He says it's as easy as riding a motor
bike and ''would be a great device for
James Bond''.
Former Swiss military pilot,
extreme sports enthusiast and inventor
Yves Rossy yesterday became the world's first man to fly with jet-powered wings strapped to his back, a dream of flight thought to be within reach of only comic
book heroes such as Batman or Buzz Lightyear from Toy Story.
Watched from a mountaintop by the world's media and his mother, Mr Rossy stepped out of an aeroplane 2500m above the town of Bex in western Switzerland and, while in freefall, unfolded the
rigid 2.5m metal and fibreglass wings
attached to his flying suit.
After gliding for a short distance,
he triggered four turbojet engines
fixed to the wings, reaching speeds of
up to 300km/h as he thrilled the
crowd with a series of daring stunts.
Using his body and a hand throttle
to steer, he did a series of effortless
loops and figure-eights, diving and
soaring above the Rhone Valley
before making a final descent with
special-effects smoke trailing behind
him.
With a wave to the crowd, he
tipped his wings, flipped on to his back and executed a perfect
360-degree roll before landing with
the aid of a parachute.
''That was to impress the girls,'' he
later told reporters who had gathered
to watch his five-minute flight.
Mr Rossy, dubbed ''Fusionman''
by his fans and sponsors, works as an
Airbus pilot for Swiss International
Airlines and has spent more than a decade pursuing his dream of jet-
powered human flight.
He did a test-flight in 2004, wearing
3m carbon fibre wings, powered by
only two engines, but there were
problems with an inflatable section
of the wings, so it was back to the
drawing board for another four years.
The new set of 55kg rigid wings
strapped to his back for yesterday's
landmark flight are powered by four
German-built Jet Cat model aircraft engines which generate about 22kg
of thrust to power Mr Rossy and his
54kg suit through the air. The wings
unfold electrically, allowing him to
glide gracefully before firing up the
kerosene-powered engines that turn
him into a human jet plane.
There's no physical stress involved
''it's like a second skin'' he said.
The jet engines allow him to
rapidly gain height, and he steered by
leaning his body in the desired
direction, a little like steering a jet-
powered hang-glider. But it had to be a relaxed ride because if ''you put tension on your body, you start to
swing around'', Mr Rossy said after
the flight. If things go wrong (or as he terms it ''you have a whoops moment'' such as ignition failure
or flight instability), there's a yellow handle to jettison the wings and release the landing parachute.
Mr Rossy and his sponsors have
spent five years and about $A305,000
designing, building and testing the
jet-powered wings.
Now Mr Rossy wants to use his jet-
powered wings to fly across the
English Channel or maybe the Grand
Canyon.
But there is no way he will be
enjoying a bird's-eye view of the
scenery.
''I am so concentrated, I don't
really enjoy the view,'' he said.