Recently my dad emailed me a link to this marvelous video of a jet-powered merry-go-round. Or, Thundersteed jet ponies, if you will. The ride was created by Brooklyn-based arts combine The Madagascar Institute. Clearly I had little choice but to email a few questions to the man behind the machine, a man who, like Cher, Madonna and Brazilian soccer stars goes by only one name, Hackett. He had a lot to say—and I found all of it interesting, hilarious and inspiring.

TFT: How does your invention work? Could you imagine this technology being adapted to an honest-to-goodness jetpack some day?

HACKETT: The motive power behind the Jet Ponies are pulse jet engines (more specifically: Valveless pulse jet engines, more more specifically: Hiller- Lockwood patent Valveless Pulse Jets). We did not invent them- the concept has been around for maybe a hundred years. They heyday of pulse jets was in the 1940s, when they provided the thrust that threw V1 rockets up from Holland, into gravity’s rainbow, and down onto England. We designed our specific jets from a patent that was filed in 1960s by a Mr. Lockwood. This type of pulse jet is pretty easy to make — as the “valveless” part indicates, there are no valves, in fact no moving parts at all — and is forgiving to the less than surgical tolerances and shaky grasp of precision .
The geometry of the structure causes the shockwave of an initial explosion  (the “BOOM” you can hear right as they start up — the fuel is propane, extra air to enable extra fuel to enable a nice big bang is provided with a leaf blower, and the spark is provided by a neon transformer hooked up to a little generator) go in two directions from the combustion chamber (the wider bit, with the propane line and spark plug going into it). Most of the force rushed around the bend and out the tailpipe as thrust, and the rest take the short route, out the intake. This creates a low pressure system back in the combustion chamber, causing the tail end of the bit that was heading towards the intake to rush back to fill the vacuum, bringing fresh air with it. While all of this is happening propane is still feeding in, so the combustion chamber has fuel, fresh air rushing in, and a hot shockwave rushing in to compress and ignite it all. The ensuing explosion is the “pulse” in “pulse jet”, and these cycles of explosion and recoil happen between 60 and 120 times a second.

Louder than god, glowing white-hot and looking like the trombone of the Apocalypse, pulse jets are also really shitty, inefficient engines. (This should be obvious — energy is energy is energy, and there is no free lunch, and if it makes a lot of noise and puts out a lot of heat that is all energy that is not manifesting as thrust). I have always wanted a jetpack, and one of the reasons I learned to build these things was to further that goal. Each of the Pony jets puts out about 55 pounds of thrust. They are pretty light (remember: no moving parts, barely any parts at all) for jet engines, probably around 30 pounds each. Each jet should be able to lift 25 extra pounds. Account for fuel weight (significant — each jet sucks up something like 4.5 pounds of propane a minute) and each jet can lift 20 pounds of cargo. Subtract further for the weight of the structure that holds it all together and you are looking at a wide, hot, loud pack of 10 jets to get a 150 pound jetpackonaut airborne. So yeah. It is totally doable, and would not be the dumbest thing I have done this year.

What prompted the creating of your jet-powered merry-go round? Tell me about your group and other projects you’ve worked on?

The world needs jet-powered carnival rides. For most people, this need asserts itself as a dull, nagging, ill-defined longing, with one not even sure of exactly what they are missing. We have identified that need, and acted on it. The Madagascar Institute makes machine art (carnival rides, walking machines, things that shoot fire; art that can kill you), but it is a machine art that has a human aspect — like carnival rides, which might look cool and be cleverly engineered but are only really and fully executed when someone rides them. We also do large-scale performative stuff in public places, like a classic movie musical dance number on the steps of the New York Public Library or a naval battle/Busby Berklee routine with paddle boats in Prospect  Park  Lake.

What are the dimensions of the machine and where did you test it before the video was taken? Where is the video shot?

The ride is about 11 feet tall, and the swing arms extend six feet from the center. The supports that hold the ponies swing out as the ride speeds up, making it up to 20 feet or so across. We tested the jet engines in one of the crew’s courtyard the night before installing the ride. The video shows the first time a human has ever ridden on the thing. Hans and the reporter guy are very, very brave. (Or stupid. Whatever). The ride was installed and ran at Gadgetoff, a one-day festival that took place at Snug Harbor, a botanical garden/park/historical center down on Staten Island.

I can’t believe the pilots in the video aren’t wearing helmets! Were you nervous for their safety or for any malfunctions or anything else?

One of our mottoes is “Safety Third.” If the thing failed, it would have failed catastrophically, with the arms shearing off and red-hot jet engines plunging into the crowd (forces would have been directed outward, making my spot at the center the safest place to be. When I say “Safety Third” I mean YOUR safety.)  However, since we are not engineers, we tend to over-engineer the fuck out of everything, so I was pretty confident it was not going to fall apart. If anything, I was more worried about the jets failing and just not running.

Growing up did you ever fantasize about flying a jetpack to work some day? If so, do you still?

Yes and yes, except in my mind riding a jetpack WAS the work, somehow.

Any other similar projects in the works? And what’s next for you?

I do not know of any jet-powered carnival rides that were not built by us, and I feel that if they did exist, I would have heard about it. My hope is that some smartass punk nerd kids somewhere see the video on YouTube and say to themselves “I can do better than that,” and then do.

Next up is adding some improvements to the ride, then running it again on the night of October 17th. Next build is not yet defined — a few things are in the running, like a generator that runs off of gasified coffee grounds, a better walking machine (one with multiple spindly legs that we would mount an opera singer on top of, with skirts to hide the transition, so that it looks like a twelve foot tall, eight legged opera singer, creepily walking around and singing), maybe a hovercraft. If past experience is any guide it will be none of these, but something awesome. If you want, we can let you know.

Yes, please!