British maker creates a real-life Iron Man suit with six miniature jet engines

By Heather Hamilton, contributing writer

Image Credit: Gravity Industries/YouTube.

Money can’t buy happiness, but at least it can make you into a real-life Iron Man. Richard Browning — U.K. oil trader, triathlete, and ultra-marathon runner — custom-built a six-jet-engine exoskeleton after he began investigating human-powered flight, reports CNet. 

After discovering that university labs with ample funding were making progress, Browning decided to take it a step further. “We said that we’ll stick with the human mind and body bit but go for augmentation with a bit of horsepower,’ he told CNet over Skype. 

Browning started a company called Gravity Industries this March, which has unveiled its first product — the Daedalus flight suit, named after Greek mythological figure Daedalus. The suit is propelled via six miniature jet engines, similar to those used in model airplanes, mounted on the arms and lower back. According to the company, the suit should allow users to fly several hundreds of miles per hour. Browning hasn’t been able to find a test flight area large enough to test the suit at those speeds, however.

According to Gravity’s site, their mission is “to build an inspirational technology company by re-imaging the future of human flight and pioneering aeronautical innovation.” Their vision is a generation of human flight systems for commercial, military, and entertainment applications.

Development of the suit happened throughout 2016 and took place in only 12 months, beginning with Browning strapping small gas turbine engines to his body. As he learned to control them with his mind and muscles, engineer Jon Reece began to think it could work, he says in a mini-documentary produced by Red Bull on Gravity’s website. 

“There’s no rule book for this; there’s no manual,” Browning said. “When the Wright brothers were learning how to fly, there were no flying lessons; they had just to learn.”

Browning likens learning to fly in the suit to learning to ride a bike in three dimensions or driving a mini excavator because each limb must move in the right way to go up, down, forward, backward, right, and left (similar to a helicopter). Browning says, “It just takes a little bit of practice, probably a cumulative 15 to 20 minutes, and you’re there.” Recently, the suit has been amended to incorporate a display to reveal fuel levels by utilizing Wi-Fi.

The mini-documentary shows Browning in the suit, hovering and moving around in relatively small spaces, though Browning says that the suit is capable of more. In fact, he argues that it flies smoother when it is six to 10 feet off the ground and moving quickly.

Browning acknowledges that, unlike jetpacks, the suit requires arm, shoulder, and core strength, but he believes that a person of reasonable fitness could do it. Browning is 160 pounds and strong, which may help the suit function.

While Browning has been approached by a handful of people who want a custom suit built at a price tag of approximately $250,000, he’s instead going on tour with the suit. He’s partnered with Red Bull and will perform a demonstration flight off the coast of Los Angeles in June.

“The ‘Daedalus’ jet-engine suit is pioneering an entirely new category in aviation history,” Gravity writes on their website.

Sources  CNet, Gravity Industries, Red Bull