How To Jump Out Of A Plane Without A Parachute And Survive

Parachutes. How 20th century :



Flying in a wing suit is said to be about as close to the feeling of being a bird as you can get. But the still indispensable parachute gets in the way, it's too big, too heavy.

Apparently, most fliers come to the conclusion after their first wing suit jumps that the parachute simply has to go.

New Scientist explains how, in a few years, wing suit fliers will get their dream :

Just before touchdown, parachutists and hang-gliders execute a manoeuvre called a flare: raising the craft's nose to maximise lift from its wings while cutting its speed. Larger aircraft and many birds also flare when landing. Von Egidy is developing a suit she calls the Integrated Glide and Landing System (IGALS) that will allow fliers to do the same. It aims to achieve two things, the first being a much flatter glide angle.

Normal wingsuits have a glide ratio of about 2.5:1- the pilot travels 2.5 metres horizontally for every metre of fall. Von Egidy claims she can achieve 4:1 or better by increasing the suit's wingspan, stabilising the aerofoil and changing the wing's shape.

The most innovative part of the design, though, is that it allows the pilot to drop out of the wing just before landing and hang beneath it, rather like a hang-glider pilot does, making it easier to flare without losing control.

This is the key to achieving the second aim: to slow "smoothly and dramatically" just before touchdown, so that the pilot ends up flying slowly enough to simply run off the excess speed, as in a parachute landing. Von Egidy, who is revealing the concept behind the suit for the first time here, claims it has "proved totally viable" in scale-model tests.

The Full Story Is Here