A British company envisions a day when a first responder will swoop down out of the sky to render emergency aid and it re-enacted what that might look like recently. Gravity Industries shot a video showing a man in its “jet suit” launching on the mission and landing next to the person in make-believe distress. The demonstration was carried out in cooperation with the U.K.’s Great North Air Ambulance Service and it might be something deployed in its rescue services. “We think this technology could enable our team to reach some patients much quicker than ever before,” GNAAS Director of Services Andy Mawson told TransportUp. “In many cases this would ease the patient’s suffering. In some cases, it would save their lives.”

In the drill, the man in the suit launched from beside a road to a woman who was pretending to be a hiker with a leg injury. The jet suit, which includes a backpack with the main thrusters and sleeve-mounted steering jets, propelled the “rescuer” to the woman in 90 seconds. It would have taken about 25 minutes to hike there. The suit uses a total of six micro-jets powered by either jet fuel or diesel.

Russ Niles
Russ Niles is Editor-in-Chief of AVweb. He has been a pilot for 30 years and joined AVweb 22 years ago. He and his wife Marni live in southern British Columbia where they also operate a small winery.

8 COMMENTS

  1. When I read the title, I thought it was a drill to rescue someone in a simulated jet suit crash incident. That is probably more common when using these devices…

  2. One can never doubt the ingenuity of man. On the other hand, wearing five or more jet engines on your body plus a cache of flammable fuel???? We’ll have to ask Paul to run one of his statistical analyses of the risks involved here!

  3. I hiked the hills of the Lake District as a kid. I wasn’t carrying 30kg of fuel, however. I have also hiked the hills of Northern California, where the grass is a lot drier and more flammable. I wonder about the fire risk from the jet blast of that suit. No problem in Cumbria, most of the year. But a big problem in California, much of the year.

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