The Rocketbelt Caper - a True Tale of Invention, Obsession, And Murder: Brown, Paul: 9781411629844: Amazon.com: Books

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The Rocketbelt Caper - a True Tale of Invention, Obsession, And Murder Paperback – January 1, 2005

by Paul Brown (Author)

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"We finished the rocketbelt, and from then on there was murder, kidnapping, and all kinds of other stuff."

James Bond meets the Coen Brothers in this riveting true story of three friends and their quest to build a Buck Rogers-style flying machine - the amazing Rocketbelt 2000. Perhaps the least incredible thing about their tale is that they succeeded in building and flying their futuristic device. But their obsession with the rocketbelt shattered their friendship and set in motion an astonishing chain of events involving theft, deception, violent assault, a bizarre kidnapping, a ten million dollar lawsuit, and a horrifically brutal murder.

The Rocketbelt Caper also reveals the secret history of the rocketbelt, and the pioneering men who built and piloted it. The iconic device - a rocket-powered backpack that allows the wearer to fly - was developed for real by the US Army in the 1960s, and famously appeared in the opening sequence of the James Bond movie Thunderball, and at the 1984 Olympics in LA. Drawn from exclusive interviews with those most closely involved, this is the full incredible true story of the amazing rocketbelt.

Includes twelve pages of photographs, plus "Building a Rocketbelt: A Cautionary Essay" by Frank Dickman.

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Print length

220 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Lulu.Com
Publication date

January 1, 2005
Dimensions

6 x 5 x 9 inches
ISBN-10

1411629841
ISBN-13

978-1411629844
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5,456
$5.36
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Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Lulu.Com (January 1, 2005)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 220 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1411629841
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1411629844
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 11.6 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 5 x 9 inches

Customer Reviews:
30

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Paul Brown

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Paul Brown writes about history, sport, true crime and adventure for publications including The Guardian, FourFourTwo, When Saturday Comes, The Blizzard, Longreads, and Narratively. He is the author of several non-fiction books, including The Ruhleben Football Association and The Rocketbelt Caper. He lives in the North East of England.

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Truly bizarre and compelling

Reviewed in the United States on August 29, 2018

Verified Purchase

This book is amazing. You have intrigue, murder, kidnapping, and twist after turn in this book. If you love history about flying, always wanted a rocket-pack as a kid, or just love a good crime story, you need to read this book. It's well written with a wealth of research and firsthand accounts. I really couldn't recommend it more.

As they say, stranger than fiction

Reviewed in the United States on September 7, 2020

Verified Purchase

What a (rocket) ride. A real page turner! Beyond the very interesting technical and historical information about rocket belts (plural: I didn’t know there were more than one builder) the utter greed, depravity, violence and insanity of some of the people involved in building the particular machine at the center of the story is mind blowing! That they can be that screwed up and still somehow build a working (if perhaps not overly reliable) flying machine makes me wonder if there’s not hope for me yet.

A mystery wrapped inside a modern-day techno-thriller secreted away inside a tale of thieves!

Reviewed in the United States on February 11, 2012

Verified Purchase

Who knew a book about a backpack rocket could be so interesting! Not I! This true story is one of the best mystery novels I have read. The author doesn't wear you down with inane details of the science, we all get it. Strap a rocket on your back and go for a flight! Sure, the snake oil salesmen have to get involved, toss in a murder, a kidnapping and multi-million lawsuits and the book keeps you jetting for more. Don't miss this one.

One person found this helpful

I bought this book by mistake. But what a great mistake!

Reviewed in the United States on July 20, 2018

Verified Purchase

I bought this book by mistake - known as Fat Finger Syndrome in financial markets. But what a great mistake! Very readable account of the development of rocketbelts and the horrors which can arise when business friendships turn sour. Like many, my first exposure to a rocketbelt was in Thunderball and I was pretty convinced at the time that I was just watching special effects in action. Interesting to read about developments decades later and, as for the drama outlined in the book, let me simply quote a cliché: 'You couldn't make it up'.

Aviation enthusiast

You can't make this stuff up. A fascinating read.

Reviewed in the United States on August 31, 2017

Verified Purchase

I could not put this book down. Every new chapter had me shaking my head and saying, "this cannot be true". Hard to believe all this happened under the radar of most Americans. The Rocketbelt Caper is a compelling tale, well told by Paul Brown.

One person found this helpful

Stephanie Johns

Reviewed in the United States on November 17, 2013

Verified Purchase

I ordered it because it is the story of one of my crazy distant relatives. It is okay, but doesn't quite live up to our family stories. The better version was on 60 minutes.

One person found this helpful

Good read but not always factual regarding the relationship between two of the main characters.

Reviewed in the United States on April 30, 2013

Verified Purchase

I was an investor in the Rocketbelt and was involved with all of the main characters in the book. I was also the Court Appointed Receiver for the Rocketbelt and was in attendance at all of the court hearings involving Brad Barker. The author does an excellent job documenting the history of Rocketbelts and good job of documenting what happened. However, because Larry Stanley refused to be interviewed for the book it gave Brad Barker the opportunity to twist the facts regarding his relationship with Larry. For example, the tanks added to the airplane were not used to transport drugs but to transport salmon from remote Indian Reservations in to fish processing facilities Alaska.

4 people found this helpful

The story of how he ended up with the jet pack reads more like science fiction than fact

Reviewed in the United States on November 11, 2015

Verified Purchase

I use to skydive with Kenny Gipson and heard his version of this story from him. The story of how he ended up with the jet pack reads more like science fiction than fact...but it really did happen.

One person found this helpful

Top reviews from other countries

Brian Clegg

A fascinating history of a dream piece of technology that seems doomed to be nightmare

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 7, 2014

Verified Purchase

There’s something hypnotically attractive about the concept of a rocketbelt – a device to enable an individual to fly through the air. This aspect of flying without a plane seems to tie directly into our dreams. (Some of us are familiar with comedian Paul Merton’s occasional rant about his desire for a jetpack, one of the many alternative names for this unusual technology.)

In this book, Paul Brown brings the topic alive. Brown has an excellent journalistic style, and pulls the reader on relentlessly through the tales of technical inspiration and human weakness that litter the history of the rocketbelt.

Starting with its science fiction origins, we learn how a practical rocketbelt was first constructed, how the most famous appearance of a belt – in the James Bond movie Thunderball – was real, even though most moviegoers assumed it was pure special effects, and the convoluted history of the rocketbelts themselves. Almost uniquely, it is possible to chart the existence of every belt ever built – fewer than there were Apollo spacecraft. This is the irony of the rocketbelt. Though the idea was often originally sold as a commercial wonder – everyone flying around the place in rocketbelts – or as a military vehicle, in practice they have proved hugely expensive to build, difficult and dangerous to fly, and are limited to totally impractical flight times of 20 to 30 seconds. Even so, the few rocketbelts that have had a commercial career have made a lot of money, because they have been in high demand for public demonstrations and publicity stunts.

When the book is charting the rise of the rocketbelt and the lives of those involved with the technology, it is truly fascinating. Things only fall down a little when Brown takes us into the murkiest part of the rocketbelt’s history, involving fraud, theft, kidnapping and murder. It sounds a writer’s dream, the icing on the cake that will make the story even more attractive, but after a while, because the main characters in this aspect of the story seem so unpleasant and difficult to identify with, it actually detracts from the overall impact of the book, and it might have been better to have had less pages on this human tragedy that is interwoven with the history of one particular rocketbelt.

Despite this, however, the book overall is a delight to read, and the sheer enthusiasm that rocketbelts have generated in those who have built and flown them is amazing. This is never going to be an everyday piece of technology, but the rocketbelt remains a remarkable achievement – the more so for being largely in semi-amateur hands – and the story is genuinely one where reality is stranger than fiction.

2 people found this helpful

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