Humanity has always been fascinated by flight. The story of human flight is a long one, beginning hundreds of years ago. The early ‘tower jumpers’ of medieval Europe were so obsessed with being able to fly they would strap wings made of feathers to their arms and jump off tall towers or cliffs. Most of them would either sustain great injuries or plummet to their death.

Fast forward a few hundred years to the renaissance. Leonardo Da Vinci was also somewhat obsessed with flight. Through studying birds, he came to understand many key principles of aerodynamics and sketched out designs for a variety of flying machines. Most of these were never tested, however, and he himself never attempted to fly.

The first practical form of air travel was the airship. Ferdinand von Zeppelin pioneered this technology and in 1900 the LZ1 Zeppelin made its first successful flight over Lake Constance in Southern Germany.

In was only a couple of years later, in 1902, that the Wright brothers perfected their glider design and managed to conduct hundreds of successful, manned flights in what today is recognised as the first primitive airplane.

Fast forward another century to today and instead of strapping feathers to our arms, we’re strapping on jet engines.

Having perfected passenger flight in the form of modern aircraft, focus has recently shifted to personal flight. While not a huge industry yet, it is only a matter of time before augmented human flight ‘takes off’ and we’re all whizzing to work in jetpacks.

As things currently stand, there are two major players in the personal flight game and both have successfully engineered fully functioning jetpacks.

The first is a company called ‘JetPack Aviation’. In late 2015, their CEO, David Mayman, broke major ground when he flew around the statue of liberty in a jetpack. Since then, JetPack Aviation has made huge progress in developing the world’s first FAA approved jetpack, and have just recently launched the JB-11, a safer and faster successor to their previous model, the JB-10.

The JB-11 certainly looks like how you would imagine a jetpack to look. It straps onto your back like a giant rucksack and contains three turbojet engines on either side. The JB-11 can, theoretically, reach speeds of over 240km/h, and heights of over 15000 feet. While impressive, the practicality of such a feat remains unknown.

Safety is a major concern for JetPack Aviation and as such they have integrated an auto-stabilization feature into their latest model, which will rebalance the thrust following engine failure, keeping the pilot from spiralling out of control.

CEO David Mayman has also stated that future versions will come equipped with a parachute system that will deploy automatically in the case of catastrophic failure, where engine stabilization wouldn’t help.

As far as commercial intent goes, Mayman has stated that until the parachute system is up and running, he doesn’t feel comfortable selling his JetPacks to anyone.

The second company making waves in the personal flight space is Gravity. Founded in 2017, by ex-soldier Richard Browning, Gravity is already a multi-million dollar organisation at the forefront of augmented human flight technology.

Gravity’s jetpack, however, looks somewhat peculiar. In fact, it’s less of a jetpack and more of a jet suit. The Iron Man-like suit is made up of five small jet engines — two on each of the pilot’s arms and one mounted on his back. The thrust is controlled using a drill-like trigger and movement in accomplished by physically manoeuvring one’s body in order to maintain stability and direction.

The suit is made from 3D printed aluminium parts and even has WiFi capabilities built-in. Inside the helmet is a display which provides the pilot with information such as fuel consumption and other important data.

Richard Browning developed his jetpack in little over a year after having experimented with mounting turbojet engines on different areas of his body until he finally found a design that worked. His whole journey into personal flight speaks to the trial and error process of developing new technology.

After watching YouTube videos of both the jetpacks, it’s safe to say that both companies have achieved something remarkable, and in a relatively short period of time.

Having said all this, however, it’s important to realise that jetpacks/jet suits are still a long way from becoming a practical means of transportation.

For one thing, they guzzle jet fuel like you wouldn’t believe. JetPack aviation’s JB-11 can currently only fly for around 7 minutes before running out of fuel and Gravity’s jet suit boasts a similarly unimpressive flying time of around 6 minutes, assuming optimal conditions.

Both jetpacks also lack a parachute system, a key safety measure without which most would be too afraid to fly.

So yes, there is room for improvement. But looking at how quickly both companies have developed their respective jetpacks, it’s safe to say that the technology will only get safer and more practical as time goes on. Not to mention cheaper. Gravity currently have a version of their jet suit out on the market for an incredible $450,000, the first of which has been bought by a Japanese billionaire.

We live in an exciting time. With the wealth of information available online, the ease of connectivity and the growing aptitude for self-learning developing around the globe, gone are the days when you would have needed a PhD in engineering from MIT to pioneer new technology. In fact, Richard Browning, CEO of Gravity, claims not to be from a technical background. He did begin a degree in engineering but found it boring and dropped out to join the military.

All of this leads to the conclusion that if you truly want to make an impact in today’s technological world, all you need is an idea and the passion to make that idea into a reality.

Self-driving cars, re-usable rockets, artificial intelligence and now augmented human flight are just a few of the ground-breaking new technologies that promise to change the world as we know it today.

We are currently on the forefront of a technological revolution.

How do you plan to contribute?