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After several days of waiting, "the bees in his body" - as he put it - finally told Yves Rossy that the weather was OK.
And so, dressed like Buzz Lightyear in spacesuit and helmet, with a pair of light wings on his back, he boarded a plane, ascended to 8,200ft, set fire to the kerosene in four tanks attached to his wings, and launched himself to infinity and beyond.
Fifteen minutes later, he tumbled safely into a field above the white cliffs of Dover, making history as the first man to complete jet-propelled flight across the
Channel without a plane. With nothing to keep him airborne except those home-made fixed wings, Rossy was risking falling out of the sky like Icarus, and landing in the cold water amid the sea traffic in the world's busiest sea lane.
In fact, when his parachute opened, it appeared that he was destined for a dip in the sea, but having reached a speed of around 200km/h, he had enough momentum to see him safely over the cliff top.
It felt "great, really great", he said, when he had disentangled himself from his parachute. "I only have one word, thank you, to all the people who did it with me."
It was 99 years since Louis Bleriot became the first man ever to fly across the Channel, claiming the 1000 pound prize money put up by the owner of the Daily Mail, Lord Northcliffe.
And it was five years since the Austrian, Felix Baumgartner, glided across with nothing but a carbon-fibre wing on his back. Baumgartner went southwards, from Dover to Calais, but Rossy, already in the record books as the first person to build and successfully fly with a jet-engine powered wing, followed Bleriot's route from France to England. Success came after two days of disappointment.
Originally the flight had been scheduled for Wednesday, but was postponed because the weather forecast was bad. On Thursday, a horde of journalists, cameramen, security men, and staff from the National Geographic Channel, which was sponsoring Rossy's flight, all crowded around a lighthouse on Dover cliffs.
On the French side of the Channel, Rossy donned his Buzz Lightyear outfit, folded his wings, approached the waiting aircraft and announced to a camera crew: "I am ready - a little bit under tension, but I am ready."
Meanwhile, in the Dover lighthouse, Rossy's trusted colleague Stephane Marmier saw an ominous dark cloud in the distance. It is not that the great aviator is frightened of a spot of rain, but once he is airborne, the only instruments he has to steer by are his eyes. If there is cloud, he cannot see the white cliffs. If he cannot see the cliffs, he cannot land safely. The warning call from Stephane made him hesitate.
He contacted another adviser, a professional weather forecaster, who thought the cloud would probably clear. But as Rossy explained: "I listened to the little bees in my body, and they said no."
He flew the Channel in a helicopter to explain the position to the disappointed crowd on the Dover cliff. "C'est un risk management," he explained.
Luckily, the weather was perfect yesterday and the buzz from those same little bees was evidently all positive. Rossy, who incidentally does not like being called Buzz Lightyear but would rather be called FusionMan, or Jetman, is aged 49.
Born in Neuchatel, Swizerland, he is a trained engineer and pilot, and is due back at work on Monday, piloting a flight to Egypt for Swiss International. When he was younger, he was a fighter pilot.
The prototype for the wings on his back yesterday was first developed in the Ukraine, but Rossy has spent years perfecting it, bringing its weight down to about 120lb when the fuel tanks are full.
The kerosene has to be lit while he is on board the aircraft, which is more dangerous than the flight itself. While he is airborne, his body is only centimetres from the flames. His suit and helmet have to be flameproof.
In flight, his only control is a lever that operates the tanks. His body is his steering mechanism. The wings are so light that turning his head can cause a change of direction. If he put his head back sharply, he would loop the loop.
Had anything gone wrong yesterday, he would have had to ditch the wings and let them drop into the Channel with their own parachute, while he used another parachute and tried to land himself as near as he could to the wing.
Although he had a lifejacket, he would have to hope that the rescue boat came quickly, because the Buzz Lightyear outfit was not designed for swimming in the sea.
And how does it feel to be flying through the air at 125mph with only a light pair of wings on your back? Rossy was asked.
"It's great," he said. "You are not really here, because it's not normal. I am almost naked in the flight."
He is now thinking about flying over the Grand Canyon. His ultimate ambition it to form a team to do aerobatics, like the Red Arrows, on fixed wings.
- THE INDEPENDENT
