Remember jetpacks? Of course you
do. So they didn't turn out to be our chosen daily commuter vehicle. But
perhaps the golf course, suggests Bubba Watson, teaming up with Oakley
and Martin Aircraft to this week unveil "the first flying golf-cart jetpack."
Watson cites faster play and
unique perspective among the advantages of this experimental craft,
dubbed BW-Air -- "you're riding by yourself, you're not riding with
that annoying golfer that tells you all about his score," he adds -- but
let's be honest here. It's all about the gadgetry, and with a
200-horsepower engine capable of flying at up to 3,000 feet at a max
speed of 46 mph, this sure does sound like several leagues removed from
your ordinary golf cart - or for that matter, even the earthbound
version's most luxurious flight of fancy. (Pair this thing up with drone deliveries, and the skies over top of our golf courses may never be the same.)
According to Martin Aircraft's website,
Watson is third on the waitlist for the aircraft and the pilot training
that goes with it "once the Jetpack has been certified by the
regulatory authorities and is released to market" (including as a
first-responder vehicle, and carrying commercial payloads of up to 120
kilos, it was granted experimentatl certification in New Zealand in
May).
He would seem a pretty fitting
pitchman too, a golfer actually committed to playing in the Rio Olympics
and one who has been down this road before, so to speak, a few years
back with a hovercraft/golf-cart hybrid.
So, when we can expect those flying golf carts see here on wgt? 