Michael Browning: engineer, innovator -- inventor, really -- and inspiring father.
迈克尔 布朗宁：工程师，革新家--发明家，还有--一位启人心灵的父亲。
He had a passion for flight, as you can kind of sense from that rather dubious 1970s office-leaving present.
他对飞行充满了热情，你能够从那不可思议的70年代离职礼物中看出来。
And some 40 years after that was created, a small group of us got together to have a go,
而在那之后的四十年中，我们一小批人聚集在一起，要把它变为现实，
a run at the whole challenge of flight that inspired people for years, and do it in a very different kind of way.
大胆面对那个在数十年中激励了人们的飞行挑战，而且是以一种非同一般的方式。
And that's the journey I'd like to share with you now.
这也是今天我希望和大家分享的心路历程。
The starting hypothesis was one of the human mind and body,
我们最初的假想是，人类的智慧与身体，
which, as you've seen for the last few days here, is an amazing construct.
就像你们在过去的这几天里所看到的那样，是一个神奇的结构。
What if you augmented that wonderful machine with just the right technology?
如果我们能够运用正确的科技来放大这个优势呢？
If you approach flight in that kind of real way, where could you get to?
如果我们从那个角度作为切入点看待飞行，能达到怎样的高度呢？
So my training partner here back in London, Denton, is doing a much better job of that kind of stuff than me.
我在伦敦丹顿的训练伙伴，在这方面比我做的好得多。
Guess what? It's London. The idea was that you augment that.
那可是在伦敦啊。我们的想法是放大这个特征。
And so, how do you augment that? Well, we bought one of these.
那么要怎么做到这一点呢？我们戴了这么个东西。
This is a micro gas turbine. This was ground zero,
这是一个微型燃气涡轮。这是第一步，
so that little piece of kit proved really quite impressive, so we got two in a field.
这个小东西的能量让人印象深刻，所以我们试着带了两个。
The real hero here, by the way, is, right in the background,
顺便提一句，这里真正的英雄是正在我们背景的后方
there's a lady tending some vegetables, who does a brilliant job of trying to ignore us for a while.
照料蔬菜的那位女士，她在那段时间里，做到了完美的忽视我们的存在。
I think the only thing less happy is the grass, that we did probably damage quite badly.
我认为对此感到不悦的估计就是那片草地了，因为我们的活动确实让它们伤得不轻。
You get an idea of the thrust here, when I try to hold them horizontally and somewhat fail.
这就是所谓的“助推”，当我尝试水平抬起它们的时候，我都拿不住。
That's around 50 kilos of thrust there. We were quite impressed with that. We thought we were getting somewhere.
因为那相当于举起50公斤的推力。我们也感到很震撼。我们以为就快取得一点成效了。
So there's only one sensible way to go from there: you get four.
所以继续下去只有一种合理方案：那就是戴四个。
I have to say, I still like watching these back.
我不得不说，我依旧很喜欢看这些视频。
So then we thought well, let's try and spread the load a bit.
我们当时的想法很简单，试着分散一下推力吧。
The legs are designed to take the load, so why don't we spread it out a bit? That bit was good.
我让腿上也分担一点儿推力，为什么不呢？这个想法挺好的。
The harness -- a nice idea but it didn't really work, as you'll see now.
那个护具--是个不错的想法，不过没起什么作用，就像你们看到的这样。
This whole journey was very much about trying things.
这个过程就是关于不断的去尝试。
Yeah, it really didn't work, did it?
真的没什么用，是吧？
Trying things and learning by failing at them most of the time. And that included failing by falling over.
尝试各种东西，在大部分时间里从失败中学习。这也包括了不断的摔倒。
If you notice, we've got five engines here -- not to be put off by the fact one was in maintenance, still had a go.
如果你注意到了，我们用了5个引擎--虽然有一个当时正在维修状态，我们还是尝试了一下。
And then I pinched a fuel line. So again, good learning.
然后我压坏了一根燃料管。所以又是一次好的教训。
We learned not to do that again. This was a blind alley.
我们知道不会那样做了。此路不通。
This was three on each arm -- that was ridiculous. That was 70 kilos on each arm. Again, struck that one off.
这是一个膀子上捆三个的实验--那简直太可笑了。每条胳膊上都是70公斤。这一套方案也得淘汰。
But we were starting to make some really quite convincing progress,
但是从那开始，我们确实取得了令人信服的进步，
just enough to make you believe that maybe -- maybe we could get there.
足够让你去相信，也许--也许我们是可以做到的。
You can see, look -- tantalizing. The model of one on each leg and two on each arm, on paper, that was enough thrust.
你能看到这很具有诱惑力。那种在每条腿上各绑一个，每只胳膊各两个的模型，在理论上是可以提供足够的推力的。
And then we did what I'm about to show you now, and I still love watching this one.
然后我们就做到了我接下来要给你们看的这段视频，我很喜欢这一段。
This was our first six-second, reasonably coherent flight.
那是我们第一次连贯的六秒飞行。
That was the point where this endeavor went from: "I'm really not sure this is going to work," to: "Oh my god, it does work!"
从那开始，我们的不懈努力就从：“我真的不知道这能不能行得通，”变成了：“哦，天哪，真的做到了！”
From there on we then refined it, but we carried on falling over a lot.
从那以后，我们不断的完善它，但是我们还是会不断摔倒。

Falling over, like I say, is definitely the best way to learn.
摔倒，真的是学习的最佳方式。
After a while, we starting really refining the layout of all of this.
一段时间之后，我们就开始完善整体设计。
And you'll see, that's stability and control
你会看到，稳定性，控制性，
there's no wires there or anything -- that's a combination of us refining the technology,
没有任何牵引线之类的保护措施--这是我们不断完善的科技成果，
including with a Tupperware box on the back for the electronics and actually learning the balance and control.
其中也包括了背后的特百惠供电背包，还有不断学习掌握的平衡与控制。
I'm now going to save your ears for the next short piece and talk over it.
我现在，请各位仔细听我下面一小部分的演讲。
After a while, the jet engine noise is a bit annoying. This is only a few weeks ago.
听一段时间飞行器的噪音会让人厌烦的。这是几周之前。
You can see the stability and control is really quite nice,
你能看到稳定性与控制性看起来还不错，
and I'd like to think this somewhat validates that starting hypothesis,
我认为这也算是证实了我们的出发点，那就是，
that the human mind and body, if properly augmented in that way, can achieve some pretty cool stuff.
如果我们能适当的放大人类思维与身体的完美结合，那我们就能够取得一些炫酷的成果。
I mean, like I said: I'm not thinking about where I'm moving my arms at that stage.
我的意思是，就像我先前说的：在那时，我并不在思考我的手臂应该如何运动。
I'm looking at the objective of where I want to get to, and a bit like riding a bike, my arms are just doing their thing.
而是望向我想到达的那个位置，就有点儿像骑自行车，我的手臂在自主的挥舞着。
It's a very strange experience. So where is all this headed?
这是一种奇妙的经历。所以，最后的效果如何呢？
I'll talk over this landing -- I think I land in this one.
我会和大家谈谈这次着陆--我认为这把我成功着陆了。
Well, I don't think anybody's going to go down to Walmart or take the kids to school in any of this stuff for a while,
我并不认为人们会在短期内使用这套设备去逛沃尔玛，或者是送孩子们去上学，
but the team at Gravity are building some awesome technology that's going to make this look like child's play.
但是在Gravity的这个团队将要构建一些相当厉害的科技，而它们可能看起来只像是儿戏。
We're working on some things that will seek to bring this unusual experience of flight to a wider audience,
我们现在正在努力尝试将这些飞行的特殊经历带给更广大的观众，
beyond the events and displays we're doing. We're even starting to look for pilots two and three, if there's any volunteers.
超过我们现在做的这些演示。我们甚至已经开始寻找二号、三号飞行员，如果有人自告奋勇的话。
I've got this vision. It sounds audacious, but let's just stick it out there,
我能预见到。虽然这听起来很大胆，但是我们还是应该坚持做下去，
that one day maybe we can rise up above a beach, fly up and down the coastline of it,
也许有一天，我们就能够在一个沙滩上升空了，上上下下，
rise up a bit higher, with some of the safety kit we're working on to make this achievable.
飞的更高一点儿，同时携带保护措施，我们正在努力让这些变为现实。
Then over the horizon comes a Hercules with the ramp down.
在地平线的尽头，一个大力士俯冲下来。
As it comes past, you start picking up speed and see if we can intercept
当他经过你的时候你就开始加速，看看是否能成功拦截，
from the rear, not the front, that would be a mistake -- and then try and land in the back.
当然是从后方，不是正面，正面是不对的--然后尝试在后方着陆。
And as I say, that's a little way off at the moment.
就像我说的，这些离我们还有些遥远。
But this is also, if I take a big step back from this, this is also a very personal journey for me.
但这段经历，如果我退一大步讲，也是我非常个人化的一段历程。
Back to that lovely photo, or photo in a picture.
让我们回到那张可爱的照片，或是图中的这张照片。
Sadly, my father took his own life when I was 15, and left an awful lot of unfulfilled ambition.
可惜的是，我父亲在我15岁那年自杀了，同时还留下了一大堆未实现的抱负。
He was a wonderful inventor, a maverick creator.
他曾经是一名出色的发明家，特立独行的创造者。
And I'd just like to think, if it was possible, if he was looking down,
然后我就会去想，如果有可能的话，如果他正在上面看着我，
he would be -- he'd certainly be smiling at some of the things we've done here, I think.
他会--他肯定会为我们今天所取得的一些成果感到高兴的，我是这样认为的。
So, it's a tribute to him. Thank you very much.
所以，这也是献给他的。谢谢大家。
I'm probably more nervous about doing the demo after this.
在这个演讲之后，我可能对于这个演示环节感到更紧张了。
I've got a lot of things to get done today. Worst-case scenario, we don't get a clean start.
我今天有很多要做的。最糟糕的情况是，我们初始状态不够干净利落。
Or we get an unplanned failure while I'm actually flying around.
或是当我正在到处飞的时候可能出现意料之外的失误。
This is why we keep it very low, so the worst is I just look like an idiot and fall on my rear, as I said.
因此我把高度控制的很低，最糟的也就是我像一个笨蛋一样大仰摔。
So you can all enjoy that if that happens.
如果真的发生了，你们就可以尽情的笑话了。