Everyone joins the military for different reasons, but for many of us, a big part of it was the drive and desire to do something that mattered on a larger stage than the local drama we were a part of back home. We saw serving in the military as an opportunity to be the type of hero we grew up reading about, whether in books about real heroes in wars past or in comics about fictional heroes facing imaginary enemies with stakes that, to our growing minds, seemed just as high.

For the most part, though, we arrive at our first duty stations to find that we likely wouldn’t be fighting lava monsters with our NCO swords, and despite the prevalence of some drugs in elite war-fighting groups, the super soldier program that gave us Captain America probably isn’t going to swoop in and fix your slumping fitness scores. No, for most of us lowly American war-fighters, we’re stuck with nothing but traditional ordnance and the ridiculous need to use an aircraft to fly.

How’s a guy supposed to join the Avengers with that kind of loadout?

Fortunately, the things we once thought only possible in science fiction continue to make their way into reality, such as exoskeletons designed to increase a wearer’s strength and endurance, advanced optics designed to guide a bullet mid-flight to its intended target, and now, a jet suit that allows the wearer to fly like another of Marvel’s Avengers: Iron Man.

Richard Browning, a British inventor and a reserve Royal Marine, likely grew up wishing to be a superhero just like many of us did, but where we eventually relinquished that dream in favor of pursuing more grounded professional avenues, he allowed that passion to drive him to build something many of us have never seen before: a self-contained suit that lets the wearer fly like a superhero.

“I have aeronautics in my blood,” Browning said. “My grandfather instructed on WWII Hurricanes, and the other was chairman of Westland Helicopters. My father was an aeronautical engineer and an innovator, too.”

The Daedalus suit can currently sustain 10 minutes of continuous flight, and comes with a heads-up display in the helmet, designed to provide the wearer real-time information about fuel levels and engine performance. The entire system also connects to Wi-Fi, allowing for live transmission of flight data back to a nearby computer for after-action analysis. Browning believes the suit is already capable of speeds in excess of 200 miles per hour and altitudes of a few thousand feet, though he rarely takes it more than a few feet off the ground due to how difficult it can be to handle.