Nueva Polonia is much like any other middle-class street in Cuernavaca, a town about an hour from Mexico City. High painted walls hide peaceful gardens, traffic is almost non-existent and the only sounds are birdsong and distant barking.

Until, that is, the calm is broken by the occasional roar of jet engines being tested by one resident, Juan Manuel Lozano. The inventor has been occupied for the past 30 years in designing, building and trying to sell rocket belts such as the one worn by James Bond in the 1965 film, Thunderball.