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Zooming Around the Alps In a Homemade Wing Suit
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According to Greek legend, when Icarus flew too close to the sun, his wings of wax and feathers promptly melted. Leonardo da Vinci built models of an ornithopter, a human-powered set of wings.
The 20th century saw the development of wingless jet packs and rocket packs that enable the wearer to lift slightly off the ground and zip around for about 30 seconds before settling back to terra firma. James Bond used a jet pack rather than a getaway car in the film "Thunderball."
Advances came through trial and error. A French skydiver, Patrick de Gayardon, invented a nonmechanical wing suit that allowed him to glide for miles. He died in an accident in Hawaii in 1998. Seven years later, Visa Parviainen of Finland attached two tiny jet engines to his feet and jumped out of a hot-air balloon. He flew straight as an arrow for about 30 seconds, and lived to tell about it.
Only Rossy, however, has figured out a way to fly upward in a serious way -- climbing in altitude in a controlled fashion, using only his body to steer. He can ascend as much as 2,000 feet at a time. Eventually, he wants to achieve complete vertical lift.
"You'd see a little gap in the cloud and -- poof! -- you'd go straight up through the hole to the sun, and come back down again," he said. "I hope I am not far away."
Rossy has grand plans for other breakthroughs.
In September, he is scheduled to attempt to fly across the English Channel. If there's no wind, he has calculated that it would take 12 minutes to cross, or more than double the duration of his demonstration flight in Switzerland.
Recently, however, he managed to stay aloft in a test flight for 11 minutes, and he figures he can carry enough fuel to stretch it to 14.
He'd also like to fly across the Grand Canyon. "I could do it tomorrow, it would be easy," he bragged.
Rossy has become a legend in skydiving circles. Bruno Brokken, a world-champion aeronautic acrobat from Belgium, said people had their doubts that Rossy's approach would work.
"Many people would have given up years ago. But he kept trying new ways, new designs, and it finally succeeded," said Brokken, a longtime friend and adviser. "I wouldn't do the things he does. You need to be a special kind of person to do that kind of stuff. He can stay cool in a tough situation."
Rossy said he always adheres to strict, self-imposed safety standards. If things threaten to go awry during a flight -- if he feels a spin coming on, or if the voice altimeter tells him he's dropping dangerously low -- he pulls his parachute cord.
But he admitted that it's getting harder to hold himself back. The more he accomplishes, the more he is tempted to walk the edge, to wait a few more seconds before bailing out.
"I am my own biggest danger now," he said. "There have been times where I had to say afterward, 'Okay, that was too far.' It's typical human behavior. You always want to do more, to achieve this super ability to fly. But if we were really meant to fly, we'd have feathers instead of hair."
