BMW electric flying suit sets world record

Skydiver Peter Salzmann won a Guinness World Record for completing the first flight in an electric flight suit.

Peter Salzmann made a record-setting flight. (Video: Guinness).

Born in Australia, Salzmann developed a passion for BASE skydiving. Participants in this sport do not jump from planes but from stationary objects such as buildings, bridges and cliffs. While some BASA skydivers prefer to use flight suits to travel further from the jump site, many experiment with electric propulsion for higher horizontal speeds and longer hovering.

Salzmann collaborated with BMWi, a division of BMW that specializes in electric propulsion, in 2017. Together with BMWi, Salzmann built a device under the chest that is powered by an electric motor. At first glance, the machine looks like a tiny submarine, but its carbon fiber wings can spin at an impressive 25,000 rpm.

The suit gives him the thrust to reach a top speed of 299km/h.

With a 7.5 kW motor, each propeller compresses the air and ejects it at a higher pressure, providing thrust that Salzmann can use to accelerate as well as gain altitude. The device is powered by a 50 V lithium-ion battery pack, which can be activated using the control button on the left wing of the flight suit.

When Salzmann jumped from a helicopter flying at an altitude of 3,000 meters, the suit provided him with thrust to reach a top speed of 299km/h. Meanwhile, conventional electric motors only produce 1/3 of that speed. The thrust provided by the electric motor for 15 minutes not only helped Salzmann fly over the top of a mountain, but also earned him a Guinness record for completing the first flight in an electric flight suit.