‘Jetman’ Who Flew Beside a Plane Dies While Training in Dubai
“It’s the sensation of freedom,” he told The Associated Press in 2015. “When I am skydiving, I have like this feeling of freedom — I can like pretty much go where I want — but always going down.” Yet with the jetpack, he said, “I can fly like a bird.”
BASE jumping is one of the world’s most dangerous recreational sports, and even with a jetpack, Mr. Reffet was aware of the dangers involved in his stunts.
“To be completely autonomous, there is a risk, you know, to lose your life. Something goes wrong, you have to act fast,” he said in “Loft: The Jetman Story,” a documentary. And the exhilaration of feats like zooming into a plane over Swiss mountains was a “mental” battle that would leave a person “sick to your stomach,” he told the Agence-France Presse news agency last month.
His feats over landscapes like Dubai’s skyline, Europe’s highest mountain, Mont Blanc and Tianmen Cave in China, shot in high definition and posted on YouTube, brought audiences around the world into the experience.
In February, he accomplished what Jetman Dubai called a first: taking off with a jetpack from the ground before making a high-altitude flight, a move reminiscent of the Marvel hero Iron Man.
He also recently said on social media that there was “much more to come.”
Fans paid tribute to Mr. Reffet on his Instagram page on Wednesday, with some saying that he had inspired them to enter the sport. “You and Fred are both the reason I started jumping 7 years ago,” one wrote, referring to Mr. Fugen, his collaborator. “Forever fly free.”
Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/18/world/europe/vincent-reffet-jetman-dead.html