has been formed to produce a non-military version. This will be cheaper and surprisingly effective but will lead to disappointment and/or disaster for anybody who uses it.

  14. Dave Bell

    We're talking pre-WW1 thinking. And, for a while in the 19th century, it made sense. The French came up with the pas gymnastique. running rather than marching to attack the enemy. Bicycles were also popular in Europe, as a sort of mounted infantry, And the first British Army combat death of WW1, John Parr, was a military cyclist.

    The British Army wasn't being so silly in those days, but the war and the fighting style shifted in an unexpected direction. Just running fast was no longer enough.

    Well, I suppose they might come up with something useful in trying to make the things work. Like a way of stopping before you reach that brick wall.

  15. Kinetic

    Human flea instead?

    Agree with the other posters, seems like a very minor advantage for the inconvenience, logistics, and noise/ thermals. However, how about a version that could boost a sniper up onto the top of a building / soldier over an obstacle? Not talking sustained flight, just short distance. Probably good to have quick release to then dump it and move on.

    1. itzman

      Re: Human flea instead?

      Actually a soldier is just a way to get a rifle to the point of application. Why not give the rifle a jet pack and call it a drone?

      And that is the way to fight a modern war. No humans on your side in the battle zone., just humans with google glasses on, somewhere 100 miles away.

      . 22 calibre rifle on a quadcopter, for those pesky militants.

      1. DropBear

        Re: Human flea instead?

        No humans on your side in the battle zone., just humans with google glasses on, somewhere 100 miles away.

        ...then the opposing force turns on a wide-band high-power RF jammer, giggling all the way, and the drones are left to fend for themselves (if they have any onboard intelligence at all).

        1. Charles 9

          Re: Human flea instead?

          "...then the opposing force turns on a wide-band high-power RF jammer, giggling all the way, and the drones are left to fend for themselves (if they have any onboard intelligence at all)."

          And then the OpFor finds themselves minus a few members because the drones were preprogrammed to ID enemy targets so needs no outside input to carry out its mission. With gyroscopic accelerometers and a prior fix, it may even be able to find its way out of the battlezone without satellite guidance. This is not as crazy as you think and represents the current cutting edge of drone design.

          PS. Going to the "short burst" design, I would think this would actually be more practical. Not so much to provide a continuous thrust but perhaps a quick burst of speed if and when necessary, say a jumpstart to get up to running speed (which is tougher to do when you're fully loaded), as someone said, a quick heave to get over a wall or perhaps something to get across the kill zone more quickly and with a greater chance of escaping unscathed. The unit would also have a longer work life that way.

    2. Michael Thibault

      Re: Human flea instead?

      >good to have quick release to then dump it and move on.

      And, to prevent a net accumulation of those same booster packs on the backsides of the current enemy, drone tech built in to giddy-up the nearly-depleted-of-fuel boosters back to lines, where they can be lathered, rinsed, and repeated.

      I generally agree with comments about dronifying gun barrels: that's much more efficient, militarily, as guns don't have stomachs. However, DARPA is doing the sensible thing in funding research of this kind: you never know what kind of consumer shiny might come out of it, ultimately--and wars are fought to ensure that civilians have something to live for.

  16. Vladimir Plouzhnikov

    All is clear

    This is a prototype long-jump module. They are preparing to invade Xen.

    Watch the skies for signs of a resonance cascade. Any day now, any day...

  17. hammarbtyp

    Not exactly practicle

    I can forsee a see a few issues when after the 4 mile run they have to dive into the nearest slit trench.

    Wouldn't it be better to cut the middle man out and just provide wings as well

  18. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Reminds me of something

    To infinity and beyond!

    1. BleedinObvious

      Re: Reminds me of something

      or older than that, Centurions (power extreme!)

      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48M8U1wijbE

  19. cortland

    http://www.armchairgeneral.com/forums/showpost.php?s=a859a74fd8f9dcc20dd6c4f33557e0b5&p=2354036&postcount=2

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