Developed by Absolute Composites, a Bengaluru-based aviation and aerospace component maker, it is a turbine-based individual mobility platform. It is designed to lift a person up to 20-metre above the ground, and bring him or her down, and move around in all directions, claims the company. Its power can support such movements for up to eight minutes at a time.
While the suit attracted lots of eyeballs, at the air show, the company could not demonstrate its flight for want of regulatory approvals. The company says it would need the clearance of the Directorate General of Civil Aviation for on-field demonstrations.
Absolute’s founder, Raghav Reddy (40), a mechanical engineer by training, said it took two years for him to develop the suit which has 70% Indian components. The suit will be of use in disaster management, among others, Reddy said.
The Ministry of Defence last month invited proposals for buying 48 jetpack suits under its ‘Buy Indian’ scheme. The response is expected to reveal if there are other makers of such a suit in India.
The jet suit weighs 40 kg, with 50 litres of fuel in it, and can be worn by a person weighing up to 80 kg and at least five feet tall. A jet suit can be powered by any modern propulsion system including turbine engines and electric or hybrid systems.
Absolute’s jet suit is powered by seven miniature diesel turbo engines; three at the back and two each are on either arm, Reddy told ET.The suit can be of assistance in disasters, for crossing broken roads or bridges or repairing them, or moving in rocky hills and areas that may be damaged due to rain or landslides. “It can be used by the army to reach 10-15 metres in altitude and cross landmines, with their equipment like magazines, cartridges and guns,” Reddy said, adding that the suit should be used only for take-off and landing.
“One cannot wear the suit, hover and repair a bridge, for example. He should land, park the equipment and proceed with his operations,” he added.
It can also be used by the navy for ship-to-shore commuting. If the coastline, because of shallow waters, cannot be used for docking, a significant distance can be crossed by troops using jet suits instead of using dinghies which are slow,” he said.
Co-developed by Irfan Alam, who executed the hardware components of the suit, Janme Jay Prasanna Bahekar, the jetpack suit’s test pilot, and lead engineer Dinesh Reddy, Absolute with an employee strength of 65, initially started developing the jetpack suit for recreational and adventure purposes.
“We started it for adventures akin to bungee jumping, and paragliding. There is a certain kind of equipment and training required for it. We wanted something for leisure flying that is compact enough to be packed into the car boot so that one can go to the nearest park or waterbody and have the experience of flying,” he said, adding that while building a training ground for test pilots, they came across the request for proposal of the defence ministry.
There are not many players developing jetpack suits, at least in India. It was invented by Richard Browning, founder and chief test pilot at Gravity Industries, a British company that designs and builds his invention — the Daedalus Flight Pack.
The other players Reddy has heard of in this space are Franky Zapata and JetPack Aviation.
JetPack Aviation has been one of the leaders in the micro personal vertical take-off and landing industry for the past 10 years. Based in Los Angeles, California, between 2010 and 2015 it designed and built the world’s first portable jetpack. After eight earlier iterations, its CEO flew the JB9 jetpack around the Statue of Liberty in November 2015.
