I figured when I wrote about flying cars last year that it would only be a matter of time before I got to write about…jetpacks! OK, I had no idea I was going to be writing about jetpacks because I had long believed they were but a figment of a weak, collective, futuristic imagination. Indeed, while flying cars were inevitable, jetpacks…well, you’d have to be a compete idiot. Unless you’re the Martin Aircraft Company of New Zealand. Which has created a working jetpack.

And is now inviting anyone over 18 with a valid driver’s license to join its “test squadron.” (Catch: You will need to go to New Zealand. And that age-limit seems solid, even though, as the video below attests, the 15-year-old son of Martin Aircraft’s founders has been allowed behind the controls.) Mind you, this isn’t the jetpack of sci-fi yesteryear. It’s not even jet powered. Instead, it features rotor blades driven by a V4 engine, so it’s actually more of a heli-pack. And it’s kinda…large, if your visions of jetpacks are formed by the type of units seen in movies from the Star Wars series.

via Learn to Fly a Jetpack. Yes, a Jetpack! | The Big Money.