Swiss stuntman Yves Rossy has created his very own jet-powered wing suit, which allows him to fly at speeds as high as 186 miles per hour.
When you think “Rocket Man,” you might imagine Elton John, decked out in jumbo shades and a sequined pantsuit back in his slimmer ‘70s phase. But it may be time for Elton to pass the name on to someone more deserving: 48-year-old Swiss daredevil Yves Rossy.
Instead of simply singing about a journey into space, Rossy has flown solo into the atmosphere. Propelled by a jet-powered wing suit, which he made by himself, Rossy can reach speeds as high as 186 miles per hour. That may not quite match the velocity of a Boeing 747 jumbo jet, which travels at a rapid 245 miles a second –but as far as mere mortals are concerned, we think even Superman would find it hard to keep up with the sky-borne speed demon.
Rossy once served as a fighter pilot for the Swiss air force, and later worked as a commercial pilot –but all through his life, he had visions of flying without the aid of an aircraft. “It’s always been my dream, to fly like a bird,” Rossy told the Washington Post. “And I don’t want to do it just for myself, but to show mankind how to do it.”
Rossy spent years working on workable “wings” that would allow him to take the flight he’d always dreamed of. At last, on May 14th, he decided that he was ready for a test flight. He invited reporters and camera crews to cover the story of his first flight over the Swiss Alps, knowing full well that it may turn into a crash-and-burn disaster.
But remarkably, after dropping out of an airplane at 7,700 feet, Rossy didn’t fall straight down to earth. Instead, his jet pack powered him forward through the sky, where he performed a 360-degree loop-de-loop “to impress the girls,” he said.
Though countless adventurers have attempted their own jet-fueled flights (many of which resulted in fatal run-ins with trees and mountains), Rossy is the first to invent a method to control his body in flight, lifting himself 2,000 feet with each movement.
Now that he’s done a successful Superman impersonation over the Alps, the Rocket Man’s got new plans for his wing suit: He plans to fly over the English Channel in September, and is setting his hopes on an airborne mission over the Grand Canyon. And, after a little more tinkering with his wings, Rossy is hopeful that he can achieve direct vertical flight.
“You’d see a little gap in the cloud and—poof!—you’d go straight up through the hole to the sun, and come back down again,” he said. “I hope I am not far away.”