I Want Jet Wings! I Want Jet Wings!

Jet Man over Dover

The story of Yves Rossy's flight across the English Channel is just so wonderful! And I can see that Jet Wings would be the perfect gift for my upcoming birthday. In fact, there should be a set in every garage. I don't particularly care for the way you start to fly, jumping out of an airplane at 8200 feet with the wings, but otherwise, what a completely wonderful, exciting invention. And what an incredible flight!

The New York Times reports:

Yves Rossy, a Swiss pilot and inventor who began his quest to be Buzz by building contraptions in his garage, flew across the English Channel today wearing eight-foot wings powered by four tiny jet engines.

Mr. Rossy, who’s known as FusionMan or Jet Man, jumped out of a plane at 8,200 feet above Calais, France, extended his wings and jetted across the channel at 125 miles per hour. He took 10 minutes to complete the 26-mile crossing, and parachuted to a landing on English soil not far from the famous white cliffs of Dover.

There's video of the flight if the still photographs aren't enough to inspire you.

The world needs more of this. And all of us who once dreamed of being Astronauts? We need this badly.