British Inventor Makes Real-life Iron Man Suit

Some Genius Has Invented An Iron Man Suit That Actually Works

Long Story Short

If you’ve never really let go of the superhero fantasy, now you don’t have to. One man has made Iron Man a reality with his one-man flying suit, and his inventions are coming for you.

Long Story

If you’ve always wanted to fly, but find aeroplanes a bit, you know, 20th century, you’re in luck. One British man is on a mission to make personal aeronautics a reality, and he’s already pretty far down the line with it.

It looks like something straight from a film – but inventor and former Marine reserve, Richard Browning, really has invented a flight suit. It looks super-human, but it’s 100 per cent real (or the best April Fool in history).

Richard Browning

Over 12 months, the 38-year-old developed a skeletal suit complete with four arm-mounted and two hip-mounted gas turbine engines that can lift a person who’s capable of holding their body weight. In other words: allow them to fly. 

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Browning developed the suit in his countryside farmyard in Wiltshire, and has named it Daedalus, after the Greek inventor. The process cost an estimated £40,000, but it’s certainly money well spent as you can see below.

Daedalus’s movement is directed by the body. It can fly in most locations, and at up to 450 kilometeres an hour. So far, Browning has managed to fly for 12 minutes, and at nowhere near full speed.

Browning has developed a business around the suit, Project Gravity, and he has plans to take his invention much further. He told WIRED, “One day you’ll literally be able to walk around in your garden, take off, fly about, then come down low and land”.

Browning says that Daedalus is “simply the beginning of a core technology that has endless potential in aviation, commercial and entertainment applications”.

“We’ve already had a few comparisons to Tony Stark,” he said, “but this is real-world aeronautical innovation. We are serious about building a world-changing technology business. We stand at the very beginning of what human propulsion systems will do. It’s at the same point as the mobile phone was in the early to mid-80's or the internet of the early 90's – and I have to say, it’s phenomenally exciting.”

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Almost 12 per cent of people would pick flying as their super power.