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Iron Man flies in South Austin
I headed over to the Alamo Drafthouse Monday afternoon to see a man fly. With a little help of course. As part of a promotion by Ain’t It Cool News and the Alamo Drafthouse for a sneak preview of ‘Iron Man,’ the folks from Jet Pack International showed up to demonstrate their sweet backpack flying mechanism. Eric Scott donned a 135 lb. pack that runs on 90 percent hydrogen peroxide and provides 325 pounds of thrust, equal to about 800 horsepower. For those of you who were not math or science majors, let’s just say that’s some heavy-duty power, as evidenced by the ridiculously loud sound emitted by the machine. The 150 decibels wasn’t enough to blow out ones ears, but it was damn close. I thought I felt my heart stop, but apparently I was wrong, according to this Web site. I can’t imagine what it was like for Scott, who blasted from the parking lot surface for a 14-second flight that took him over the Alamo’s marquee before returning him to Earth.
The stunt I saw was for press, random passers-by and film geeks, but the Alamo and Ain’t It Cool had a 7 p.m. repeat performance (with a few surprises) scheduled for later in the evening before a special sneak screening. The lucky couple hundred who will get to see the sneak include those who competed in an ‘Iron Man’ costume contest, along with some AIC insiders and Fantastic Fest badge holders. AIC boss Harry Knowles was at the Alamo Monday and admitted to being just slightly disappointed. He had hoped that the Iron Man lookalike would fly from the Alamo to the UT Tower, land and then return. Now that would have been cool. Unfortunately, the pack only provides six seconds of flight time per gallon, so the 5.5 gallon tank only allowed for 33 seconds of flight. Maybe in the future. The future…
Check out my video and see Eric Scott take flight. Also, see this shot from a different angle.
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