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.