He joined the jet set!
Cheers!
Posted on 12/30/2006 6:06:00 AM PST by aculeus
For those who are bored with hang-gliding or find skydiving just too dull, a Swiss airline captain has devised the ultimate aerial thrill: flying like a bird.
Thanks to high technology and nerve, Yves Rossy has come closer than anyone to realising the ancient dream of soaring free, flitting through the sky, guided only by the body. As well as a crash helmet he wears a small pair of wings and four tiny jet engines.
As he skims the Alps at up to 187mph (300km/h), the only thing that the former fighter pilot has come up against so far is the Swiss law.
“They were totally confused,” said the birdman, whose flying suit gives him a passing resemblance to Buzz Lightyear in Toy Story. “The authorities said that I was an unregistered aircraft and to fly, you need a licence. I told them, ‘No. To fly, you need wings’.”
The 47-year-old pioneer does not live up to the image of the stolid Swiss captain. Boyish and brimming with enthusiasm, he is a hero in the world of those extreme sportsmen — or borderline nutters — who are devoted to the quest of human flight.
After millennia of fatal experiments, the skills of Icarus and Superman remained a fantasy until the recent advent of powered flight, hang-gliding and skydiving. In the past two decades, free-fall enthusiasts have developed webbed “wing-suits” that allow them to glide and even perform aerial ballet. But the direction is always downwards, followed by a parachute landing.
(Excerpt) Read more at timesonline.co.uk ...
Watch the video @ #3. It's air launched.
Very cool. He's a nut, but it's still very cool. The video is amazing.
Er, have you read the article?
He doesn't "take off".
He drops from a plane.
Being that close to the jet exhaust I'd hope he'd be wearing asbestos underwear.
I flew ultralights in various forms for 15 years - this guy is nuts.
watch the video
Do they make Depends in asbestos?
Woah...some major brass cojones...
I have a pal who does Ultralights (Ramapo Valley Ultralight Club) north of New York City...he told me it can get a bit unsettling during fall hunting season, hearing the guns go off below him - all it'd take is one whacked out New Yorker to bring him down.
Ancient Greece Daedalus and Icarus, his son, escape from Crete with feather wings. Icarus falls and dies
(They know this is a myth, right?)
1485 Leonardo da Vinci designs Ornithopter, a bird-like flying machine, and a parachute. Neither tested
1783 Sebastien Lenormand of France invents first successful parachute
1896 Otto Lilienthal of Germany killed after making successful hops with bird-like glider
1903 Wright brothers achieve first powered flight
(I wonder what country these guys are from?)
1951 Francis Rogallo of Nasa invents flexible wing later used for hang-gliding
(I've never heard of this country, odd.)
1980s power added to create microlight aircraft
July 2003 Felix Baumgartner of Austria parachutes to land at Calais after flying across English Channel in a wing suit
November 2006 Yves Rossy flies for six minutes over the Swiss Alps
He joined the jet set!
Cheers!
Ping.
Big deal. I've been watching Wile E. Coyote do this for years.
Amazing!
--there is a recent book on the history of this type of flight which I had from the Clark Co, NV (Las Vegas) library within the last couple of months--I've tried all the search terms I can think of and can't find it--somebody out there might know of it--
bump for later viewing
Bah! Buck Rogers didn't even have to use wings as he zipped around the sky ogling Wilma.
Of course, Buck is from the 25th century. Maybe global warming will have created lots of thermals, and that's why Buck didn't need wings.
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