Richard Browning (inventor)

Richard Browning is a British inventor of a "jet suit". He is the founder and chief test pilot of Gravity Industries Ltd, a company that designs and builds his invention.
Prior to founding Gravity, Richard was a Royal Marine reservist for six years and an oil trader with BP for 16 years.
Richard set out in 2016 to experiment with the concept “using the human mind to balance and control the body in flight structure”, adding power in the form of micro gas turbines (jet engines).
His development journey, culminating in the first flight in November 2016, was the subject of a 2017 TED talk and the “Taking on Gravity” publication.
Richard received initial investment and launched the company Gravity Industries Ltd in April 2017 together with WIRED magazine and RedBull. Public demonstrations of the invention included over 100 flight events across 33 countries before COVID shut down travel in March 2020. Richard was also dubbed the "real-life Iron Man” by several media outlets. 
Gravity was recognized by Guinness World Record for the fastest flight in a body-controlled jet suit in November 2019 at 85mph, 135kmph.
TIME magazine featured the jet suit as amongst the best inventions of 2018.
Gravity Industries Ltd received an initial $640,000 investment from Tim & Adam Draper in San Francisco after the first public demonstration outside Adam’s ‘Boost VC’ firm.
Gravity Industries is now a permanent team of 7 based in Salisbury, UK and has a support network around the world. The company business model includes TV & media work, commercial events & displays, brand collaborations, STEM initiatives, and public flight training & flight experiences in the UK and US. Gravity also has a wide range of partnerships with the UK, the US and European militaries and a range of search & rescue organizations.
The company was also due to launch the Gravity Race Series in March 2020 in Bermuda, but this was postponed due to COVID.
Richard Browning is married to Debbie and has two children, Oliver and Thomas.