It’s Never Too Late, or High, to Dream

Yves Rossy completes his flight from France to England

NASA’s new Puffin is getting some press, but the original Flying Man began long ago. On September 25, 2008, Superman seemed more like a reality to some off the coast of England. Launching from Calais, France, Yves Rossy became the first man to fly. Strapping a pair of jet engines to a single wing, Rossy flew from Calais, France, 35 kilometers across the English Channel and landed less than 15 minutes later in Dover, England.

Birth of a Dream

Yves Rossy was born in Neuchatel, Switzerland and spent his childhood near Lake Geneva. He always enjoyed extreme sports. From an early age he had a dream of being able to fly, like Superman. “I did a lot of skydiving, it was great, but it was always a fall,” says Rossy. “I wanted to fly, like a bird. So I decided to create a wing suit so I could fly longer, with more liberty and in an upward direction!”

Rossy studied to become an engineer and later became a fighter pilot and finally a commercial pilot for Swiss International Airlines. However, despite his need to grow up and pursue a career path, Yves never forgot his love of extreme sports or desire to fly.

In 1991, Rossy got an idea to complete a multi-activity tour of Switzerland in a single day. He began behind a DC-9 aircraft, and then followed a motorbike, snowboarding, skiing, mountaineering, paragliding, mountain biking, bungee-jumping, and an array of water crafts, cars and barefoot running. Yet that didn’t satiate his desire to fly.

Wing Development

Once he retired from the Air Force, Rossy began to develop a set of personal jet wings using equipment developed by trial and error. After a series of inflatable wings and those resembling a paraglider or skydiver, Rossy got the idea to power a wing using scaled down jet engines.

In 2003, with the help of German-based engine supplier Jet-Cat, Rossy attached an inflatable wing but came up empty handed due to insufficient rigidity. He later tried wood and polystyrene foam but nothing worked.

It was then that he enlisted the help of ACT Composites of Geneva, Switzerland, to develop a carbon composite wing structure. Rossy says that composites were chosen over other similar products because they are lightweight and solid, something that was necessary for his wings. “It was a difficult process,” he says, “to create a rigid wing which was easy to handle but not too big. I didn’t want to create a miniature plane; I wanted to fly like a bird.”

According to Alain Ray, president of ACT Composites, he was taken aback by Rossy’s request. “I wasn’t sure I would be able to make his dream come true, but I promised I would try my best,” he says. “With a degree in nuclear physics, I found it hard to find a job, so in the beginning I used to work on small projects for my friends—although never a project as crazy sounding as this—and eventually I started my own company specializing in composites.”

After a total of 10 years of research and 15 prototypes, Rossy, ACT Composites and Jet-Cat developed a set of wings using a carbon internal structure, fiberglass and airex foam to wrap the wing. “The main part of the rolling work was done manually by a rolling technique to squeeze the composite and remove the excess resin,” says Ray. “Without this process, or composites in general, this wing couldn’t exist.”

After completing his first flight,  Rossy set his sights on a continental exchange.  However, his Morocco to Spain flight landed him in the water, literally, mid-flight do to inclement weather. However, Rossy hasn’t given up. “My experience flying has taught me to always have a plan B. Just because I couldn’t get up on the first try doesn’t mean it couldn’t happen. I met the right people who had the right products to make it happen,” says Rossy. “This project isn’t over. I am now busy developing a new prototype that is shorter and easier to handle. I want to try and use two engines instead of four, but without losing power, enabling me to do acrobatics.” It just proves, with a good idea and the right people and product behind you, the sky’s the limit.