Boba Fett's Lair : The Fett Files : Profiles
Jet, Rocket, and Repulsor Packs
From Star Wars: The Essential Guide Weapons and Technology
While portable rocket and jet packs are considered outdated for transportation, they will always be romanticized because of the Old Republic's famous Rocket-jumper troops, which played a prominent role during the great battles of the Sith War, four thousand years before the Battle of Yavin. Even today, backpack devices provide enough thrust to transport users over vast distances in a few seconds. This can make them quite useful in certain circumstances. The bounty hunter Boba Fett uses his Mitrinomon Z-6 jet pack as he charges into battle, hiding his movements under a cloud of exhaust. He often captures and whisks away his targets before anyone can muster a response.
When activated, the jet pack's intake system forces a mixture of air and fuel into miniaturized turbines. There the mixture is ignited, and each three-second ignition provides enough thrust to propel Fett up to one hundred meters horizontally or seventy meters vertically. Directional exhaust nozzles are used for midflight course adjustments. while the pack's gyro-stabilizer automatically applies counterthrust for safe landings.
This model weighs about thirty kilograms, carries enough fuel for twenty bursts, and costs three hundred credits. It can lift the user and up to a hundred kilograms of additional cargo. The jet pack's control panel is mounted on Fett's forearm, and a secondary verbal interface system has been run through his helmet's control computer.
Unfortunately, jet packs can misfire if struck--this occurred at the Great Pit of Carkoon when Han Solo clobbered Fett's jet pack with a vibroblade. The blast sent Fett careening into Jabba the Hutt's sailbarge, and the stunned bounty hunter quickly tumbled into the Sarlacc pit. Fett's armor protected him and the hunter was able to escape eventually.
Jet packs tend to be lighter and less bulky than rocket packs because they draw in oxygen from a planet's atmosphere for combustion. However, they are useless underwater, in a vacuum, and in low-oxygen atmospheres. Alternatively, rocket packs use premixed fuels that require no additional oxygen and can work in any environment, including the vacuum of space. Despite their additional bulk, rocket packs offer performance comparable to that of jet packs, although they are more expensive.
Repulsorlift packs are used rarely since their miniaturized repulsorlift generators offer slow movement, although they are incredibly manuverable and the user can apply steady thrust to hover in place. Like all repulsorlift generators, repulsor packs operate by propelling the wearer away from any object with a sustainable gravity field. Thus, they do not work in zero-gravity environments. Repulsor packs use rechargeable energy cells, each ofering about ten minutes of flight time and top speeds of around forty kilometers per hour.
Some rocket and jet packs incorporate a secondary repulsorlift unit that offers stability, greater manuverability, and hovering capability. These combination packs normally cost over a thousand credits and tend to be much heavier, but users indicate that the added versatility counters any disadvantages.
Boba Fett's Lair
© 1997 - 1999 Chris Coleman
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