Called the Daedalus flight, the suit is powered by six gas jet turbine engines, which pack enough power to give flight to the one who wears it as well as push a person off of the ground to a considerable distance. “Our technology combines body mounted miniaturised jet engines with a specially designed exoskeleton allowing vertical take-off and flight,” the company’s website reads. Currently, the flying time and altitude, both have been less than what is desired from the Daedalus flight suit. The company aims to pioneer in the future of human flight and aeronautical innovation. “Our vision is to build an entirely new generation of human flight systems for commercial, military and entertainment applications.” The technology makes use of jet fuel to power the turbines, which is contained in the backpack of the suit. This is however not as safe as the Tony Stark’s Iron Man suit from the Marvel Universe. The fictional suit has a strong exoskeleton — much stronger — which safeguards our beloved superhero from getting killed. The real life suit’s exoskeleton isn’t strong enough to safeguard a human in case of a crash, which could lead to injury in not so extreme cases. According to the company’s owner, Richard Browning, who is also an ex-Marine, controlling the suit is ‘like riding a bicycle in three dimensions’. “The Daedalus, our mark 1 jet-engine suit is pioneering an entirely new category in aviation history,” their website reads. The suit currently requires extreme physical fitness to be able to manoeuvre it. The 38-year-old Browning is a triathlete and yet finds it difficult to do so and has to follow a strict regime to be able to test his suit. The company and its tech are still in the early stages of development with a lot of scope for improvement in the capabilities of this product. Gravity is currently working in collaboration with Redbull and if the tech is indeed feasible for commercial use then we might soon witness flying humans too. H/t
