Cluster What?

Jetpack Man.

Jetpack Man, here we go.

All right.

[laughs]

Uh, I've been missing this guy, and, uh, uh, apparently he's back.

Apparently he, he's back.

This is-

In LA.

Yeah, but this reminds me-

This is the L- this is the LA thing, right?

Yeah.

And, uh, you know, I mean, you guys remember this, right?

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

This was a big story, a repeating story about, I don't know, a few years back, where a number of, of airliners on kind of mid to long final into LAX were reporting a, a, uh, wingsuit flyer, um, uh, y- you know, nearby, and nobody could ever figure out what it was all about.

At least they wouldn't tell us that they figured it out.

I think they figured it out and, but they never told us they figured it out.

Um, and, and then the whole thing just disappeared for a long time, although we had fun blaming a couple of different things over the years on it.

And, uh, but apparently, um, something re- reappeared just recently.

And, uh, what's the story here? This is an AVweb brief, um, story where, uh, "Return of Jetpack Man?" Question mark.

Uh, as our buddy Russ Niles writing, has, uh, has Jetpack Man risen again near Los Angeles? Apparently, a, uh, a Gulf Stream pilot, uh, reported a potential skydiver.

Um, he said he- they observed it, uh, while they were on final for LAX about 4,000 feet.

Quote, unquote, "We just had somebody cross above us about around 4,000 feet in a wingsuit," the pilot told ATC.

So, uh, Jetpack Man is back.

[laughs] I-

This, speechless.

They're both speechless

...

I, I wonder.

What do you think, Ann?

Yeah.

It's-

What do you think, Ann?

... summer in the city again.

Well, it is.

[laughs]

It is.

And, and, and the summer of our discontent.

Yeah.

So, yeah.

Right.

Uh, it's, uh, I don't know.

You know, what, what was going on four year- whatever it was, three years ago, years ago when this happened before, um, you know, this is, uh, it's in celebration of the World Cup, all right, the soccer matches that are going on.

I don't know, maybe that's probably-

Oh, yeah, we can't, we can't have that

... not, that's probably not true.

But, uh, anyways, I, I...

So what do they...

They think that, they think that the original Jetpack Man was a, was a drone of some sort that they hung a mannequin on to make it look like a person in a wingsuit.

That's what they s- that's what some pe- that's what the story seems to be.

That's not an insignificant drone for, for a hobbyist drone.

Oh, no, that's a massive drone.

[laughs]

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, that's-

Yeah.

Although, although, although Russ, in his story, I think describes it as being a lightweight manigun- mannequin, but still, yeah, that, you know.

But these, these...

Have you seen-

A straw man.

Yeah.

[laughs] Right.

Yeah.

Have you seen RC airplanes these days?

I know.

I know.

Uh, I, I saw one the other day that was like a, it, it was like a 1/10th scale 747 or something like that.

Yeah.

All right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

These, these-

They, they fly 'em off my-

...

they create incredible stuff.

Yeah.

They fly 'em off my field and, um, you really do have to squint for a second to figure out is that real or is that-

Yeah

... an RC coming in.

I, I've told this story before.

I was driving through Central California one time near an airport that I h- was somewhat familiar with.

I was, I was driving my car and, uh, and I'm, I'm approaching the airport, you know, kind of looking forward to g- getting a glance of the, of the airport, you know, the ramp while I drove past, and I saw, I saw air races.

I saw, like, P-51s circling overhead the field, and I'm thinking, "What? There's an air show going on at this airport?" I didn't know there was an air show going on.

And, um, and, and as I got closer and closer to the airport, suddenly the perspective clicked into place, and I suddenly realized that these weren't full-sized P-51s.

These were model, you know, kind of RC-sized 151, uh, P-51s that were flying around the airport.

Um, uh, so yeah, they can look very real sometimes.

And, uh, but, uh, but Jetpack Man is back and, uh, I d- I don't know what, you know, where, where to go with this except to say-

Well, you, you know, it, it's, we have to have something to talk about this summer.

[laughs] You know? Like, as we've ever been-

Good Lord, what would the blog space do without it? [laughs]

I, I know.

I know.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Like, we're gonna...

Like, like we've ever not had anything to talk about, uh, you know, or ever, ever had a shortage of things to talk about.

That's true, too.

You know? But anyways, wel- welcome back to Jetpack Man, and, uh, you know, I don't know.

I feel like I want...

I, I, I...

There's a part of me that wants to have this mystery solved, and there's a part of me that hopes this mystery-

No, no, no

... is never, ever solved.

This, this is one of, you know, US aviation-

It's better this way

... great- greatest unsolved mysteries.

It's-

Absolutely.

It's better-

Absolutely

...

this way.

Okay.

[laughs]

Um, we'll find out that it's some FAA inspector.

[laughs]

Um, yeah, okay.

[laughs]

All right.

One in particular or just some FAA inspector?

No, no, I'm just, I'm just thinking off the top of my head.

Yeah.

Okay.

All right.

But of all-

Hey, look

... of all the more ab- of all the more absurd outcomes.

Yeah.

You-

La La Land is land of the lawn chair balloonists, so-

Yeah

... you just have to take it from whence it comes.

Oh, I thought that was Alabama.

No.

The, the lawn chair balloonist? I don't know.

Yeah.

We saw the lawn chair balloonist one time at Oshkosh while we were, um...

D- it, it s- it was a known thing.

It was a scheduled thing.

He was gonna fly late one afternoon.

I remember this.

And, um, it happened to take place while we were holding the tie-down party.

So-

[laughs]

... w- we were actually able to watch him across the field as he rose.

Um, and, and he, and he unfortunately didn't go over the tie-down party.

He went in the other direction.

The w- the winds were blowing-

Yeah

... to, to eastward.

Um, and, uh, and so he floated off in the distance.

Uh, I, I think I even recall that he actually made it to the far side of Lake Michigan, not simply Lake Winnebago there, but Lake Michigan.

Um-

Yeah, I'm sure he didn't do that on purpose either.

And I don't know if he was literally, that was literally the lawn chair, but it was definitely a multiple balloon guy, um, strapped into some sort of I don't know what.

But, uh, um, so-

He crossed-

But La La Land, okay

...

he crossed, he crossed Lake Michigan in, in, uh, in that contraption?

I think he did.

No, no. Crossed?

Crossed?I seem to recall that he made it all the way to the far side of the lake, um, in, in his b-

Our Lake Winnebago.

I...

Okay, see.

All right, hang on.

Let's just see.

I, we-

This is a long time ago.

I can't-

We, we need, we need our audience to correct us if-

Yeah

...

if in fact they know more than we do.

Yes, they, we-

But I seem to feel like-

Well, I'm sure-

...

the very first time it was LA.

Well, it might have been, and maybe that's where this guy became-

Yeah, you, you, you might be right.

I, I remember it was a Western thing because he, he got, [laughs] he got high enough that, uh, uh, uh-

[laughs]

... jet traffic was, "Hey, you know, there's a m- uh, a lawn chair up here."

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's very, very, very bizarre.

Yeah.

Um.

Okay, so [laughs] sl- Wikipedia has a Lawn Chair Larry entry.

That's the same one.

That's it.

That's it.

But, but is that the Oshkosh guy? That's-

Yeah.

That's not the guy that did it in Oshkosh

... that's the LA guy.

Yeah, okay.

I think it's the L-

Yeah, so.

I think it's the LA guy.

All right.

Uh, the 1982 flight, these are all California.

Yeah, okay.

Yeah.

1982, that was a long time ago, all right.

It really was.

[laughs]

Yeah.

But we re- we all remember it, which says something.

Oh, but wait.

Imagine that that was memorable.

Yeah.

Here we go.

This could be it right here.

Let's see now.

I gotta be careful I don't accidentally close the Riverside window.

And the inspiration for the great animated movie, Up.

Oh, a little bit, huh?

Which if you haven't seen it-

A little what?

Yeah.

So I'm looking at a website called, uh, clusterballoon.com. Um, and it talks about-

[laughs] Gotta be careful with your typing.

Like, uh... [laughs]

Yeah, I know, right? Huh? Uh, let's see now.

I, uh, the, the summary m- mentioned one that was in Oshkosh here.

Where would it have been? Uh-

I'm sorry.

Did I say that out...

That didn't mute.

[laughs]

Right.

All right, here we go.

You said it, man.

2010, this sounds about right.

"Launching from one of the great events in aviation, Oshkosh AirVenture, um, I," this is the, uh, the, the flyer, the pilot guy talking, "launched from that storied event, and my cluster balloon system flew alongside the Goodyear Blimp, and then out to the east as the sun set.

I climbed and obtained altitude before watching the sunset from the sky.

Uh, after dark, they had, uh, let's see, da, da, da, da, da, da.

Let's make sure.

Uh, I made landfall in Michigan." So that's across the lake.

Okay.

Michigan.

Uh-

All right.

He's got, he's-

He said, "Before I landed, I had covered 240 miles for an 11-hour flight."

Holy.

Yeah.

Yeah.

[laughs]

Yeah.

In a lawn chair [laughs] with balloons.

In a, in a lawn chair.

I don't know if he had a lawn chair, but, uh, but under, under multiple balloons for sure.

Um, so anyways, all right.

Well-

Oh.

[laughs]

So it's a whole genre, these kinds of things.

Um, the LA, the LA jetpack guy is just, just one, one instance of, of the, uh, of the type.

Yeah.

Okay.

All right, all right.

Then we, we gotta move on.