Pilots over LAX report "a guy in a jetpack" flying beside them

They’d have a flight plan, surely?

Otherwise they would be out of business pretty fast.

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Maybe? Do you have to file a flight plan when you are flying over the nearby airport runway only and can only be aloft for 2-3 minutes before you are out of juice?

Yes, believe me you do. Every cublic meter of volume around LAX is controlled airspace. You need permission from a controller to use it. For that to happen you need to be registered, file a flight plan, call ATC, be granted clearance.

If the jetpack thing is registered with the FAA as an experimental aircraft they will be licensed to operate in specific ways and flying close enough to an approach trajectory at a major international airport is not one of those ways.

If its not registered, then they can’t operate in that area, at that altitude.

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Remember Lawnchair Larry?

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He is back!!

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There is some surprisingly good stuffs being made, looks like.

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Nothing in the exchange suggests that ATC were previously unaware of the jetpack. So they might very well have had a flight plan.

They subsequently warn a JetBlue crew of the jetpack observation. If ATC had been aware of it previously, the warning would have been sent before other aircraft started notifying them.

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‘A guy in a jetpack’ seen flying at 3,000ft within few hundred yards of passenger jet landing at LA airport

And before people start with the conspiracy theories that this is government tech gone wrong, LAX is about 100 miles from Edwards Air Force Base, 160 miles from Vandenberg Air Force Base, and 270 miles from Area 51 – and all would likely be well outside the range any wearable flying device would be able to travel. Still, The Register has asked the Air Force if it or any of its contractors were involved, and will update should we hear anything.

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Yeah its in the class of small, portable aircraft. I could tool around in my paraglider close to Melbourne airport and that would be just as illegal.

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I don’t think you should be able to legally call it a “Jet Pack” if it’s an aircraft you step up and strap into rather than something you can actually carry on your back.

That’s like calling a soapbox derby car a “roller skate.”

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We obviously need an ISO norm defining “jetpack”.

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