In Minecraft, you need to launch yourself in the air to properly use elytra. The gear is only meant to allow you to glide in the air, but it does not have a feature to push you forward.

A brand new launcher is in BETA for the Java version of Minecraft. Grab this new minecraft launcher and see what it's all about!

Somewhat confusingly, there was an old launcher called 'Minecraft Unified Launcher', which was specifically for Windows 7 and 8 and only launched Java Edition and Minecraft Dungeons.