Dubai: “It was an absolutely surreal experience. We felt like mosquitoes besides a gigantic eagle.”
This is how Yves Rossy — popularly known as ‘Jetman’ — described his flight with ‘Jetman Junior’ Vince Reffet alongside an Emirates A380 aeroplane over The Palm Jumeirah with the Burj Khalifa in the background, in the middle of October this year.
Born on August 27, 1959, Rossy is a Swiss military-trained pilot. Used to an unusual sort of freedom, Rossy sought total freedom that could not be contained even inside of an aeroplane cabin. That is when he set out as an inventor of the now-famous series of experimental individual jet packs while using carbon-fibre wings for flying. There were ups and downs along the way as ‘Jetman’ lived to tell his amazing tale as innovator, inventor and dreamer, all rolled into one.
Over the UAE National Day weekend, Rossy was at it again with Junior Jetman — showing the huge audience the reason why he can be considered to be one of the true legends in air sports.
But Rossy disagrees. “I’m human like you, but doing some special acts whenever I have the opportunity,” the 59-year-old Swiss told ‘Gulf News’.
“The sky is big, really big. And to be out there is total freedom with no limits. This is our life to be out in the open skies feeling a total sense of liberation and freedom,” he added.
Before being bitten by the adventure bug, Rossy served as a fighter pilot in the Swiss Air Force, before joining Swissair, flying Boeing 747s.
It was then that he developed and built a wing-suit system comprising a backpack equipped with semi-rigid aeroplane-type carbon-fibre wings with a span of about 2.4 metres and powered by four Jet-Cat P200 jet engines. This invention gave Rossy various monikers, including ‘The Airman’, ‘Rocketman’, ‘Fusionman’ and most famously ‘Jetman’.
Prior to his move here with X-Dubai, Rossy was featured in an episode of Stan Lee’s ‘Superhumans’, while also appearing in BBC’s ‘Top Gear’, where he raced Richard Hammond and Toni Gardemesiter. So far, the Swiss has used 15 different prototypes of the jet-pack with varying shapes, profiles and sizes. Over the UAE National Day weekend, Rossy and his protégé had entertained the huge gathering at Skydive Dubai along with Hungarian aerobatic champion Zoltan Veres.
Over the past few months, Rossy and Reffet have made Dubai and the UAE their area of research and operation. During this time, they have completed a twin human formation flying across iconic landmarks such as the Burj Al Arab, the Burj Khalifa, The Palm Jumeirah and the Liwa Desert.
“One of the most difficult things for me is to explain this sense of freedom. When I am at that height and at that speed, it’s like I am in water, and yet playing with the clouds and coming closer to my dream of being able to fly like a bird by taking off from the ground,” Rossy related.
Thanking the support of X-Dubai which keeps them going, Rossy said: “Without the support and backing of Shaikh Hamdan Bin Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai and Chairman of Dubai Sports Council, we would be nowhere. At the moment, our focus is to find solutions to one of humankind’s ambitions: that is to fly like a bird. I know this sounds a bit crazy right now, but if we go step by step, this dream too will be a reality,” he added.
