April 11, 2019 4.24 pm This story is over 59 months old

Two real-life Iron Men fly over Brayford Pool

A former Royal Marine amazed thousands of visitors

Thousands of visitors were amazed and a little bit deafened when they saw two real-life Iron Men fly over the Brayford Pool on Thursday.

The pair used high-tech suits with jet engines strapped to their arms to propel them to speeds of up to 32mph.

Richard Browning, the founder of Gravity Industries and a former British Royal Marine, flew from the old viewing platform and landed just below the Wigford Way bridge.

Photo: Steve Smailes for The Lincolnite

Photo: Steve Smailes for The Lincolnite

Wilkin Chapman paid for the event. Photo: Steve Smailes for The Lincolnite

It was all paid for by Wilkin Chapman for their ‘Evolve’ event to promote their recent office expansion at their Lincoln branch.

Demonstrations by the Lincolnshire Fire & Rescue Service and the Lincoln Sea Cadets got the crowd warmed up from 11.30am before the main event.

They hovered four metres above the water. Photo: Steve Smailes for The Lincolnite

Perfect weather conditions meant that Richard could be accompanied by another pilot on their first flight.

After the flight Richard Browning said: “It was actually really fun. Especially when you are over the water, you can forget most of the concern you get when you’re on land.

Photo: Steve Smailes for The Lincolnite

They were swarmed by spectators after the flight. Photo: Steve Smailes for The Lincolnite

“To be honest the Brayford Pool is a really perfect bit of water when everyone can get a good view.

“It’s a really good example of where we’d like to do some inner-city racing with more pilots. We’ve done every city you can imagine but it seems to blow people’s minds every time.”