Gravity Jet Suit Flies Without Wings at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center

Lift comes from a compact cluster of gas turbines rather than a wing or rotor. Gravity Industries places microjets on the pilot’s arms and three additional turbines on the back of its latest Mk4 suit. By changing arm position and shifting body balance, the pilot redirects thrust to rise, turn and move through the air.

Gravity founder and chief executive Richard Browning demonstrated that body-controlled flight on Nov. 7 at NASA’s MAX POWER Expo at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. His flight put a wingless personal aircraft alongside the conventional aircraft, spacecraft, rovers and autonomous vehicles presented during the Nov. 7-8 public event.

The configuration makes the pilot part of the flight-control system. Unlike an aircraft with fixed aerodynamic surfaces or a helicopter with a rotor and mechanical controls, Gravity’s suit relies heavily on how the wearer positions the arm-mounted engines relative to the body. The back-mounted turbines provide additional thrust, while the arms supply a direct way to control its direction.

That arrangement produces the demonstration’s most striking result: a person can leave the ground without a conventional airframe surrounding them. Gravity has previously reported test speeds above 80 mph, although the Kennedy appearance was a controlled public flight rather than validation of a routine transport or emergency-response service.

Nearly a decade of turbine-suit development

Gravity dates its first prototypes to March 2016 and Browning’s first off-ground flight to November of that year. The British company launched publicly in April 2017, putting the Kennedy demonstration near the end of its first decade of development.

Manufacturing has evolved alongside the propulsion layout. Gravity says its current work uses polymer, aluminum and titanium 3D printing. A reported 2018 collaboration with industrial 3D-printing company EOS produced parts including cable guides, electronics and battery housings, arm brackets and thrust-control components.

Additive manufacturing can consolidate hardware that would otherwise require several separately produced parts and their associated joints or fasteners. In one Gravity assembly, the EOS collaboration reduced the part count from eight to three. For a wearable aircraft, that kind of consolidation can simplify packaging in a design where engines, controls and structural components all have to fit around the pilot. The supplied results do not quantify the change in weight, durability or maintenance burden.

Specialist missions remain exploratory

Gravity is pursuing more than public demonstrations. The company has presented the suit as a possible way to reach people or infrastructure across difficult terrain, with proposed roles in emergency response, maritime access and military trials. Those applications remain exploratory rather than routine operations.

The Great North Air Ambulance Service examined whether a jet-suit paramedic could cross the steep terrain of England’s Lake District. In 2022, the service also announced work with Gravity and offshore-energy company Ørsted to trial the idea for the offshore wind industry. The potential advantage is direct personal access where terrain or water complicates a conventional approach, but a successful demonstration is only one part of establishing a dependable emergency service.

A practical rescue system would also have to operate within constraints beyond basic flight. Training, protective equipment, fuel handling, weather, payload, communications and maintenance all affect whether a wearable turbine system can deliver repeatable access in real conditions. No operational performance figures for those proposed services were provided with the Kennedy demonstration.

Military evaluation has followed a similar path. A 2021 Royal Navy exercise involved the patrol ship HMS Tamar and Royal Marines from 42 and 47 Commando, with Gravity personnel operating the equipment throughout. Lieutenant Colonel Will Clarke, the trial sponsor, said at the time that the technology was not ready for military adoption, while adding that it showed significant promise.

The Kennedy flight therefore marked another visible demonstration of controlled, wingless personal flight not the arrival of an operational rescue or maritime fleet. After almost a decade of development, Gravity has shown that its arm-and-back turbine architecture can lift and steer a pilot in public. Its next challenge is demonstrating that the same concept can meet the repeatability, support and operating demands of the specialist work it is being proposed to perform.

By David Whitaker — Associate editor for AMI’s aerospace and drone systems desk, translating flight systems, aircraft programs, spaceflight, and UAV developments into accessible technical stories.