Dubai’s sky-high aspirations find new outlet as it hosts jet suit race
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Pilots lined up on a runway in Dubai on Wednesday and fired up their seven jet engines with an ear-splitting roar. But they weren’t preparing to fly an airplane — they were the aircraft.
This city-state in the United Arab Emirates, known for being home to the world’s tallest building and other wonders, hosted what it called its first-ever jet suit race. Racers zipped along a route with the skyscrapers of Dubai Marina looming behind them, controlling the jet engines on their hands and their backs.
And if it sounds like Iron Man, the Marvel comic book character made internationally known by actor Robert Downey Jr., the pilots say it is exactly like that.
“The closest analogy would be that dream of flying … and then go wherever your mind is taking you,” said Richard Browning, the founder and chief test pilot for Gravity Industries, the firm that put on the race with Dubai. “And yes, the world of Marvel superheroes and DC Comics, they have created that dream book with CGI, and we’ve got the closest I think anybody’s ever got to delivering that for real.”
Gravity previously drew worldwide attention when it equipped one of its jet suits on a U.K. Royal Marine, who landed on a ship at sea several years ago.
In the time since, they’ve travelled widely with the suits and pursued other military applications for them before coming up with the idea of a competition with the Dubai Sports Council.
The races on Wednesday saw pilots wear 1,500-horsepower jet suits, more powerful than most luxury sports cars and using the same kind of fuel used by Dubai-based long-haul carrier Emirates’ Airbus A380s and Boeing 777 aircraft. Pilots lined up on a runway used at the Dubai Marina by Skydive Dubai, the thrill-seeking firm associated with the sheikhdom’s Crown Prince Hamdan bin Mohammed Al Maktoum, with some parachutists coming down as they prepared their jet packs.
Then came what pilot Issa Kalfon referred to as “the moment of truth.” The engines roared and pilots jumped and leaned forward. And like a helicopter takes off, so too did the pilots as they sped around obstacles in a water channel near the site. Organizers said they picked the water site to allow for higher speeds and for safety as the pilots skimmed a short distance above the water.
The jet suit currently can reach speeds of about 130 km/h, Gravity says. The pilots did pick up speed during their heats, with two actually bumping into each other but remaining in the air as a crowd watched in wonder.