Practical Jet Suit Available for Rough Terrain EMS Response

Need to dispatch an EMT fast to an injured person stranded on a mountaintop? Then strap on a Gravity Jet Suit and fly to them in a few minutes, rather than taking an hour or more to arrive on foot or an all-terrain vehicle because the low cloud cover common to mountains is keeping helicopters from flying.  

This isn’t science fiction: In May 2022, the Great North Air Ambulance Service (GNAAS) joined with Gravity Industries to prove the EMS Jet Suit concept on Helvellyn, the third-highest mountain in the UK’s Lake District. After training for just six days, Gravity Founder and Chief Test Pilot Richard Browning flew in a Gravity Jet Suit to the top of Helvellyn in three-and-a-half minutes at 35 mph, compared to the 80 minutes it would have taken him to make the journey on foot. His entire journey, which was covered using Walsh’s own wearable camera (and drones until the weather forced them to withdraw), can be seen on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mLrVxEJ7pZ8.

Gravity Industries’ YouTube channel shows their 1700 horsepower Jet Suits in a number of applications, including flying British Royal Marines onto the deck of a moving ship. The simple fact is these suits work as advertised, which is amazing given that company Founder and Chief Test Pilot Richard Browning only started developing the concept in 2016. And the design is remarkably stable and easy to fly: Using a micro jet engine on the pilot’s back and two engines attached to each wrist, the Gravity Jet Suit lets the pilot zoom around as effortlessly as Marvel Comics’ Iron Man.

In fact, “If Tony Stark was not fictional and he was making an Iron Man suit right now, this is precisely how he would do it and this is the exact technology he’d be using,” said Adam Savage, former Mythbusters co-host and now host of Discovery Channel’s Savage Builds. To prove this point, Savage asked the Colorado School of Mines to 3D-print an Iron Man suit out of titanium using Marvel’s own designs and then had Browning wear it along with a Gravity Jet Suit that he flew on television. (The segment can be seen online at www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1wEO-pHizQ)

Meanwhile, the Gravity Jet Suit is so simple to fly that Savage learned how to do it while on camera. This is due to the ingenious design of the flight system: The backpack microjet engine provides the central thrust, while the arm-mounted engines provide additional thrust and steering. The design is inherently stable since the thrust is coming from three points, just like a triangle. (Browning did experiment with leg-mounted jets in an earlier version, but the human tendency to ‘bicycle’ one’s legs when trying to get stable made a backpack engine a better option. Sometimes Tony Stark’s designs have to give way to reality.) 

The Gravity Jet Suit is easy to master because the flight control process is highly intuitive—you just move your arms while watching your instruments using a chest-mounted pendant display—and the suit can be assembled and flown in a matter of minutes. “You can put it on in 20 seconds, and take off 15 seconds later,” said Browning. “You just put your arms out while the microjets are getting up to speed, then bring them down beside your body, and off you go.” 

Since developing the Gravity Jet Suit, Richard Browning has been selling them and training services to elite/special forces and EMS/rescue response units around the world. “We’ve also appeared at 230 events in 38 countries, and trained clients on the entertainment side of the business,” he told EMS World. Celebrities such as Tom Cruise, Richard Branson, and Jeff Bezos have witnessed the Jet Suit in action – but not ‘Iron Man’ Robert Downey Jr. himself, even though Gravity Industries invited him to try it out. “His whole family, agent, and team all got in the suits, and they all loved them,” Browning said. “But much to his agent’s surprise, Robert had discovered a new passion for interior decorating and had dropped all other projects at the time. That’s what he told us.” 

The Jet Suit and EMS 

As proven by the GNAAS test flight, a paramedic wearing a Gravity Jet Suit can quickly fly to an injured person in a remote area, one where conventional personnel would not be able to get to easily. This includes helicopters that can’t operate in poor visibility: The GNAAS paramedic zoomed through the fog that his chase drones had trouble flying in. 

Granted, there are limits to how much can be done with the Jet Suit. For instance, it is necessary to have wearers who are of medium weight at best and physically fit, to reduce the amount of fuel used and ensure that they can make the flight safely. Browning recommends pilots that have a sports background for easier adaptation. 

Second, the range of the suit is limited by the amount of jet fuel the wearer carries—normally enough for about five minutes of sustained flight. This means that the paramedic will have to come out with the overall rescue team: They will be on site to provide immediate aid, but not patient retrieval. This being said, there is no reason that Gravity Industries can’t make a larger version with more fuel capacity and thus more flight time, as long as it is not too heavy for the pilot to wear.

Some good news: The Gravity Jet Suit can fly using bio-diesel fuel, as well as regular diesel and jet fuel. The suit packs up into two carrying cases and is made up of modules that can be easily interchanged for easy maintenance. “You could also fly as high as you like, but we never do from a safety point of view, it's just not necessary,” said Browning. “And we've done up to 85 mph, and set the world speed record for jet suits as a result.” 

Third, the need to keep weight down means that a jet-suiting-wearing paramedic can only carry the bare minimum of equipment. This means that their role is limited to delivering immediate first aid and life support, similar to what a medic on a motorbike provides. 

Still, none of these limits change the fact that the Gravity Jet Suit as it exists today can help EMS save lives. As for the cost? Off the rack, the suit costs $450,000, but Richard Browning’s desire to see it used by EMS has led him to seek sponsors for UK EMS units, which operate as charities. Meanwhile, to make Gravity Jet Suits affordable to EMS units around the world, the company is willing to lease them on a ‘Jet Suit as a Service’ (JSaaS) monthly payment basis, with maintenance and replacement modules included in the price. More details can be found on the company website at gravity.co.  

One thing is certain: The Gravity Jet Suit can help EMS personnel reach people quickly in rough conditions that currently foil all other kinds of transport. And if the technology seems unsettlingly radical and new? Well, the same was true for helicopters when they began flying medical missions in World War Two, and now they are a staple of EMS.  

The bottom line: Given that the Gravity Jet Suit works, addresses an unfilled need in the emergency response market and can be made affordable through the JSaaS payment plan, its widespread adoption by EMS agencies seems inevitable. Now wouldn’t it be nice if Marvel got involved to invest some money in a real-life Iron Man suit for the greater good? There’s a huge opportunity for Marvel’s ​​brand. “After all, science fiction often drives science fact, as the Star Trek communicator and its ultimate evolution into the modern flip phone has already proven,” Browning said.