Yep: another real-world news item with some Star Wars relevance.

Have you heard of Glenn Martin? No? Well, he’s a New Zealand-based inventor whose latest creation has been attracting attention from some pretty big parties. Like, say, the US military.

Do I even need to say "I want one of those"?

For the past 30 years, Martin has been working on a “superfan”-powered jetpack. A jetpack which, from the looks of it, could have some useful real-world applications, like getting to places too narrow for helicopters, like between trees or onto the sides of cliffs. Or, say, test samples from the Fukushima nuclear power station.

It’s a bit bigger and bulkier than Boba Fett’s jetpack, I admit, and it doesn’t have flames shooting out of the bottom, but over the weekend it managed to get 5000 feet above sea level, as well as successfully deploy its explosive-powered parachute – which should be safe to use as low as 100 feet.

Check out the footage below for highlights from the weekend’s test flight. Early estimates are that, on launch (har har) one of these will set you back around $60,000 NZD – about £30,000 GBP, or $50,000 USD. So not cheap, then.

Now all we need is a wrist-mounted flamethrower. Wait, someone’s already done that? Oh.