Stunning footage shows a man using a jetpack to soar over Dubai this week in a move media outlets are comparing to Marvel superhero Iron Man.
The 'Jetwing' is the latest from company Jetman Dubai, which carried out the flight at Expo 2020 and shared on Instagram by Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed, the Crown Prince of Dubai.
"A major milestone in the quest to achieve 100 percent autonomous human flight. Well done boys," the Sheikh captioned the post.
The video shows pilot Vince Reffet taking off from the ground before hovering for a short time and then soaring up to 1800m at 240km/h.
"In eight seconds he had reached 100m height, in 12 seconds 200m, 19 seconds 500m, and reached 1000m in 30 seconds at an average speed of 130 knots," says Jetman Dubai.
"At the end of a three-minute flight punctuated by a roll and a loop at 1800m altitude, Jetman Vince Reffet opened his parachute at 1500m before landing back at Skydive Dubai."
The company added that it's the first time its jetpack technology allowed a pilot to "combine hovering safely at a limited altitude and flying aerobatics at high altitude in the same flight".
Apparently, Reffet didn't push the equipment to its potential, either - Jetman Dubai claims it can reach a staggering speed of 220 knots (407km/h) and a height of 6100m.
XDubai's footage of the flight is embedded below in up to 4K resolution:
The Jetwing is a carbon-fibre wingsuit powered by four mini jet engines and fitted with a manually controlled thrust vectoring nozzle that allows pilots to "control rotations around the yaw axis at zero speeds".
The yaw axis or vertical axis is perpendicular to the wings and is used by the pilot to turn left and right while flying horizontally.
Before the flight over Dubai, Reffett is said to have conducted at least 50 preparatory flights and practiced more than 100 takeoffs and landings while attached to safety harnesses.
