Richard Browning’s Gravity Industries was founded in 2017 to make the human dream of flying solo possible. Three years later, the Jet Suit technology has evolved and is now being tried out by Royal Navy Marines. A Marines reservist himself, Richard used to be an oil trader before he tapped into his rich family history in aviation to start the new company.
Taking human flight into a new era, the Gravity Jet Suit uses over 1,000 bhp of engine thrust and combines it with the natural human balance to make humanity’s dream come true. Don’t believe us? Just watch the Marines in the video below as they test launch a jet suit by hopping across from a PAC-24 Fast RIB and onto a P2000 patrol boat:
For such operations, it becomes extremely difficult otherwise, when the Marines or Coast Guard personnel have to usually line up their boats in order to hop across while propelling forwards. Choppy waters, bad weather and other such hazards only make such manoeuvres even more difficult. Although we aren’t sure if the thrust is enough to make two people cheat gravity, these suits can also assist in rescue operations, where a coast guard helicopter usually has to drop a pickup basket with pinpoint accuracy in order to lift stranded folks.
How Does It Work?
Gravity Industries’ Jet Suit is powered by five turbines which together develop about 1,050 bhp at a mind-boggling spinning speed of 120,000 rpm. The Jet Suit weighs 27 kilos and consumes either Jet A1 fuel or diesel for a flying time of 5-10 minutes. The fastest it can fly is at a speed of 136.9 kmph.
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Think this tech is reserved only for the select few? Gravity also lets individuals from any background join them at their flight team training hangar, which is about 90 minutes outside of London. There, they let you realise your dream of flying on your own, inside a controlled and safe environment. Called the Human Propulsion Lab, the repurposed jet testing facility is a former RAF military base. Once prepped, an individual gets to experience the following along with free lunch with the company’s founder, live and untethered flight demonstration by a qualified member of the Gravity Display Team, more flight training and Jet Suit experience:
- The Jet Suit power-up sequence
- Initial low-power flight experimentation
- Higher power testing (dependent on client’s flight capabilities)