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a journey through space and time

Rocket Man
Posted 15th May 2008 at 9:06pm by M1ke, tagged as Skydiving, News | Commenting Closed

Some people go fishing on their day off. Yves Rossy likes to jump out of a small plane with a pair of jet-powered wings on his back and loop the loop above the Swiss Alps.

Rocket man flies over Alps with jet-pack strapped to his back | News | This is London

One of the reasons I love skydiving so much is that it has always been my dream to be able to fly, myself, not just in an aircraft. Whilst skydiving is to flying as a water slide is to a sailing boat, the height and the amazing window on the world is there - it just doesn't last long and takes a lot of effort to get there. This man, however, has really flown - using jets strapped to wings he was able to climb as well as fall, reaching fast horizontal speeds as well as controlling his height. He was also apparently able to land the creation.

He intends to do a crossing of the English channel and then fly the grand canyon - the latter task will require him to increase significantly the manoeuvrability of his wings. If it was me I'd be working on a way to take off from the ground - as yet he still needs to be dropped from a plane to begin his flight. They say it isn't commercially viable yet - but developments like this can easily effect new thinking in the technology business. If no one else does it first, I want in on this!

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