Richard Browning, 38, has stunned audiences around the world after posting incredible footage of himself hovering above the ground and manoeuvring around a farmyard in a jet-powered Iron Man style flight suit. And now he has been showcasing his startling invention around the world. [gallery td_select_gallery_slide=“slide” ids=“23514,23513,23512,23511”] Former City oil trader Richard explained: “I’m a believer in the genuine spirit of how innovation takes place. For me it is all about spending less time arguing about whether something is possible and more on working out how to make something work.” Richard, who lives in Salisbury, explained that his idea - dubbed the Daedalus suit by his eight year old son Thomas - grew out of a series of conversations with like-minded enthusiasts. He added: “It sort of developed out of one of those pub conversations. I was looking at ways that you could augment the human body - working with that as a starting point and trying to make that better. “When you think about it, with the human brain you already have the most powerful computer that is currently in existence. If you can harness that, then you are already onto a winner. My flying suit does not need any gyroscopes, because the brain itself is incredibly good at making those micro adjustments. This can be proved if you think about the complex calculations needed to make something walk without falling over. The human brain is instinctively able to make all the necessary adjustments.” He said that the exoskeleton suit had been carefully developed over the past couple of years in a careful step-by-step evolution, with a series of increasingly ambitious test flights in a farm in Wiltshire. “We started out with just one thruster. I initially wanted to see if it was possible to stand there and hold the thruster. Some people said that it would be incredibly dangerous but it was absolutely fine, no shredded arms, no burns - it was then that I knew we were onto something.” “I’ve got to the point now where I can fly around without too much conscious thought - it’s a bit like when you use one of those small diggers, to start with you are looking at moving the levers and thinking too much about which lever to move to produce which effect, but after a while you just think about what you want to move and you brain makes it happen. It’s like that with Daedalus suit.” Although safety is at the forefront of his flight demonstrations, the suit is capable of flying at 200 mph and cruising at an altitude of a few thousand feet with a current flight duration of around ten minutes. Although Richard wears fire-proof protective gear and tough rattlesnake-proof boots that he sourced from the US, he was surprised that being in such proximity to the four small jets he directs with his hands was entirely painless. “Given that you are looking at temperatures of 700 degrees centigrade from the exhaust, it’s remarkable that you don’t get burned. But the heat very quickly dissipates in the air - the technology works.” The project is being taken forward under a startup company Gravity which has had huge interest from commercial and military representatives. The firm has had a lot of interest from investors, including a recent investment of £600,000 from Tim Draper, an American venture capitalist. No stranger to danger, the Royal Marine Reservist threw himself into getting into shape to meet the demands of human-guided flight by embarking on a gruelling regime of physical training alongside developing the design of the Daedalus flight suit. “People ask me what’s the point - and I reply that I’ve done this for exactly the same reason that you might look at a mountain and decide to climb it. After all, what’s the point of a jet ski? There isn’t one, but they are great fun. I’m doing this for the journey and the challenge.” Most children think their dad is a superhero, but for Richard’s two sons, Thomas, 8, and Oliver 10, their claim is closer to the truth than most. When Oliver was asked what he thinks about his dad, he just had one word “Awesome”. And here at the Ocelot, we agree.
