New Technology

For thousands of years people have wanted to fly like birds without the aid of an engine or other type of mechanical device. Fortunately that idea is not that far away. In National Geographic's Article titled "If only we had wings". In this article the author highlights the possibility of personal flight and how close we are to accomplishing it. The article describes the evolution and dream of personal flight all the way back to Leonardo da Vinci. He spent mos of his life studying birds ad how they are able to fly.  It took three hundred years to develop the first type of hang glider. This allowed people to use a cliff or steep slope to gain enough speed and become air-born. Recently, in Sweden, aerospace engineers have developed a way to accomplish unaided flight by strapping a carbon fiber wing to someone's back and propelling it with small jet engines. This is limited because of the amount of fuel a person can carry. In 2010 NASA released a one-third scale model of their "Puffin", personal aircraft. The aircraft is VTOL capable and seats one person. Testing is still being done on the prototype. As for now, we are closer to the idea of un-aided flight than you might think.
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2011/09/personal-flight/shute-text