Vincent Reffet
‘Jetman’ who flew alongside an aeroplane 4,000 ft in the sky
VINCENT REFFET, who has died in a training accident in Dubai aged 36, was a French daredevil “jetman” famous for his heart-stopping aerial stunts with jetpacks and wing suits.
In 2014 Reffet performed a world record-breaking base jump (a jump from a fixed object using a parachute) off the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, at 828 metres (2,716 ft) the world’s tallest building.
The following year he joined forces with Yves Rossy, the Swiss “jetman” who had developed carbonfibre wings powered with four small engines which enabled him to fly across the Channel in 2008.
They achieved the extraordinary feat of flying on either side of an Emirates A380 airliner, the world’s largest passenger aircraft, 4,000 ft above sea level. A video of their stunt, with the Dubai skyline in the background, went viral.
Vincent Reffet was born in Annecy, France, on September 15 1984. Both his parents were skydivers and his own early passion for extreme sports began with a bungee jump. He began base-jumping and skydiving (parachuting from an aeroplane) in 2000.
In 2002 he joined the French national Freefly team (freeflying is a version of skydiving in which, before using the parachute, the flier adopts upright or inverted positions, in addition to the traditional “belly-to-earth” orientation, to increase freefall speeds and make new types of formations and routines possible).
He later trained at the Skydive Empuria parachute club, the European centre of modern parachuting in Empuriabrava, Spain, where he formed a skydiving partnership with his fellow Frenchman Frédéric Fugen; they called themselves the Soul Flyers.
During the 2004 World Championships in Brazil, the pair became the Freefly world champions, and they went on to win gold at two more world championships, in 2006 and 2008. They also developed their skills in base-jumping, canopy piloting (a high-speed discipline involving small and very agile parachutes), wind tunnel skydiving,
wingsuit flying, and speed riding (flying down snowcovered slopes with skis, making frequent ground contact).
In 2015 Reffet, having become a protégé of Yves Rossy, joined Rossy’s organisation Jetman Dubai, whose athletes whizz across the sky equipped with four-engine, carbon-kevlar “Jet Wing” jetpacks strapped to their backs. The wings can fly 30 miles with a maximum speed of more than 248 mph and can reach altitudes of 20,000 ft.
“When I am skydiving, I have like this feeling of freedom I can like pretty much go where I want but always going down,” Reffet said in 2015. “With this machine … I can fly like a bird.”
In February this year Reffet performed a vertical take-off from a launch pad, performing “aerobatics” and reaching a top speed of 150 mph before pulling his parachute at an altitude of 4,900 ft.
Reffet admitted that he often felt sick with tension when performing his aerobatic feats. “You’re not well, it’s a mental battle. And then … the project is over and now you’re already thinking about the next project … You have so many dreams and life is so short.”
According to Jetman Dubai, Reffet was killed while training in the Dubai desert.
Vincent Reffet, born September 15 1984, died November 17 2020