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Closer to Human Flight

Posted by Hemos on from the icarus-here-we-come dept.

negativeblue writes "Dropzone.com has (had) a story about the preparation of a man (Jeb Corliss) who prepares to land a wingsuit without a parachute. If you don't know the current abilities of parachutes, now-a-day, you should do your research. Basically airfoils, they can perform close to an airplane wing (high performance turns and lift)."

3 of 290 comments (clear)

  1. May I be the first to say... by TrollBridge · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ...that this guy is more likely going to win a Darwin Award than survive his fall.

    Oh well, I guess something's got to thin the herd...

    --
    There's a Mercedes gap too. I want one and can't afford one, but it's not government's job to do anything about it.
    1. Re:May I be the first to say... by R2.0 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I disagree. Darwin awards highlight an obliviousness to the dangers of doing something. This guy seems fully aware of the dangers - he is doing testing and development, so that he will NOT die. He may fail, and hence die, but it won't be for lack of awareness of the danger of what he is doing.

      --
      "As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
  2. surviving falls by jeif1k · · Score: 4, Insightful

    as no one has ever survived a landing attempt without a parachute.

    I don't know whether people have survived "attempts", but you can certainly survive falls from airplanes without a parachute: hitting brushes, trees, water, or snow can break your fall sufficiently so that you don't die. Theoretically, even hitting a solid, hard surface is survivable if you break the fall correctly (but I don't know of any actual cases).