Thanks to high technology and nerve, Yves Rossy has come closer than anyone to realising the ancient dream of soaring free, flitting through the sky, guided only by the body. As well as a crash helmet he wears a small pair of wings and four tiny jet engines.

As he skims the Alps at up to 187mph (300km/h), the only thing that the former fighter pilot has come up against so far is the Swiss law.

“They were totally confused,” said the birdman, whose flying suit gives him a passing resemblance to Buzz Lightyear in Toy Story. “The authorities said that I was an unregistered aircraft and to fly, you need a licence. I told them, ‘No. To fly, you need wings’.”

The 47-year-old pioneer does not live up to the image of the stolid Swiss captain. Boyish and brimming with enthusiasm, he is a hero in the world of those extreme sportsmen — or borderline nutters — who are devoted to the quest of human flight.

After millennia of fatal experiments, the skills of Icarus and Superman remained a fantasy until the recent advent of powered flight, hang-gliding and skydiving. In the past two decades, free-fall enthusiasts have developed webbed “wing-suits” that allow them to glide and even perform aerial ballet. But the direction is always downwards, followed by a parachute landing.

Mr Rossy, whose day job is flying passengers around Europe for Swiss, the national airline, still jumps from an aircraft in his Jet Man guise and later uses a parachute to land. His achievement is staying aloft with a minimum of equipment. So far, fuel limits have kept his jaunts to six minutes, but he is making progress and hopes soon to sell his kit to would-be birdmen.

“I don’t want anything rigid. I fly with my body,” he said. “The wing is just a device that allows me to remain free in the air. I move my head a little and I turn. Or I put out my leg a few inches and I bank and descend . . . I play with all the elements of flight that I know so well.”

The only mechanical input is a motorcycle grip that controls thrust.

In his first attempt to fly, in 2004, Mr Rossy flew level. This autumn, over Spain, he achieved the first powered climb. In his latest outing, last month, he swooped and soared low through the ridges of the Alps near Montreux.

“I can go up at 1,000 feet per minute, but it’s really just the beginning,” Mr Rossy told The Times. “The next step is more powerful engines and a lighter, more efficient wing for aero-batics. I’ll be able to climb vertically like a fighter.” He also aims to take off from the ground.

Mr Rossy is no death-wish daredevil. “I take great care with safety and there is always a plan B,” he said. This means staying high enough to jettison the wings and open a parachute in an emergency. There have been close shaves, including an upside-down spin when an engine failed.

“When I am the captain of an Airbus, it’s zero risk,” said Mr Rossy, who flew British Hawker Hunters and French supersonic Mirage IIIs in the Swiss Air Force. “I don’t have anything to prove in an Airbus. With passengers, I don’t play the fool. But when I’m alone there’s a big difference.

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