If this thing is for real, it's one of the craziest innovations to hit water sports in years. A German businessman named Lars Ramke recently unveiled the JetLev-Flyer, an aqua jet pack that enables people to levitate ten meters above the water's surface and travel horizontally as fast as 65 kph for up to two hours. The contraption, which was shown for the first time last month at Boot Düsseldorf 2009, has a gas-powered pump that sucks water up through a 40-meter hose and blasts it downward at a pressure high enough to allow an adult human to fly. It doesn't look like the safest thing in the world - collisions with boats and docks seem likely - but that will just provide some good fodder for failblog and its ilk. Anyway, it's got to be safer than a regular jet pack, if only for its limited altitude and water landings.
Naturally, this toy ain't cheap. At $130,000, the first few dozen will undoubtedly go to jerks who don't deserve them. Once they filter down to the masses, however, the applications are almost endless. A whole competitive sport could emerge, with JetLev races, obstacle courses, and maybe even island-hopping endurance challenges.
It's more likely, however, that they'll show up on the beaches of high-end resorts, offering an expensive alternative to the standard vacation fare of parasails, WaveRunners, Jet Skis, and Aqua-Cycles. It's not a cheap thrill, but I could see myself blowing the rent money on the chance to fly above the water like some kind of super hero. Wouldn't you?
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