Hey guys I'm the Hacksmith. My team and I take fictional ideas from comics movies and video games
and make real working prototypes in our Youtube series, Make it Real
You've probably seen some of our projects before, like our electromagnetic Captain America shield
Zarya's particle cannon from Overwatch
a real like lightsaber, different Thor's hammers, Cap's new Wakandan shield and even
Thor's new weapon, Stormbreaker
Normally with our projects we show the build process and finish with an epic test video
where we truly see what the project can do
today we're doing something different, I've got a big surprise to share
It's something almost all of you have been waiting to see
It might even be the reason why you subscribed
and it's actually a bitter sweet moment for me, because today I'm finally going to be learning
how to fly like Iron Man
We're on our way to a special private event hosted by Gravity Industries
If you haven't heard of them, Gravity was founded by Richard Browning. A true real life Tony Stark
He's done events all around the world and inspired people everywhere he's been
over the past 3 years Richard has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars developing his patented
1000 horse power jet suit, that allows him to fly just like Iron Man
He even has a lab in England with an entire wall of prototype suits and robotic systems
just like Tony Stark
While Richard was in his lab developing his prototypes in secret half way around the world
my team and I had also started working on a flight project that we called flying like Iron Man
Our project began as a stunt we promised for our one hundred thousand subscriber milestone
If we crack one hundred thousand subscribers we should try and recreate this scene from Iron Man
Let's be honest, it's probably going to look more like this
So please, don't subscribe
Needless to say we blew past one hundred thousand subscribers and had to make good on our promise
So we strapped model rockets to my wrists, to see if I could hover for a few seconds
For what we knew was a very very very stupid idea we still had a lot of fun with it
and so did the audience
Flying like Iron Man became one of our most successful video series at the time
and people wanted more
Needless to say rockets were not the answer, between being a serious safety hazard of
burning of even detonation
the high cost and issues igniting them simultaneously
If we were going to continue flying like Iron Man we would need something different
That's when we started experimenting with electric ducted fans or EDFs for short
using two wrist mounted EDFs and a counter weight pulley system I was able to preform an assisted hover
next we added boot EDFs but the problem was to get enough thrust we would need more than 20 EDFs
which wouldn't really fit on my body
So we found the largest EDFs commercially available, ten of which would be powerful enough to lift a person
but they were even more expensive
so we turned to our fans for help and you guys helped raise enough money to purchase
One of these giant EDFs to test
We even tried making one of our own EDFs to keep costs down
Though that was easier said than done
we continued working on the design in the background investing tens of thousands of dollars
and many late nights
we even toyed with using miniature jet engines to provide a majority of the steady lift
with EDFs only controlling the guidance
But we knew how expensive it would be to purchase all of the components to make that possible
Potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars
something we just couldn't afford
Soon after Richard showed the world what he had been working on
We saw it and we're awestruck
Richard had done the impossible, he was flying like Iron Man
Not only that we found out we can buy one of his suits for only $440,000
No no we didn't buy one, though I would if I could
You may be wondering why I gathered you all here today, well I've got some good news
I bought the jet pack
The bad news is I had to sell the shop and you're all fired
Ya, I guess I had my reasons not to
Back at the shop we still had to make a decision, should we pursue a project that someone else
had already patented and risk spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to make it happen with
no guarantee of success
Or should we direct our efforts and put finances into other Make it Real projects
and growing our business
That was 2 years ago when we had only just reached 1 million subscribers
Since then we have completed over 75 other Make it Real projects
Including several featuring our EDF and jet engine we purchased for flying like Iron Man
We've now grown to 5 times the size we were, employ over a dozen people
Including students from local Universities and high schools
And we're even better equipped to take on big projects like the Aliens Power Loader
And this new project I'm super excited for
What's that project?
But more on that later
Based on the feedback from our audience we know that our videos have helped inspire the next generation
of engineers to dream big
and I'm confident that we made the right decision to grow the business instead of going broke doing something that's already been done
but because of that I never got to learn how to fly like Iron Man
until now
Alright you're doing it, you're living out every little kid's dream of flying like Iron Man
How's it feel when you take off? Like you're literally flying without a vehicle
It's impossible to put it into words but it's almost like that dream that people have
about flying. You genuinely have a three dimensional freedom
where you can just go wherever you think
A bicycle, you don't steer it, you just think where you're going to go
Same with this in three dimensions
It's truly insane
The really weird sensation is that it's quite gentle
It's just this gentle spongy push, almost like holding a fire hose of water
Alright so why don't you walk us through the suit and just
How does it actually work?
It's 5 jet engines and little gas turbines
You've got 2 on each arm and then you've got one around the back
And between those clusters of thrust that's what creates that kind of pyramid of thrust
Control is all really down to vectoring with your arms, where do you point them?
You point them down you go up, you point them out and then you go down again
the fuel bladder is in here, they're basically like rubberized bags
and then round the front you've got this kind of waist coat of electronics
beside the helmet there's kind of a heads up display system which takes a wireless data feed from this box
So I can see my fuel burn and flight time and engine status
So ya it's pretty simple, and this is actually quite an old model now
We've now got a version that is almost entirely 3D printed and believe it or not in polymer
That's amazing, can't wait to try
Alright let's put it on
Shoulders, and we close this around here
If you put your right arm into there
If you latch that switch, so press it in
Now let go of it
It latches and now you can see
You know how these things work right? This is now base load sort of PWM signal
And now if you were to
And don't do it
Pull the trigger in and hold it
don't do it
That's sending an even greater PWM signal, which is the signal for the engines to begin
So if you just pull it in, that's the range of motion
Once I give them a little shake and say ok you're good
I'll see the green lights on all the engines
This is what you'd see in your heads up usually
I'll walk away that then I'll give you a thumbs up
and that trigger is live and you'll be able to play with it
and mainly just have a play with the throttle response
and have a play with what sort of happens as you move around
and see how that goes and then we can shut it down and step the power up from there
that's the plan
I feel like a cross between top gun and Iron Man
Ya I think you'd really enjoy trying on the tether
So what we're going to do is go out there, I'll take some of the weight just to save your arms a bit
And then you're going to latch that kill switch, pull the trigger, hold it for 3 or 4 seconds
Until I say it's fine
then let go of it and than you know they start up
And once it's good I'll give them a shake
ok you got it?
And I'll let go
When I first start I'm holding them up like this?
It's this position
If you think about it you've got thrust coming out of here and you've got thrust you want to put there and there
In that big kind of stable pyramid
Now normally beginner pilots would use their tether system which is actually something you can do yourself
if you check out Gravity.co
There are links in the description below
unfortunately for me they didn't have the tether system with them in California
Because it was just a private demonstration they were hosting
But Richard trusted me enough to use the suit anyways
Just at a lower power level
Again it's very low power but it's enough for you to start feeling what would make sense if we put that power level up
This is going to be very low and then we'll easily step it up
It most uncomfortable when it's not flying
Right so, kill switch, latch it
Now pull the trigger in all the way and hold it
Now with the rear engine it's probably quite nice to lean forward a little bit
It'll just warm your ankles a bit otherwise
Pretty good right? Low power but you can feel it?
oh ya
Your stability looked really good, you can start to feel that kind of lateral stability
Ya
I've got to do this again
You need a bit more fuel
When I finally powered off the engines and took my earmuffs off I'm like oh ya this is super loud
I literally felt like Iron Man, just like when you start to bring the arms down
and it's so cool like you do all the thrust control
In the arm grips to change the power
Spool up time still takes a few seconds to like react
But just moving your arms down
You go full power from here to here
It's so much more fine control than playing with throttles
So generally when you're flying are you on just like full power
Squeeze it on
You want to tune it. We're good at this
So you take off at about here
Getting really stable and then you want to like accelerate you can do this
So vectoring is kind of the key to all this
Well he's messed around with EDFs so there's a really good bit of natural learning around force
It's quite the feeling when the back engine kicked on
And then my legs started getting hot and I'm like better lean over a bit
Your challenge this time is to just play with the trigger, get that lateral stability
Get to the point where you're holding in that trigger all the way and you're hitting the maximums I've given you
You're like okay I've got this I could stay here for awhile if I need to
Now just start bringing it down, as you bring it down, don't lose sight, you've still got to keep your stability
If it all goes a bit wrong just flare out again
That was really really good
That's quite a risk of going in the air and then suddenly losing it and stumbling
So that bodes really well
If we have the tether, or when you're on the tether
Then all you're doing is just increasing that power and then you just come down slower and slower
And eventually you don't come down
eventually you do
That was really good, that was great
I just think if we over step this too far, you could stumble a bit
And then it could all go wrong very quick
Not because you're going to fly and hit a wall or anything, you'll just fall over
So you can feel that was a bit more power than last time
Oh ya
It felt like I was just getting so close
when I brought it close it was like almost coming up off my toes
That's about 100 pounds of lift
That was awesome
That was brilliant
The fact that you were able to get up off the ground and actually still control the rotation
and you lateral movement
Completely says that you've got that balance and control
That was brilliant, that suggests that you wouldn't take more than another 4 or 5 goes
To kind of land that
That's awesome
When you were telling me about how like, make sure you don't get into a spin or something
And I was like, oh crap does that happen?
But when I was doing it it was just like, it felt fairly natural just holding my arms
It's very cushiony
Spongey
Ya spongey
When I brought the arms close together I could just like almost feel my ankles coming up
A bit more power and I'd be floating right here
Just need that tether system
That was amazing
Well thank you so much for letting me try the suit
No problem at all
I hope to see you soon again in the future
absolutely, definitely
That was incredible, I can't even describe the feeling of having that much power coming off your own limbs
Apparently I showed real promise with the suit, so I'll actually be visiting Gravity again very soon
To learn how to fly the suit. Maybe even join the racing league
To anyone who may be disappointed that I didn't get to fly by myself this time
Ask yourself this
Would you let someone with no experience take out you $500,000 lamborghini for a rip?
Richard put a lot of faith into my abilities to even let me try the suit without the tether system
If I had accidentally tripped it could have been tens of thousands of dollars in damages alone
Make sure you check out and subscribe to Gravity's Youtube channel and Instagram
for more awesome videos on the jet suit
and stay tuned for our next video where we interview Richard about the suit and give him the first piece
he needs to become a real life Iron Man