Techie Tuesday: Jet-Man Project

Fly like an eagle ... 

Pilot Yves Rossy is the first-ever jet powered flying-man. With a dream of flying like the Rocketeer and not Wily Coyote, he built a carbon composite wing with 2 kerosene engines. After extensive testing the moment of truth arrives.

Finally, at 7:30pm on June 24 th , 2004 and after the 3 rd trial of the day (6 th motorized trial), Yves finally drops out of the Pilatus at an altitude of 4000m over the Yverdon airfield. Before pulling on the little lever that controls the opening of his wings, Yves lets himself glide for a couple seconds and at the altitude of 2500m, he starts the ignition of the engines and waits 30 seconds for them to be able to stabilize. Once they are steady, he can finally speed up the engines and suddenly the dream comes true… He manages a horizontal flight at 1600m from the ground for more than 4 minutes at 100 kts ( 115 mph ), and for a bit of fun, manages to also ignite the smoke producers which leave a nice trail behind him..

Unfortunately Yves runs into some strong turbulence, and had to cut off the two engines, despite he still had half full tanks at this time, but the most important was achieved, the Jetman flew ! Yves triggers the parachute opening while closing the wings to finally land on the ground, greeted by the ecstatic team.

They are photos and videos of the flight.


(Via Metafilter)