Jetpack stuntman makes history by flying across 1,000ft deep canyon

A daredevil wearing a jet pack has flown across a 1,500-foot wide canyon in southern Colorado.

Eric Scott took 21 seconds to cross the Royal Gorge at 75 mph on Monday. It says he didn't use a parachute while flying across the 1,100-foot deep canyon.

He was wearing a jet pack powered by hydrogen peroxide and developed by Jet Pack International. The company developed it for stunts, promotions and other events for Go Fast.

'There is no parachute. There is no safety net. There is no air bag. But there is 800 horsepower on my back,' said the former TV stuntman.

It took just 21 seconds of deafening thrust to take the 45-year-old across the chasm, setting all kinds of world records.

Scott had never flown more than a couple of hundred yards and had never been that high.

The stuntman had just 33 seconds of fuel on his back, and some of those seconds were needed for starting and hovering to land.

'Fear either makes people suck it up and get it right or they lose it,' Scott told the Denver Post newspaper. 'I'm the Evel Knievel that makes it to the other side.'

'He knew if he didn't make it, he wasn't going to make it,' said Troy Widgery, founder and chief executive of Denver's Go Fast energy drink company, which sponsors Scott and Jetpack International.

'I've always, since I was a kid, wanted a jet pack,' Widgery said. 'Who hasn't?'

At 135lbs, Scott's pack is the most technologically advanced flying machine in existence, said Eric Strauss, the Boulder aerospace engineer who designed it.

The pack wobbles at around 60 mph — and Strauss knew Scott would need to reach at least 75 mph.

'I knew he would have to reach his highest speed ever - his highest and the pack's highest speed,' Strauss said. 'He is so amazing. He is the best jet-pack pilot in the world.'