With apologies to Pat Rogers’ article on great pioneers and adventurers, a Swiss adventurer/pioneer Yves Rossy strapped a jet powered wing to his back and in the mould of Icarus/Montgolfier/Wright, set off to attempt to fly from Tangier to the Spanish coast. The first intercontinental flight using a Jet Wing strapped to a human.

The weather conditions weren’t too bad, but I would have chosen a summer day to ditch into the ocean. He jumped out of a small light plane at some 6,500 feet above sea level, unfurled the wing and swooped down like a large eagle.

The camera crews and following air and sea craft, tracked him for a couple of minutes then they lost him! FFS! In this day and age of scientific discoveries, space flight and WMD’s, how the hell do you lose a jet powered wing in a stretch of sky across the Straits of Gibraltar?

There should have been GPS tracking, high powered camera lenses and an aircraft within 50 meters of him at all time – better still a live camera on his wing sending back pictures via one of the tracking helicopters, I mean 40 years ago we sent pictures back from the Moon!

Instead we had to endure a 13 minute commentary and reruns that equalled the famous Clarence Keyter coverage of the world waiting for Mandela’s release from jail. They did eventually find him floating in the ocean alongside his carbon fibre wing, which soon disappeared below the waves.

“ello can u ear me? I am ibout to jomp aut of zi plane” no reply! At which point I would probably have got back into the plane, but not this French speaking Swiss Jetman. “ere I gooooooooooooo” He screeched as he swooped down towards the waves below, getting his wings pointing in the right direction and firing up the Jet Thrusters.

“Where is Spain?” he was heard to call out before he headed northwest across the strait. (I’ll drop the French accent as my PC finds the lingo difficult to type) “Where is my compass? Why the hell am I doing this? %&^* but it’s cold up here!”

“Okay if you are listening to me in the chopper; one of my engines is not pushing out enough thrust and I am losing altitude and going in a circle........I can see the coastline but we are not going to get there......Mayday! Mayday......going to ditch in the water.....got to get myself right-side-up, popping parachute – yes it opened, cutting away from the wing...here we go.....SPLASH!

“Holy crap! The water is cold!”................”I’m over here...” he calls looking hopefully into an empty sky as his carbon fibre wing starts to sink, he tries desperately to hold onto it, but it will drag him under with it, so he has to let go. Eventually a rescue helicopter arrives above him and a diver drops into the icy water and swims towards him: “Hello mate...how you doing”....Ugh? Save my Wing!

After a wait of about 5 minutes the helicopter returned to pick up the intrepid pioneer, and whisk him off to hospital for observation, but he seemed okay. Fortunately there was a Spanish Coast Guard craft on hand to pluck the sinking wing out of the water.

Oh well, back to the drawing board in the Swiss Alps to make some modifications to the design and the engine efficiency. “Next time I will use German engines not these Thierry Henry jobs that need divine intervention” Where’s my Toblerone......bring me Brandy and a good cigar?