Flying Humans

mlimber sends us to the NYTimes for a story about flying people who jump from planes or other high locations wearing a wing suit akin to a flying squirrel's. Their efforts have potential military and Xtreme sports applications. The story profiles, with video, one guy who wants to be the first to jump from a plane and land without a parachute (and live). Here's a YouTube video of another of these fliers skimming six feet above skiers in the Swiss Alps. Quoting: "Modern suit design features tightly woven nylon sewn between the legs and between the arms and torso, creating wings that fill with air and create lift, allowing for forward motion and aerial maneuvers while slowing descent. As the suits, which cost about $1,000, have become more sophisticated, so have the pilots. The best fliers, and there are not many, can trace the horizontal contours of cliffs, ridges and mountainsides."

Comments

64 years late!

[Eric Smith]

one guy who wants to be the first to jump from a plane and land without a parachute (and live)

He's at least 64 years too late. Alan Magee and Nick Alkemade already survived jumps from aircraft without parachutes in 1943 and 1944.

Been around for 10 years

[greenbird]

These things have been around for 10 years. Google Birdman Suit or go to any skydiving boogie. Anyone with a D license can demo one.

Patrick De Gayardon

[goatpunch]

Patrick was working on developing these winged suits before he died when a rigging error caused his parachute to malfunction. He was planning a way of skiing with one of these suits, so that he could take off and land on the way down. http://www.bpa.org.uk/skydive/pages/people/gayardon.htm

Blue Skies Patrick

Better video

[blhack]

There is a much better video of what you can do with one of these suits Here

Re:The Man Who Rode the Thunder

[goatpunch]

Sorry, here's the TIME story from 1959: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,937849,00.html

Lethal dose of height

[spineboy]

The height at which 50% of the people die from a fall is about 50 feet( actually 4 stories or 48 feet). The Lethal Dose at which 90% of people die (LD 90) is approximately 84 feet , or 7 stories. At least those numbers are what we use in medicine in an urban setting. Falls outside may be cushioned by trees/ bushes,snow, etc and may change the numbers. Obviously there exists anecdotal evidence of people falling 5 feet and dieing and people who fell 20,000 feet and lived, but statistically those are the numbers collected by medical literature.

You hit the ground at about 35-36 MPH from a 48 foot fall, at 84 feet - about 50 MPH. Actually speeds are a little bit smaller,since I didn't takeinto account the effect of wind resistance and body density, and just used the simple physica acceleration formula V^2 = U^2 + 2AS

I'm an orthopaedic surgeon, and when fall/jump from those heights, putting them back together can be a bit "tricky", and the pieces don't always go back together well. When the suicide jumper only jumps from 40 feet and lives with horrible fractures, we sometimes joke that they didn't read the literature and plan things out correctly. Now the person is depressed AND may have bad arthritic pain from their smashed joints now, or just be plain old paralyzed.
Life sucks.....and then you live.