By David Ponce
Yves Rossy is the world’s only flying man. He attaches himself to a custom-built wing and 4 turbojets, and simply takes to the skies (dropping from a helicopter for now), tilting his body to control his flight path. He’s been making headlines for a while, especially when he first crossed the English channel with his wing, back in 2008. And now he can add another feather to his cap: he’s flown in formation with two L-39C Albatros planes from the Breitling Jet Team, flying at their minimum speed. You can see what it looked like in the video below.
A little on the wing itself. It has a wingspan of 2m and weighs 55kg (121lbs) fully fueled and with smoke solution, 30kg (66lbs) dry. It’s propelled by 4 Jet-Cat P200 turbojet engines, with 22 kilograms thrust each. It has an average speed of 200 km/h (120mph) and a top speed (in descent mode) of 300 km/h (180mph). Finally, the amount of fuel on board lets Yves fly autonomously for 10 minutes. After that, it’s parachute time.
VIA [ TechEBlog ]
