Cool Invention: THe Flying Belt

Invention Awards ^ | Today | Brainhose

[Brainhose]

Tim Fofonoff, a 31-year-old grad student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, stands at the base of a 50-foot-tall, graffiti-covered rock wall just south of Boston. He´s clipped into the Atlas Powered Rope Ascender, a toaster-size battery-driven device that he and his three co-inventors built themselves. With it, he´s about to do something no one outside of a Hollywood script has done before: rappel up a wall at an astonishing 10 feet per second. He stares hesitantly for a moment at the craggy rock face, presses a small button, and darts off the ground as if he were wearing a cape. Halfway up, he lets go of the button and stops, dangling, a little out of breath-it´s been awhile since his last test, and he´s forgotten what it´s like to fly.

Until now, no one has been able to build a machine that´s powerful enough to whisk a man up a rope and small enough to throw in a backpack. But the Atlas is real, and real people are begging Fofonoff´s team for one of their own. An avalanche-rescue company wants to pluck stranded skiers out of the snow. A botanist imagines speeding to the tops of old-growth redwoods. The U.S. Army has placed several orders as well. Major Rex Blair, a former company commander for a tank battalion in Iraq who has come to watch the test, talks about using the Atlas to zip in and out of terrorist-harboring caves or evacuate casualties from city streets by yanking them to rooftops. "If you give this to soldiers, they´re going to find uses for it that no one´s thought of" Blair says.

[Brainhose]

This look useful as well as a ton of fun. Put a remote on it and troops ould send a heavy load of gear up wall or cliff without exposing themselves to fire.

[allmost]

Cool invention. The aiming is a concern though.

[Brainhose]

Good point. It is a work in progress though.
There are some other very interesting inventions listed on that website.

[Travis McGee]

Cool! Lots of rescue apps.

[ovrtaxt]

Neat! This is superhero stuff.

[org.whodat]

Calling it a flying belt is just a bit over the top, it’s really nothing more than a rope winder struck on the end of a small starter motor.

[patton]

Reminds me of an old riddle - if a tank is moving at 60 mph, how fast is the bottom of the track moving?

[Hot Tabasco]

This is superhero stuff.

Didn't Batman have one of those in his utility belt?

[rawhide]

VIDEO HERE

[Squantos]

One thought........Normandy, June 6th, 1944.......:o)

Can ya imagine the fear on the face of those nazi’s as a few thousand rangers ran too the base of those cliffs , dropped down with a line launcher, fired and went up that cliff in seconds ?

Wow.....

[magslinger]

In a couple of years, that is going to be a sport.

[DPMD]

Similar to the question of how fast the rotor blades on a helicopter blades are moving, if the groundspeed is, say, 100 mph.

[patton]

LOL - which blade? Or are we talking, avg speed per blade?

[DPMD]

I’m real good at asking these questions. Answering is another thing. I figure that’s why God invented Other People.

[rabidralph]

Ha! Flying belt. My mother invented the flying belt when I was a child and I have the welts to prove it :-)

[ovrtaxt]

Yep, that’s exactly what I was thinking of.

[Brainhose]

I didn't name it. But if you've ever read book on marketing, you want to get you product recognition out there first and have an interesting name that people will remember.
I'm not sure that the name "Belt that lifts things and stuff" would really be a marketing plus.
Perhaps Silly String should be called: "Stringy crap that squirts from a can and may or may not cause some form of mild amusement." Besides getting that on a label "Silly String" Says it all in two words.

[org.whodat]

Didn't say you named it. I remember from one of the bond movies, where they had a hand held device and shot it in the ceiling and it was suppose to then lift the person from the ground. Myth-busters tried it and the device would need to have been very large. But you need to give the person credit for trying.