Fusion Man: Yves Rossy and his Fusion Flight Suit

Lance Trumbull, over at the Everest Peace Project, and director of the award-winning documentary Everest: A Climb for Peace, passed along a tip through email about an interesting article he had ran across-I have to agree, this is quite interesting–

Yves Rossy, a Swiss inventor and aviation enthusiast, recently unveiled a flight suit that he has been experimenting with. The suit itself has four jet engines strapped to the main body. Once inside this suit, Rossy, can rocket around the sky at speeds approaching 200MPH. His experimentation while wearing the suit has many people referring to him as “Fusion Man”.

Fusion, itself, actually plays no part in his newest contraption. It is fueled by four jet engines that burn kerosene, strapped to an 8 foot human wing. In 2006, Yves actually began developing the suit. He has flown it around quite a bit in the Alps, getting out all the kinks, before recently debuting it to a hoard or world-wide reporters.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bEXxkWXncuo&feature=related]

If you don’t understand the language–KEEP WATCHING!  It Gets very cool!

I think the child in all of us looks at this and says, “Cool, where do I get one?”

To bad it is not that easy.

Fusion Man (sorry, I just like the thought of mysterious superheroes floating across the world) elaborates a bit and states that his mode of flight will probably not catch on for awhile. It isn’t so much the ‘cool factor’ that is going to hold them down, but rather price and effort. The price? Only $190,000. (That is actually ALOT cheaper than I thought it would be.)

Rossy Fusion Man is planning on taking his adventure on the road in the near future. He is already preparing a bigger suit that will allow him to propel around the Grand Canyon.

For safety purposes, as Fusion Man is flying around in the upper atmosphere, he has built in a way to jetison the wing from his body and parachute back to earth. He has noted that he has been forced to do this more than he would like. He relates the 200lbs of thrust generated with the suit as being as easy as riding a motor bike, with manueverbility a bit easier, you just bend whatever direction you want to go. As far as flying with the birds, Fusion Man, offers up a quick advantage to the crowd. He can actually flip over and fly on his back. Not even a bird could do that!

To read more on the crazy flight of ‘Fusion Man’ Yves Rossy, click on through to the FOXNews site. Be sure to check out their Photo Essay with more great shots.

While your here, you might as well check out a clip of Lance Trumbull’s Everest: A Climb for Peace.  Thanks Lance for this tip!  You can find the Video Clip in my right-hand sidebar OR visit Lance’s own site.  Definitely an amazing documentary!