Inventors and innovators have long been fascinated with the idea of personal flight. So have we, and as it turns out, we couldn't have picked a better time in history to cover it.
Reporting on the First Annual Rocketbelt Convention 2006, New Atlas' founder Mike Hanlon aptly described the idea of a personal flying machine as "the world’s longest gestation vaporware." But times were about to change. Since then we've witnessed an incredible explosion of technology that's enabled a host of different approaches to getting off the ground – though, like the Bell Rocket Belt being celebrated at that convention way back in 2006, none of them are for the faint hearted, and the guys flying these early devices are very much aware they're putting their lives on the line.
From our early reporting on the Moller Skycar, the Martin Jetpack and Jetman Yves Rossy, to more recent pioneers like David Mayman, Richard Browning and Franky Zapata, plus some wild contraptions and personalities in between, here's some of our favorite stories on the evolution of personal flight.