Over the centuries the Greek myth of Icarus has appealed to earth-bound children with the desire to fly.

As a kid my friends and I would steal large sheets of plastic from the nearby suburban construction sites. We would then climb to a wind-blown hilltop and spread the plastic sheets to capture the wind like a parachute. The lightest of us achieved lift-off. Landing were always rough for youthful thrill seekers and even worse for sky-drawn adults as a Brazilian priest fatally discovered after setting off to heaven in a lawn chair attached to 1000 helium colorful party balloons in an attempt to raise money for religious truck drivers.

“Excuse me while I touch the sky.”

His body was found in the Atlantic.

Several years ago this dream of flight was shared by another sky-worshipper in Wisconsin, who developed a jetpack for the upwardly-mobile.

“There is nothing that even comes close to the dream that the jet pack allows you to achieve.” The 48 year-old designer from New Zealand planned to market his contraption at $100,000 each.

At that price the skies will remain relatively uncongested, however one has to remember that in 1904 there were only two cars in all of Iowa and they had a collision, so aspiring jetpack aviators will have to make way for birds on their 30-minute flights at 110 dB thanks to its twin rotors and its 200-horsepower.

Zoom.

The inventor’s wife called the noisy 250-pound engine ‘a beast’ and the designer has yet to quit his day job, but the jetpack does have a parachute in case of emergency.

So far only 12 people have gone up and come down.

None have had to press the panic button.

The inventor had a vision for his device. One he can’t explain, but according to him when Ben Franklin first saw a hot-air balloon, someone asked, “What good is it?”

Ben Franklin too a second and answered, “What good is a newborn baby?”

In other words he didn’t know, but as a new father I can tell you the real answer is happiness.