The dream of jet packs that can propel people up into the clouds is a recurring motif throughout popular culture, but one man has made it his goal to make this a reality.
An early-version of the British inventor’s flight suit was compared to the ‘Iron Man’ armour worn by Marvel Comics character Tony Stark when it hit YouTube earlier this year.
And the suit drew similar comparisons when it wowed crowds at the prestigious TED Conference currently being held in Canada.
Richard Browning lifted off from the shore of Vancouver Harbour yesterday in his personal flight suit.
Using thrusters attached to his arms and back, he flew in a circle and hovered a short distance from the ground.
His performance captivated attendees at the conference, organised by a media group dedicated to sharing ‘ideas worth spreading’.
TED was set up in the 1980s to host conferences, primarily in the fields of technology, entertainment and design, but has since expanded to encompass culture and academia more generally.
And the personal flight suit is capable of propelling its users even higher and at greater speeds, according to its creators, flying at several hundred miles per hour, and reaching thousands of feet above the ground.
‘The hypothesis was that the human mind and body, if properly augmented, could achieve some pretty cool stuff,’ the extreme athlete and engineer said at the gathering.
Mr Browning spoke about his early experiments with various numbers and arrays of essentially miniature jet engines on his limbs.
And along the way there were more than a few crashes to the ground.
‘The whole journey was about trying and failing, and learning from that,’ he said.
The first reasonably stable, six-second flight with the gear inspired his team to press on.
His startup, Gravity, formally debuted about a month ago with an early-version suit called Daedalus.
A 55-second video clip of the suit in action has logged more than a million views since being posted on YouTube about three weeks ago.
Mr Browning said he is already getting interest from investors and some in the British military who told him they had given up on the flight feature of an ‘Iron Man’ suit until seeing his human-propulsion gear.
‘I don’t think anyone is going to be going down to Wal-Mart with it or taking anybody to school for quite a while, but the team at Gravity is moving it along,’ he added.
He dreams of a flight suit that one day will allow its wearer to launch from a beach, soar along the coast and then perhaps hop into a helicopter in the air to continue their journey.
And despite the comic book allusions, Mr Browning stressed that his goal is firmly rooted in the real world.
He also described the project as part of a personal journey, inspired by an engineer father with a love for flying machines, but who died when he was just a teenager.
Speaking a the launch of the Daedalus suit, he said: ‘This is a momentous point in aviation history. Daedalus is simply the beginning of a core technology that has endless potential in aviation, commercial and entertainment applications.
‘I have aeronautics in my blood. My grandfather instructed on WW2 Hurricanes, and the other was Chairman of Westland Helicopters.
‘My father was an aeronautical engineer and an innovator, too.
‘We’ve already had a few comparisons to Tony Stark, but this is real-world aeronautical innovation..
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