German Jetpack Runs for Hours on Water

Published January 14, 2015

It's cool. It's fast. And it lasts more than 30 seconds.

Jet packs have been around for half a century, but there's always been one problem: They run out of rocket fuel very quickly.

Now a German company appears to have broken the time barrier by using an alternative fuel: Water, lots of it.

MS Watersports GmbH of Itzehoe, near Hamburg in northern Germany, takes the standard jetpack design and run a fat yellow hose out the back.

The hose connects to a small unmanned boat, which houses an engine, pump and fuel tank and sends pressurized water back up the hose, where it's shot out by two nozzles just behind the wearer's shoulders.

Called the JetLev-Flyer, the German design can purportedly reach a height of 50 feet, a speed of 45 mph and — wait for it — a range of 300 kilometers, or 186 miles, based on four hours of flying time.

Want one? They're taking orders here, but be ready to shell out 100,000 euro, or $130,000 at today's exchange rates.

That price does include training.

• Click here for the official JetLev Web site.

• Click here for the first of 5 training videos (in English).

• Click here for FOXNews.com's Patents and Innovation Center.

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