Flying Contraptions:
The Rocket Belt
During World War II, German scientists developed a personal flight device called the Himmelstürmer, consisting of a pair of low-power rockets strapped to the back and chest of a pilot, which supposedly could enable him to fly 180 feet in the air. It was intended to enable engineering units to jump over minefields and waters without bridges. After the war, a U.S. Army radar engineer named Thomas W. Moore got a similar idea, and in 1950 was given a $25,000 grant to design the “jetvest,” intended to help troops jump as far as 20 feet over battlefield obstacles. The Army found the concept sufficiently intriguing that it continued the research. In 1953, a young Bell Aerosystems engineer named Wendell F. Moore (no relation to Thomas) was assigned to the project. Moore and his team spent years developing a prototype that used rockets powered by hydrogen peroxide. In 1961, test pilot Harold Graham took the first rocket belt flight in history, attaining an altitude of just 18 inches but traveling 113 feet in 13 seconds. The following year, Graham demonstrated the rocket belt for President John F. Kennedy at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. The rocket belt’s inability to stay in the air for very long, however, kept the military from ever putting it into production. In the late 1960s, Bell developed a larger jet belt device that reportedly could remain aloft for up to 20 minutes, but its loudness made it unsuited for the surveillance missions for which it was intended.
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