I recently read an article in the U.K paper The Guardian reporting on a British man’s work developing a jet suit designed to enable one person to fly solo for up to ten minutes. The flyer wears an exoskeleton suit with six attached micro jet engines, based on the technology found in aircraft engines. Inventor Richard Browning says he is “ pioneering an entirely new category in aviation history”.
If the idea takes off, flying paramedics could be armed with a medical kit with strong pain relief for walkers who may have suffered fractures and a defibrillator for those who may have suffered a heart attack. The suit means a person can fly to the top of a Lake District fell in ninety seconds rather than thirty minutes by foot.
Interviewed about the road from initial concept to actual controlled solo flight Browning says “there’s no rule book for this, there’s no manual. When the Wright brothers were learning how to fly there were no flying lessons, they had to just learn”. For Browning the whole journey was about “trying and failing, and learning from that”.
Reminiscent of Jonathan Livingstone Seagull’s early attempts at flying, Browning’s creation also brings to mind Tom Petty’s song “Learning To Fly”. Petty sings “I’m learning to fly, but I ain’t got wings. Coming down is the hardest thing”. For me, Petty’s song, like a mountain rescue jet man, reaches out to people trying to overcome difficult situations. Like a poem or a lyric can soothe our minds so Browning, in his jet suit, is poetry in motion.
As an independent recording artist, this story made me question the notion of “solo flight”. I have completed ten solo records but know that, in truth, I am nothing without the friends, family and peers helping me along. Just as I owe so much to my forebearers, Robert Browning has harnessed many people’s work to realise his solo effort
I’m D.B.G (Dan Barnaby Goddard), a writer and recording artist based on Dartmoor in the West of the U.K. My songs are musical poems reflecting things I have seen and felt throughout my life and I’m always on the lookout for stories which reaffirm my trust in humanity and the human spirit.
In this Buzz column I seek out instances to fill in the spaces left by an increasingly corporate world, commenting on the unpredictable and heart warming gems which are created as the wheels of power keep turning round.
