241 Pizza

“It’s a compliment if someone says I’m a bit mad. In our society no one wants to take risks any more. No one wants responsibility. I take calculated risks that could finish in the grave. But I like what I do and there is a certain grandeur in doing it.”

Mr Rossy, who is in the middle of a divorce, has spent his savings on the six-year project. He is sponsored by the German company that makes his engines, which are adapted from jets for model aircraft and unmanned military drones. He is also funded by the company that makes his Kevlar wings.

His ultimate aim is to market the Jet Man as a pure fun machine, like a jet ski for the air. The cost would be about the same as a medium-size car or a microlight aircraft. There may also be a military use — although his device has nothing in common with the crude rocket pack worn by James Bond in the 1965 film Thunderball.

Mr Rossy has solved his trouble with the authorities and flies with a special permit. He is fully insured and avoids air-space where he is likely to meet aircraft. “Of course, it’s not the kind of contraption that you should strap on anyone’s shoulders,” he said. “It’s a prototype, and if you look at the first hang-gliders, they were not exactly the finished product either.”

Upward bound

Ancient Greece Daedalus and Icarus, his son, escape from Crete with feather wings. Icarus falls and dies

1485 Leonardo da Vinci designs Ornithopter, a bird-like flying machine, and a parachute. Neither tested

1783 Sebastien Lenormand of France invents first successful parachute

1896 Otto Lilienthal of Germany killed after making successful hops with bird-like glider

1903 Wright brothers achieve first powered flight

1951 Francis Rogallo of Nasa invents flexible wing later used for hang-gliding

1980s power added to create microlight aircraft

July 2003 Felix Baumgartner of Austria parachutes to land at Calais after flying across English Channel in a wing suit

November 2006 Yves Rossy flies for six minutes over the Swiss Alps

Source: Times research

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