Juan Manuel Lozano of Cuernavaca, Mexico is the Rocketeer

For $125,000 he will sell you one of his four ready-to-fly rocket belts (above and below).

From his website:

Rocket Belt

TAM [Tecnologia Aeroespacial Mexicana] is the only company in the world that produces a complete turnkey flying rocket belt, custom-made for the pilot’s weight and body size (up to 300 lbs/136 kg). We use the most advanced technology and aerospace materials.

Included:

• A fully-tested, custom-made flying rocket belt, proven to have the most stable design and be easiest to fly

• Flight training including 10 flights in your own rocket belt

• Hands-on training with procedures and equipment

• Housing and food during training

• Setup and maintenance training

• 24/7 expert support

....................

The only downside is that flight time is limited to 30 seconds.

But when you consider it was only 21 seconds back in the 60s, you can see that things are mos def moving in the right direction.

Adam Thomson profiled Lozano in the April 27, 2008 Financial Times; the piece follows.

James Bond rocket belt? Suits you, for $125,000

Nueva Polonia is much like any other middle-class street in Cuernavaca, a town about an hour from Mexico City. High painted walls hide peaceful gardens, traffic is almost non-existent and the only sounds are birdsong and distant barking.

Until, that is, the calm is broken by the occasional roar of jet engines being tested by one resident, Juan Manuel Lozano. The inventor has been occupied for the past 30 years in designing, building and trying to sell rocket belts such as the one worn by James Bond in the 1965 film, Thunderball.

“My neighbours are convinced that I am crazy but at least they have got used to the noise,” says the 53-year-old Mr Lozano.

Tecnología Aeroespacial Mexicana, as Mr Lozano’s company is called, is the result of an obsession he developed in 1964 when he was eight years old. His parents took him to an air show where the main attraction was a rocket belt.

“I saw it and loved it,” he recalls. “I said to myself: ‘One day I’m going to make one of those.’”

Other children seeing the spectacle may have had the same thought. But Mr Lozano persevered. Now fully versed in engineering, physics and chemistry — “I taught myself everything I needed to know” — Mr Lozano is on the payroll of several international companies helping to design rocket engines and related technologies.

One project is to help design and build a 27,000 horsepower rocket engine as part of a British attempt to break the land speed record. Another involves work on an international project to make gas generators for putting out fires, and a third is a machine that adapts his rocket technology to improve production levels on oil rigs.

But rocket belts are his overriding passion, and the area in which he is determined to succeed as a businessman — in spite of having yet to sell one of his creations. Today, four of his belts are propped up on specially made stands in his cluttered office-cum-workshop. Each is a slightly different size but all have the same characteristic fuel tanks, ceramic-insulated thrusters to launch the pilot, the catalyst pack, where the rocket belt’s 900 horsepower is generated and hand controls for manoeuvring once in the air. And for $125,000 (€80,000) (£63,000), one of them could be yours.

TAM is not the world’s only manufacturer of rocket belts but Mr Lozano claims it is the only one to provide a full package for customers. This includes intensive tuition, lifetime technical support and a machine to make the pure hydrogen-peroxide fuel the rocket belt requires.



Mr Lozano has invested an estimated $500,000 into the project from his savings. He says the main hurdle has been the lack of significant change in the associated technology during the almost half-century since the first flight, which was inspired by the US military.

Mr Lozano says the laws of physics make it impossible to increase flight times significantly because heavier fuel loads require bigger engines to lift them and bigger engines require even bigger fuel loads, and so on.

As a result, even with lighter materials, Mr Lozano has managed to extend flight times to only 30 seconds compared with 21 seconds back in the 1960s.

For many businessmen, that would be enough to put them off. But Mr Lozano remains convinced that his machines have a lucrative future.

His idea is to establish a fleet and sell flights to organisers of sporting events as a crowd-puller. He points out that at least two similar companies are doing shows in the US, one of which he has been working with for some time. “You can charge $25,000 a flight,” he says. “It’s a great business.”

The first step is to raise the required capital, which he estimates at $2m, to make more machines and train pilots.

So where is he going to get the money? Mr Lozano walks to his driveway and opens the door of a small trailer to reveal two more of his inventions.

One of them is a 1,000 horsepower rocket bicycle, which he has been testing on the street outside his house. The other is a menacing-looking 4,400 horsepower rocket motorcycle, which he says does the quarter mile in less than five seconds. If things go to plan, the motorcycle will soon carry sponsorship from a large Mexican company.

That, together with other projects he is working on, should provide enough capital to see his rocket-belt business through, he says.