When those flying squirrel suits first came out, there was talk about improving them so you could one day glide straight from a plane to a soft ground landing without needing a parachute at the end. Has any progress been made on that front?
It’s been done. I don’t know how many times.
Anyone can do it once. What would be impressive is being able to do it twice. Bounces don’t count.
The video I saw was of someone doing this into a big pile of empty cardboard boxes. Like, a pile thirty feet wide, sixty feet long, and ten feet high.
That’s incredible aim.
I was impressed! He hit it right on (I think it was a he), and it took about half the pile to absorb his energy.
You beat me to it! 
The second video shows it better.
I was a little off on the dimensions, but still very ballsy.
I doubt it because while it looks like they are flying, they are just gliding. And basically they are switching vertical velocity for horizontal. so they still have quite a bit of speed left at the end and those suits dont allow one to just hover. If you go to slow you would stall and plummet straight down.
So it can be done but you need something to land in that will cushion your final fall.
I liked this one better. This guy jumps from a cliff, skims the side of the mountain, then lands on water, like a floatplane.
I am waiting for a surf landing. Imagine a surfboard shaped like an airfoil. You jump out, and surf down, though it would visually appear as if you were surfing with the board oriented sideways.
I have seen a few stunts with parachutists using surfboards which gave me this idea, but I’ve never heard of anyone trying it.
It’s really a matter of wing loading.
A 747, IIRC, has a wing loading of about 70 kilograms per square meter, if we assume Flying Squirrel Man can muster a “wing” area of about two or three square meters then the wing loading would be around 30 to 40 kilograms for an average human. Let’s keep it simple and say then that would give at best a third of the loading of a 747, a third of the landing speed of a 747, nearly 100Km/h, would send anyone to the ER.
On perusing that stunt guy’s Wikipedia entry I see that I’m pretty close with my WAG, 84Km/h horizontal speed and 24Km/h vertical speed.
Seems kinda crazy to me! But yeah, the guy does have balls.
Regarding the water landing video, apparently there is some doubt as to its authenticity. The video gets awfully shaky just before he hits the water. And they only have the one view? What happened to the jumper’s helmet cams?
Sure you can, as long as you are prepared for the inevitable lithobraking.
Yeah, it’s bullshit. From what I’ve read, some wingsuit flyers have gotten their vertical speed as low as 30MPH. Hitting the water at that speed is like belly-flopping from 30 feet up - combined with about 80MPH forward speed. Apart from the fake-looking splashdown at 2:24, and the total lack of bounce (just a clean mush-down), his speeds (vertical and horizontal) appear to be much lower than those values. And then of course there’s the startling lack of footage. For a real attempt, they would have 20 different camera angles going (compare for example Jeb Corliss, Grinding The Crack).
The idea is too shed speed as drag and lift in order to land at a reasonable speed. It’s supposed to be feasible, but looks really scary to attempt on actual hard ground. The simple flying squirrel suits have the problem of keeping a minimal load on the pilot’s arms, so even with a way to increase the wing area at landing the pilot could end up with both shoulders dislocated before he splats anyway. A rigid wing suit has a better chance of producing a survivable landing.