As a child, what did you want to do when you grew up?
I always liked the idea of becoming an inventor similar to Caractacus Potts from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and to build and fly rockets.
Advertisement
Explain your work in one easy paragraph.
I am part of the team at Gravity Industries that built the gas-turbine-powered Jet Suit. I design the components to be optimal for 3D printing, meaning we can produce more lightweight and more efficient parts. Almost all of the suit鈥檚 components can now be 3D printed.
I also flight test the equipment. We are continually working on the design of the Jet Suit and each test helps us build a much better one next time.
How did you end up working in this field?
I previously worked on metal 3D-printed rocket engines. This propulsion work eventually led me to work on the Jet Suit.
What鈥檚 the most exciting part of your job?
Feeling the energy output of high-power systems, such as turbojets and rocket engines, are some of the most rewarding moments. You can viscerally feel it: the hot exhaust exiting at 1600 kilometres per hour from the nozzle, the flames licking from the exhaust cones during engine start-up, the low frequency vibrations through the ground, all of it. You get a strong sense of the enormous energy output of these systems.
Were you good at science at school?
School provided the necessary knowledge so that I could progress to my own projects. I learned a great deal of chemistry and physics by experimenting with fuels and chemicals outside of school time. I designed, built and test-fired solid fuel rocket motors, along with flying and crashing many radio controlled planes.
If you could send a message back to yourself as a kid, what would you say?
Build, test and improve projects as often as possible and record all experiments in image and video form so that you can easily demonstrate your progress and experiences to others.
What scientific development do you hope to see in your lifetime?
Safe and reliable human access to space. Also, I hope that engineering can incorporate cinematic design elements more frequently to bring science fiction closer to real life.
If you could have a long conversation with any scientist living or dead, who would it be?
Nikola Tesla, to hear him describe his thinking profile and his approach to designing beautiful machines. I would like to explore his workshop and to see how he developed his inventions.
Do you have an unexpected hobby, and if so, please will you tell us about it?
I make short films, and I particularly enjoy using pyrotechnics and special effects for filmmaking. Pyrotechnics requires knowledge of how to control and be comfortable with fire in close proximity, which is pretty fun.
Is there a discovery or achievement you wish you鈥檇 made yourself?
I wish I had realised how adaptive a human鈥檚 balance and control can be. While the Jet Suit is flying, it is completely free in 3D space, yet a human can learn to control it and achieve a perfectly stationary hover.
What鈥檚 the best thing you鈥檝e read or seen in the past 12 months?
The recent Apollo 11 movie by Todd Douglas Miller. It鈥檚 real footage shot at the time of the mission. Throughout the film, you have to keep reminding yourself that what you鈥檙e seeing is real and not CGI. The scale of engineering is immense.
OK, one last thing: tell us something that will blow our minds鈥�
The arm mounted turbines on the Jet Suit spin at 117,000 revolutions per minute at full power 鈥� that鈥檚 nearly 2000 times per second.
鈥淭he best part of my job is viscerally feeling the energy output from the turbojet engines鈥�
