Closer to Human Flight 290
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)."
jeb is the man (Score:4, Informative)
...er... (Score:5, Informative)
Shouldn't that be wingsuits? I should dearly hope that most people know the abilities of parachutes - they have been a regular plot device in the media for years.
Pics (Score:0, Informative)
http://www.dropzone.com.nyud.net:8090/cgi-bin/saf
http://www.dropzone.com.nyud.net:8090/cgi-bin/saf
http://www.dropzone.com.nyud.net:8090/cgi-bin/saf
Speed is good (Score:4, Informative)
The more I think about it, the more I think I agree with the parent.
Message from another aviation pioneer. (Score:3, Informative)
You'll get too close to the sun and your wings will melt !!
-- Icarus
Re:...er... (Score:5, Informative)
flybirdman.com (Score:2, Informative)
Toy Story? (Score:3, Informative)
impressive (Score:2, Informative)
My other sig is funnier.
Re:Speed is good (Score:2, Informative)
under a normal parachute we flare every time we go to land... if you've ever seen a skydiver land, as they touch down you will see them pull down on two handles (called toggle)... these are connected to the rear of the canopy, which distorts the trailing corners of the canopy to create more lift... so you're converting forward speed into lift.
Re:There is a reason (Score:4, Informative)
Malfs on your main parachute are 1 in 1000 from what I understood. Those are packed up in 5-10 minutes in a rather hurried fashion. Your reserve is carefully packed painstakinly by a FAA certified rigger who spends 30-45 minutes working on it VERY carefully. The reserve is also repacked every 120 days by FAA regulations.
I don't know the stats, but a double malfunction is a VERY rare occurance. It's more than likely "operator error" that causes the death of a skydiver.
Re:suggestion (Score:3, Informative)
70^2 + 30^2 = 5800.
Square root of 5800? 76.1mph. Pretty sure that's about how fast you're going after 700 feet. Just from memory, I've forgotten a lot of physics. Now, if you think a 700 foot drop into water is survivable.. well... at that point I don't think it matters much if it's concrete or water.
Besdies, have you SEEN one of these wingsuits? Go to birdman.com, they're the market leader. You are NOT going to want to swim in this thing. Especially not with a rig on your back.
Here, check this: http://justinbuist.org/images/120kmh_at_3meters.m
That guy is just a few feet from being able to land the thing on that slope, IMHO. However, he posesses some modicum of common sense it seems.
This has almost been done before (see the video). All that's needed is:
a) A slightly slower speed helps (slightly different suit than the Birdman stuff).
b) Some practice to perfect your flaring technique.
c) Somebody bat-shit crazy enough to think this up.
d) Somebody insanely bat-shit crazy to try it.
After watching a video I found online, I think this guy qualifies for friggen nuts: http://media.hugi.is/hahradi/fyndnar/jeb_2003big.
Makes my butt pucker just to WATCH that.
Re:Speed is good (Score:3, Informative)
He's got a very small wing area so to achieve lift he needs speed, a high-lift wing shape and AoA.
He will likely have a high stall speed. (Note: you stall at an AoA, not a speed. But for a given configuration - weight, wing shape, bank angle, CoG, environment - the stall speed is constant.)
So he will be zooming along just above the ground at a high speed waiting for his speed to wash off - which it will, quite quickly because high-lift wingshapes are either very wide (large area, low cross-sectional thickness, low drag = glider) or very thick (like a wing with slats and flaps extended = high lift, high drag). Unfortunately he will need to increase his angle of attack to maintain lift, and he will still be going very fast when he 'stalls' onto the ground.
An alternative that comes to mind is the "zoom" - a sudden pull up that gains a few feet in a plane but also removes airspeed very quickly. If he times a zoom just right he might be able to turn himself into a airbrake without gaining too much height. Wouldn't want to do it myself.
Another is to live with the high speed and have wheels on the front of the suit. If you have landed a hang glider with wheels you will know what I mean - you come zooming in to touch down on wheels on the end of the bar you hold. You are lying inches from the ground as you roll.
Lastly, a comment on wing shape. He will want a very high lift from a small area, which means thick and high AoA. A good (for him) feature of those wings is high drag, so he will have the ability to remove high airspeed from freefall quickly. A bad feature is a tendency to stall if airspeed is not tightly controlled. I've just got this image of what a spin would look like...