Paris (AFP)

Twenty years that these two frolic in the air: in winged suits or equipped with reactors, Fred Fugen and Vince Reffet, alias the Soul Flyers, defy the unimaginable like entering a plane in flight or flying alongside the patrol of France.

Three hundred million views for a single two-minute video.

This is what generated one of their most remarkable exploits when, in 2017, leaving from a summit in Switzerland in a wingsuit (winged suit), the two Frenchmen entered a plane in full flight at 3,000 m above sea level. altitude by a small door of 1.60 m high and 1.25 wide.

"It's once it's over that you like it the most. Getting on the plane is so violent, it messes you up, you're not well, it's a mental battle. And then you get on the plane, the project is finished, and there, you are already thinking about the next project. You are looking for this moment. It's pretty funny how we walk, we have so many dreams and life is so short, "says the youngest of the duo, Vince Reffet (36) to AFP.

Since this feat, the + flying men + have chained the extreme challenges like this impressive passage at 400 km / h through the mountains in China, passing in a crevice (the famous Sky Gate) last year, or even quite recently, a spectacular flight around a lighthouse in Charente-Maritime, embellished with a dive on the ground then a rise in the air before opening their parachute (on RedBull.com).

Never before seen so close to the ground and on level ground.

- 'Beyond dreams' -

"We are not in the overbidding in the sense that we are not trying to go the highest or the lowest, we just want to change the context, the movement, the performance. You try to be creative and it grows necessarily to go as close to the ground as possible. You go on something else, you learn new things, you have new sensations. What makes us trippy is not to redo things that people have done ", emphasizes Fred Fugen (41).

Since their association with the French parachuting team in 2003, these two aerial virtuosos have made their wildest dreams come true by combining base-jump, wingsuit flight, free fall flight, and more recently flight equipped with four mini reactors. propelling them at breakneck speeds (Jetman project).

They notably amazed the world in 2014 by launching from the Burj Khalifa tower in Dubai (the highest in the world at 828 m) - a video that totals 28 million views - Vince Reffet flew next to an A380 and the two accomplices quite simply evolved into Jetman with the Patrouille de France in 2016.

"It's so unreal that it's not even something you could have dreamed of," says Fred Fugen.

"It was beyond dreams. Being there with reactors, with my buddy, next to the Patrouille de France! It's taken from science fiction! We made four flights with them, I remember that the tears rose in the air on all four flights, it has never happened to me at another time. "

The Jetman project has now launched them into another dimension.

"It's something unique, there are three of us in the world and our instructor has stopped. There is everything to do, everything we do is something new", rejoices Reffet.

© 2020 AFP