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" Yves Rossy is a human, but he can fly. Not just fall, or pilot a plane. Actually fly. He sustains altitude, even gains it when he wants. He straps on a wing \u2014 which he invented \u2014 with over a six-foot span and two miniature jet engines, and becomes Jetman. He jumps out of a plane, throttle at his thumb. Then he goes. He is the closest man has come to becoming a bird. Or a missile. The tiers of the wing don&amp;#039;t flap, but there&amp;#039;s this natural shape to his flares and carvings and dives \u2014 which go about 125 miles an hour on average, peaking at 186 on descent. Rossy, a Swiss and now 54, used to be a mechanic&amp;#039;s apprentice, then a pilot for the Swiss Air Force, before he worked as one for an airline. He&amp;#039;s also flown hang gliders, paragliders, and aerobatics airplanes; skydived; and become a master parachutist. But now he is Jetman, conqueror of the Grand Canyon and looker in the eye of the Rio&amp;#039;s Christ the Redeemer, with an air show in Reno starting today and lasting over the weekend. Back on the ground, he told us his story, here in his words, of inventing his wing, two crashes that nearly killed him, and that beautiful moment when he achieved his and every boy&amp;#039;s dream.      If you look in history, in the past, the only flying men before hang gliders were parachutists. They did it without engines, just gliding \u2014 they were flying, really. But they had to exit the plane at a low altitude, so that the people at the air shows could see. They had no plan B. They couldn&amp;#039;t escape from a bad situation. So they did these exits, and they killed themselves. If you don&amp;#039;t have feathers, you don&amp;#039;t go in the air without a plan B. As a child, I first wanted to be a cook because my mother was such a good cook. She made a \u2014 I don&amp;#039;t know how to say it in English \u2014 a potato gratin but it&amp;#039;s special, it&amp;#039;s Swiss, with really long cooking. Afterwards, I wanted to be a farmer with my uncle. And then, at 13 I&amp;#039;d been to an air show in Switzerland, and I was so impressed by the jet team from the Swiss Army. It was a time when the airplanes could fly over the public \u2014 the plane was coming so fast, so low, and pow \u2014 a few seconds later, it disappeared behind a crest of a mountain. I was so impressed with the speed, sound, the energy. Fantastic machine. I want. The next flash was at 30. I was a pilot and flying hang gliders, paragliders, aerobatics airplanes, and then I discovered skydiving. Free fall. Free. With nothing around you, just a parachute on your back. And you go down. But you don&amp;#039;t feel like you&amp;#039;re going down. Total freedom. Flying like a bird. So the idea came: Okay, how could I come back to the root, keep these pure feelings of flight as they are in free-fall, but change the vector? And longer.  I went to sky surfing \u2014 like the Silver Surfer \u2014 and the idea was that with that surface under your feet, you can go forward in the air. I did the world championship. But it wasn&amp;#039;t adapted to air: These were big snowboards, rigid and without any profile. It&amp;#039;s not logical to go with a snowboard to the waves in Hawaii; you go with something that is adapted to water, floats. And so what is adapted to air? Wings. So I stood on surf-wings, about the same size as now \u2014 six-feet wingspan.    But it became dangerous. You can imagine: you have a six-foot wing on your feet, and you&amp;#039;re attached to that. And my release handle was on my legs. When suddenly you go upside down, if everything goes well, you go more or less straight, and you come back up again. But sometimes instead it goes, first slowly, like leaves, like helicopters. And faster and faster and faster, and you are centrifuged, with arms so centrifuged that you cannot reach the release. So: Never again the handle on the leg. Also it was not logical to stand on your wing \u2014 birds don&amp;#039;t fly standing on their wings. I developed a harness that I could release. Then I could put anything on my back. I was ready to test anything. First, pieces of wood. In my garage, I put the wing between stands and then put my weight on it. Didn&amp;#039;t break? Go in the air \u2014 high so that you have safety, time to correct something.  I developed small wings for gliding first, and bigger and bigger and bigger. But I thought, Hey, it would be great if I could sustain the flight. The guys with the model airplanes, they developed mini-engines exactly the same as on an AirBus or a Boeing, but just mini. So I put two engines on first. I went from 12,000 feet down to 9,000 feet in gliding, and then I would start my engine in the air. And only one started. Six times that happened. Finally the seventh attempt, I had two engines running. Increased thrust.  It was like magic. Yeah, I think I&amp;#039;m level, yeah. Because in the blue sky, you have no reference. Suddenly I saw something to my right, and I turned from surprise: that was the dropping airplane, which came in formation. What! They are here! The first time, it was absolutely crazy \u2014 especially with friends. Nobody believed in it:   He will crash. He will kill himself. It&amp;#039;s impossible. That&amp;#039;s kamikaze. He&amp;#039;s crazy. But I was with my friends looking at me from the door also shouting like I was shouting in my helmet \u2014 Yeeeeessss! Great emotions. Great moment. It was the first time without any steering other than the body \u2014 like a bird \u2014 someone could stay in the air. I was dreaming of that, and it was the same. I am a stone in comparison with a bird. It&amp;#039;s fantastic when you observe them, especially when you have big winds in the mountains. They are playing with the currents. Every feather is playing, adapting to the air. They don&amp;#039;t realize the chance they have. But as a human being, you dream of that ability and that dream, that fantastic feeling. With a hang glider, I was attacked by an eagle. I saw something, it was coming from behind-right, and I saw a shadow. And than I saw that I was on his territory. Without touching the wing, he was doing attacks. But it was scary because he&amp;#039;s big! And he flies much better. But it was fantastic afterwards, you know? You think, Hey, he took me for big bird. Nice. There were times when I thought I should stop. The first time, it was after a very bad landing. I had a wing that worked, but there were very bad wind conditions. It was in the evening, and the wind just changed. I was in turbulence behind the trees. I crashed, with about 80 pounds of weight on me. Three rolls until I stopped. Normally, I should be in a wheelchair. But nothing. Not a scratch. Like Looney Tunes, you know? It makes you think. I had to do a break, a few months. The next one was when I released the wing. I was completely uncontrolled \u2014 with my engines on \u2014 turning and everything. I continued the flight. To get stability. But I was already low.   And it was going down. And then, Shit. Shit. Shit. Suddenly, it&amp;#039;s too late for everything. The only thing that I could do was pull my parachute \u2014 normally you should be stable when you pull, because if not, then you have lines tangled around you, and you are dead. I knew that when I pulled the parachute. I thought, Hey, if I have a line around my feet, I&amp;#039;m dead. Lucky me. I&amp;#039;m still here. But after? You think about that, and you say, Shit. Next time, it&amp;#039;s finished. It&amp;#039;s black. It&amp;#039;s night. Forever. So again, a six-month break. That&amp;#039;s something about human beings: We have the ability to forget.  It&amp;#039;s not only building wings. It&amp;#039;s my way of life. There is a Chinese proverb: What is important is not the goal or the target, it&amp;#039;s the way. And I&amp;#039;m doing that way. And it&amp;#039;s so rewarding to have a person coming after a show and saying, Hey, thank you. You inspire me a lot. And continue to make the dream come alive. Also on the mystical aspect \u2014 I don&amp;#039;t go regularly to church. I&amp;#039;m Christian, but I&amp;#039;m not practicing. Doubt about God. Now though, I am sure this is something \u2014 in religion, you call that God; I call that the Big Bird. For sure, there is an energy. I was flying in the Grand Canyon, or in Rio \u2014 there are these perfect moments when you are in osmosis with the moment, the place, the elements. In Rio, I was crying in my helmet, saying, Thank you. It was such a privilege, a perfect moment there. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/news/a24665/jetman-yves-rossy-learning-to-fly/>