KEY POINTS:
When the Wright brothers first flew their homemade plane above a wind-swept North Carolina beach in 1903, they realised a long-held dream of humankind.
But the initial public reaction was sceptical, to say the least. The French, in particular, labelled the men "liars not flyers", and even
their fellow Americans were dubious.
The media noted the flight was rather low, and that somebody was running alongside.
"It got so bad that they were about to emigrate to Paris, and now I know a little bit about how they felt," notes Glenn Martin drily.
The Christchurch-based inventor of the Martin Jetpack finally revealed his secret project to the world five weeks ago, and although the publicity it generated exceeded his highest hopes, not everyone has been kind.
A last-minute hiccup meant the jetpack's usual pilot was unavailable on the day it was due to be unveiled at America's biggest consumer airshow, EAA Airventure in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. The flight was less spectacular than Martin would have liked, but fortunately he has video footage of it hovering, circling, and performing figure eights at a friend's farm in the South Island.
In any case, it has simply made him more determined to return to Oshkosh next year and really wow them.
"John Britten didn't win Daytona the first time, either. He came last. But two years later they won."
Although there is clearly more development work to do, Martin's company, Martin Aircraft, is already taking orders and hopes to deliver the first production models some time next year. But first it needs to get its only three prototypes back from the United States, where they have been held up by Homeland Security.
"I hope they're not being disassembled by the US military and reverse engineered," Martin told fellow guests at Morgo, Jenny Morel's annual gathering of entrepreneurs, at Waitangi last week. "But if they are, they are."
Morel's venture capital firm, No 8 Ventures, has been secretly backing the project for four years, although Martin has actually been developing the idea for nearly three decades.
A biochemist who has worked in the pharmaceutical and biotech industries, he began working on equations for the jetpack while a student at Otago University in 1981.
Most entrepreneurs get the initial funding for their bright ideas from "friends, family and fools". Martin jokes that his family wasn't that keen.
But he knew he was getting somewhere when he managed to convince his wife to strap herself into an early prototype, tethered to a pole, and she was thrust into the air. (When he told this story on Wisconsin radio, one listener wanted to know how he could get a Kiwi wife).
The money he got from No 8 Ventures enabled him to hire three engineers formerly from Mercury Marine in the US to finally nail the jetpack's special engine, which he had struggled to get right for 20 years. He also hired an industrial designer, and his consultants include two ex-Harrier jet pilots.
Former Excell Corporation head Richard Lauder and former Air New Zealand marketing manager Tony Marks are on the board.
Advertising industry heavyweight Mike Hutcheson has helped with branding and Mike Pero persuaded Air NZ chief Rob Fyfe to give Martin and his team free airfares to the US.
The jetpack weighs 115kg and is designed to fly for half an hour. Its only real competitor, the Bell rocket belt, can fly for only 26 seconds and uses fuel so dangerous it can dissolve your skin. Martin's jetpack also costs less than half the Bell rocket belt, at US$100,000 ($144,829) apiece.
Nevertheless, Martin and his backers were more than a little nervous when they turned up at Oshkosh. So they were stunned at the reaction.
A teaser video on YouTube ensured the biggest crowd the airshow has ever drawn - leaving even the debut of the Boeing Dreamliner, which was there at the same time, in the shade.
Thousands of people queued four-deep for days to have their photo taken with it - good advertising for Air New Zealand, which in return for the free airfares had its name prominently displayed.
The jetpack made the front page of the New York Times, two pages in the Times of London, and was shown live on CNN, Fox News and NBC.
The Martin Jetpack website got so many hits it kept crashing, and US TV hosts David Letterman and Jay Leno vied to get it on their shows. Leno won, ferrying Martin and his family around Los Angeles in a fancy limo.
More importantly, Martin got great feedback from people at Nasa, Boeing and Lockheed Martin. "That meant a lot to me, but it probably meant more to Jenny," he chuckles.
Burt Rutan, who won a US$10 million competition with his design for SpaceShipOne, and who now works for Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic, got in touch. An engineer who works on the space shuttle told one of Martin's engineers that he'd like to come and work with him.
And Neil Armstrong - yes, that Neil Armstrong - sent Martin a couple of emails telling him the pack looked promising.
The Smithsonian Institution has also been in touch, and the team has already been wined and dined by some Texans who would like to move the company to the US. Fortune 500 company SAIC (Science Applications International Corporation) wants to make the jetpack's military version.
Martin isn't keen to leave his hometown. "If Americans can have a goal of going to the moon, then we can have a goal of having a jetpack industry."
But Morel seems more ambivalent. "We'll keep it here until someone offers us enough money to move it away," she says, only half-jokingly.
The company needs about $20 million to set up a production plant, hire the best staff in the world and set up a fighting fund in case someone tries to rip off its intellectual property, she says.
"I don't know how to put together that kind of money in New Zealand so we're assuming we're going to finance it in the US, and once you make that decision, they say: 'Well why are you doing this in New Zealand?'.
"We haven't been pushed yet on this, but it certainly is going to be an issue."
Texas alone has more than two dozen venture capital firms. And Morel mentions that she has been talking to some "interesting helicopter guys" from South Africa with "interesting stabilisation systems" who have agreed to set up in Arizona because they received so much government assistance.
"It's not our intention [to move to the US]. It's our intention to build it in Christchurch, but we may not have free rein in that."
The company has estimated there could be a market for as many as 60,000 jetpacks as recreational toys over eight years. At this stage it's highly unlikely that many could be made, Martin admits.
There has also been interest in the jetpack for commercial uses, such as building and tower inspections, and search and rescue work.
"We've got people we're negotiating with at the moment. There's a guy coming down to New Zealand in a few weeks who wants to buy 25. Jenny had somebody in a military uniform asking what the delivery time might be for 100. It looks like there might be more commercial applications than we originally thought."
Morel confirms that orders have already been placed, although she is unable to say how many. And she dismisses suggestions that the Martin Jetpack could turn out like the Segway or Alan Gibbs' Aquada - an answer looking for a question.
All the team have read Steve Kemper's book about the Segway, Code Name Ginger - which notes that its inventors ignored advice that it could be banned from footpaths - and have done their best not to get sucked into "groupthink", she says.
They are also heartened by the story of the invention of the snowmobile, which was originally envisioned as a rescue vehicle but is now used mostly for fun. (Incidentally, notes Martin, the original Ski-Doo is still made in Valcourt in Canada, generating billions of dollars for the tiny town. "I don't think anybody told Nokia it had to move out of Finland, either.")
In order to be back at Oshkosh by next July, they need to get cracking, Morel acknowledges.
The hope is that the first units for the final product specification will be ready to test in April.
"That's very aggressive. I don't know if we'll hit it, but we'll aim for it."
Martin, of course, continues to aim for the stars, but realises he's unlikely to be a serial entrepreneur.
"I'm a bit of a one-trick pony. I was born, I invented the jetpack and I died. That's going to be my story. There's not enough time left for me to do something different."
