Graphic: Flying with Fusionman

With a roar and a whoosh, a Swiss airline pilot is due to zoom over the White Cliffs of Dover and land in the history books at lunchtime today.

Yves Rossy, 49, will not be flying the Airbus aircraft he usually commands. Instead, he will be wearing a wing with four motors on his back in his attempt to become the first human jet to fly the Channel.

Mr Rossy, who calls himself Fusionman, plans to drop out of an aircraft high above Calais, ignite his jet engines and, using his body to steer like a bird, rocket across the Channel at speeds of up to 115mph (185km/h), hopefully reaching Dover in about 13 minutes.

Times Archive, 1909: The Cross-Channel flight

The long dreamt-of feat has been actually accomplished and M. Blèriot has set the seal on his fame

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“I fly with my body,” he told The Times during testing. “The wing is just a device that allows me to remain free in the air. I move my head a little and I turn. Or I put out my leg a few inches and I bank and descend. I play with all the elements of flight that I know so well.”

Mr Rossy, who is following the flightpath of Louis Blériot, who piloted the first aircraft across the Channel in 1909, has spent eight years designing and testing his jetpack. He made history in 2006 when he became the first powered “birdman” and last month he successfully completed a 24-mile (38.6km) flight over the Alps — preparation enough to get him over the Channel, he hopes. The Channel is 21 miles wide at its narrowest point.

Although a hero in the world of extreme air sports and a former Swiss fighter pilot, Mr Rossy is no daredevil. He wears two parachutes when flying as Fusionman. “I take great care with safety and there is always a Plan B. When I am the captain of an Airbus” — he flies Swiss International A320 Airbuses on the Zurich-Heathrow route — “it’s zero-risk.” He added: “I don’t have anything to prove in an Airbus. With passengers, I don’t play the fool. But when I’m alone there’s a big difference.”

Provided that the fair weather holds, Mr Rossy will drop from a Pilatus single-engine turboprop plane at 8,000ft (2,400m) over Cap Blanc Nez, near Calais, at about 1pm. While in freefall at speeds of up to 180mph, he will open the 8ft-long Kevlar wings harnessed to his back and, with the twist of a motorcycle throttle, power up the four turbines, which he will have lit in the plane.

He will be wearing a flameproof suit, to help him to withstand the jet exhaust around his legs, and a May West flotation vest, in the entirely plausible event that the 30 litres (almost seven gallons) of fuel that he is carrying run out before Dover and he has to make what the airlines call a “water landing”.

Mr Rossy — whose outfit bears more than a passing resemblance to that of Buzz Lightyear, the intrepid spaceman from the Toy Story films — will level off at about 5,000ft. He will then head towards Dover at about 115mph, the speed of a small light aircraft.

“I fly in front to guide him,” Jean-Marc Colomb, the pilot of his support plane, told The Times. “I have to show him the way because he doesn’t have navigation equipment or a radio.” Mr Rossy does, however, have an audio altimeter in his helmet. He will also be accompanied by two helicopters — one to follow with television cameras and the other to rescue him from the water if necessary.

If all goes to plan, Fusionman should swoop over the lighthouse at South Foreland, St Margaret’s Bay, and, with engines stopped, pull the ripcord for the parachute that will let him float to the ground.

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