There’s been a lot of talk about building a real-life Iron Man suit over the past couple of years, including word of the U.S. military building TALOS, or a Tactical Assault Light Operator Suit, as well as whatever Elon Musk has going on behind closed doors — he was probably trolling when he said that he visited the Pentagon to discuss “a flying metal suit” but who knows with him, right? But even though those hints at a prototype are vague, there is somebody who has taken it into his own hands (literally) to build a real-life Iron Man suit. And it uses multiple miniature jet engines.
The real-life Iron Man suit — christened Daedalus — is the brainchild of England’s Richard M. Browning, an ex-Royal Marine reservist who wants to build “an entirely new generation of human flight systems for commercial and entertainment applications.” In the above Red Bull clip, Browning shows off the suit, which utilizes multiple Kerosene-fuelled micro gas turbine engines to achieve lift. The suit also requires a high level of core strength in order to control the engines, which put out 130 kilograms (or 286 pound-force) of thrust.
If this setup sounds extremely dangerous, that’s because it is! The jet engines obviously give off a lot of heat, and they can also run out of fuel unexpectedly, which happens in the Red Bull video at around 3:10. The engines are also EXTREMELY LOUD, as demonstrated by one of Browning’s test videos posted to Facebook:
But the real (fictional) Tony Stark had challenges testing his own suit too; it’s important to keep that in mind. Although he did have robots that could douse him, plus his falls seemed a bit more graceful and less… limb-threatening.
What do you think about this version of a real-life Iron Man suit? Let us know in the comments below!
Images: YouTube / Red Bull
GIF: Marvel Studios / Disney
