This week in Dubai, daring pilots raced jet-powered exo-suits reaching speeds over 80 miles per hour to crown a champion. Whizzing past skyscrapers in contraptions straight from comic books, the contest captivated crowds and evoked superhero fantasies brought to unlikely life.
“The closest analogy would be that dream of flying… and then go wherever your mind is taking you,” Richard Browning, founder of Gravity Industries and impresario of this event, told the Associated Press. “And yes, the world of Marvel superheroes and DC Comics.”
The jet suits’ 1,500-plus horsepower engines screamed deafeningly as contestants blasted off from a waterside platform used by local skydivers. Trailing wake and weaving between buoys, the course allowed high velocities safely just above the sea. Some bumping inevitably occurred at the spectacle’s bleeding edge extremes.
But despite inevitable risks when pushing limits, the triumphant victor hoisted a symbolic golden turbine engine in celebration after surviving intense heats against three rivals. One pilot did violently crash into the water feet first, yet immediately signaled thumbs up to rescuers amidst the waves and fumes.
For the organizers, such a spectacle comes with expanded possibilities. His jet suits previously enabled historic feats like a Royal Marine landing aboard a ship under jet power alone years ago, hinting at military applications.
Today’s successful race shows how the rapid mobility once confined to sci-fi movies can become real through human hardware and nerve. Guests welcomed more opportunities to personally take flight themselves soon amidst Dubai’s renown adventure offerings.
“You can see the best show you can ever see in Dubai because people are flying — they are flying in the sky,” importer-exporter Pratik Vyas, 35, of Gujarat, India, said after witnessing the event. “It’s a next-level tech. It’s really, really nice because if you’re a big fan of Iron Man, you know, Tony Stark, it’s Iron Man tech.”
The Associated Press contributed to this article.