If you’ve ever dreamed of becoming a real-life Iron Man, and have enough Tony Stark-style cheddar that you can afford to drop $250,000 on an expensive toy, then 2017 may be the year for you!
That’s because the U.K.-based startup Gravity, which launched at the end of last week, is set to offer intrepid customers the chance to buy their own flight suit; giving wealthy owners the opportunity to joyfully soar over us lowly peasants as we trudge to work the boring, old-fashioned way.
“It is a system that employs six micro-gas turbines to augment the human form, such that the pilot can then achieve vertical takeoff and full flight maneuverability,” inventor and co-founder Richard Browning told Digital Trends. “It’s augmenting the human mind and body with elegant engineering in the form of the six micro-gas turbines, and therefore is the rawest form of human flight achieved so far.”
In addition to micro-gas turbines, the suit features plenty of other Iron Man-esque touches, such as a heads-up display capable of relaying fuel levels using a WiFi connection. Apparently the suit can travel at multiple hundreds of miles per hour, although so far its creators haven’t been able to get hold of a big enough test flight area to truly put it through its paces.
Given its hefty price tag, the Daedalus flight suit is unlikely to become a mass-market product any time soon, and Browning noted that it will appeal mainly to “high net worth individuals with the means to afford what’s likely to be a six-figure personalized suit.” There are other possibilities, however, such as using it at private demonstrations, educational events, or keynotes.
Put away your wallet, though, because the company’s not quite ready to start shipping.
“Our beta suit the Daedalus could go into mass production next week; however we are spending the next 3-6 months extensively improving and updating everything,” Browning said. “We see Q4 2017 as the point where we have a world class market leading technology, which has endless applications in commercial, military and entertainment market. It’s not just the suit in its current form that we will commercialize, but the technology behind it: brands who want to be part of the hundreds of millions of people who will want to see it in action and experience its development.”
