A New Zealand aviation company has raised $27 million on the Australian share market to further develop the first personalised jetpack that would have military, commercial and recreational uses.

Using 200-horsepower petrol engines, the Martin jetpack could fly as high as one kilometre, stay in the air for 30 minutes and carry a 120 kilogram payload - plus someone brave enough to strap it on, Martin Aircraft chief executive Peter Coker said.

After 30 years of development, the company is now commercialising the aircraft itself. Mr Coker said orders were being taken for 2017, with a lot of interest coming from wealthy individuals in China.

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The primary audience for Martin Aircraft are first responders: "fire, police, ambulance, border security, and search and rescue, including natural disaster recovery people" as well as commercial users, Mr Coker said.

"We do have a commercial market that looks at things like farming, agriculture, filming, mining, and just general uses like that, particularly when you're looking at some of the heavy lift load that we can provide," he said.

Personal jetpacks for recreational use are only a few years behind.

"This could be something like a motorbike in the sky in the future for third dimensional travel," Mr Coker said.

"We've been in discussion with a number of regulatory authorities and I don't think it's going to be too far before we actually see people flying around with a jetpack going to work."

Martin jetpacks are currently registered as micro-light aircraft with the New Zealand Civil Aviation Authority, meaning the pilot needs to have a micro-light license to fly the aircraft.

Once a parachute is integrated into the craft in the next six months, the jetpack would probably be the safest aircraft in the world, Mr Coker said.

In terms of costs, a first responder jetpack would cost approximately $US200,000, with individual and recreational jetpacks eventually costing about $US150,000.

Mr Coker conceded the aircraft also had military capabilities but said the company was not actively pursuing that market.

"We're not really targeting the military at this particular stage because we believe saving human lives and the environment of the commercialisation environment we're operating at is probably going to be the key for us," he said.