Now fly to office!

Sick of traffic jams while getting to office? You can now fly to your work place in a James Bond-style as a businessman in the UK does in his very own jet pack.

Businessman Jeremy Paxton started doing his treks to the office on an amazing water-powered jet pack that appears to owe more to the technology of James Bond and Buzz Lightyear than the Clapham omnibus.

Instead of getting the car out of the garage or heading to the bus stop, he straps on the device, which uses water pressure to lift him up to 30ft in the air and propel him along horizontally at speeds of up to 25mph, the Daily Mail reported.

He said the 40-mile journey from his riverside boathouse home in Marpledurham near Reading to his office at the Lower Mill Estate in the Cotswolds is possible because the River Thames and waterways run direct between the two.

Paxton, 51, has also been asked to be the UK’s ‘test pilot’ and to compile a ‘Pilot User Guide’ for other would-be customers.

But the fun comes at a price.

The jet pack, which is imported from Germany where it is made under licence from American company JetLev, will set you back a cool 115,000 pounds, enough to buy an Aston Martin V8 Vantage for 007 and still have change for a few gadgets.

The jet pack is not a rocket. Instead it operates on the same principle as a giant pump by generating huge amounts of water pressure to provide a thrust similar to that of a fireman’s hose.

Paxton, whose business interests include the Lower Mill Estate in Gloucestershire, an upmarket 600—acre waterside community of eco-friendly luxury second-homes in the Cotswolds, said: “I’m the first person in Britain to buy one. I just like alternative means of transport. It’s a different way to commute. It’s better than sitting in a traffic jam or being stuck on a crowded train.”

“It’s environmentally-friendly. It’s fantastic fun and it’s not complicated to operate. I often commute to London by train and sometimes take my boat to the station. I have a pilot’s licence and fly planes and helicopters. Why not this?” Paxton said.

Inspired by the jet pack used in the opening scenes of Thunderball, the Jetlev is the brainchild of Raymond Li, a Chinese-born Canadian who first sketched out his concept on a yellow Post-it Note in 2000 and spent the next 10 years developing it.

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