A helicopter paramedic, training to fly an Iron Man-style jet suit to get to mountain rescue casualties faster, has flown in strong winds and rain for the first time.

Jamie Walsh, an emergency paramedic with the Great North Air Ambulance Service, has been helping to test the technology's suitability for use by paramedics while learning to fly.

“We've had probably about 8, 9 days worth of training. To get to a point now where we're in a position to actually reach a casualty on a mountain side in Cumbria is really exciting,” Walsh said. “To be able to do that in the difficult rain and wind conditions because obviously in Cumbria, it rains and it's windy a lot; it's went really, really well,” he said.

The test flights in England’s northern Lake District, supported by Danish renewable energy company Orsted, took place in heavy rain and with winds gusting at more than 48 km/h.

“Coming up over a ridge line is sometimes a little bit difficult, but actually if you're expecting it, it's a very stable piece of equipment and you can counter it and manoeuvre it and manage it quite safely,” Walsh said.

The jet suit from Gravity Industries has been in development since 2017 and the latest 3D-printed version has two mini-jet engines on each arm and three in the backpack and can reach speeds in excess of roughly 136 k/h at more than 3650 m, although for safety reasons they normally hug the terrain at much slower speeds.

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