FOUR decades after James Bond escaped his Thunderball foes in a jetpack, a British airline pilot is planning a similar escapade with his own rocketbelt.

Stuart Ross, a Thomson Airways pilot, will unveil what he claims will be the first fully functioning British-built jetpack at a secret location this August.

Ross has made nearly 50 flights tethered to the ground by a safety line, but the new jetpack will allow him to soar up and away — for at least 30 seconds.

Jetpack enthusiasts have been developing the devices since the Nazis reputedly invented the Himmelsturmer (Skystormer), a rocket-powered backpack designed to lift troops over minefields. The technology was confiscated by the advancing American army in 1945. The US military decided helicopters could perform the same task more safely and cheaply without the danger of scorching the user’s backside.

Ross has spent £100,000 developing his version but credits Bill Suitor, an American engineer, for some of the technical breakthroughs that will allow him to rise hundreds of feet into the air at 60mph.

Suitor, 64, was the stuntman who flew the jetpack worn by Sean Connery during the 1965 movie Thunderball, although its original sound was replaced by a recording of a fire extinguisher.

A global audience watched Suitor flying a jetpack at the opening of the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, before he crash-landed into a heap of giant balloons. Now he is writing a manual to help enthusiasts to build their own belts. “But I’ll say a prayer for any self-taught pilot. I don’t even tell my wife what I’m up to,” he admitted.

Ross is undaunted. “You have to be slightly eccentric to do something like this, but I believe it can be made safe,” he said.

His 130lb backpack consists of two stainless-steel fuel tanks filled with hydrogen peroxide, a rocket motor and two down-ward-facing rocket nozzles.

During early tests in his back garden in Horsham, West Sussex, Ross stayed tied to a wooden frame because, as earlier jetpack pilots have learnt, it is easier to fly than to land. So far he has escaped injury, but fuel spitting out of the nozzles at 700C has cost him several pairs of shoes.

He asked the Civil Aviation Authority for advice, but it recommended that he consult its in-house psychiatrist.

Ross said that if he can find a friendly insurance company willing to cover would-be pilots, he is ready to fulfil the dream of Icarus and build a commercial model.

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