Is there any kind of flying squirrel type membrane glider outfit a person can wear that would let them survive a long fall (say out of a plane).
I’m thinking of a scenario where there’s a flying squirrel style membrane stretched between your arms and legs, and between your legs. Is this enough surface area to slow you down enough for a fall to be non-lethal?
Say a 6 to 6.5 foot tall man between 150 -250 lbs.
If that won’t work how much wing area would a man need to get down to a survivable speed? If long distance ski jumpers can do it, why can’t a man in a glider outfit?
It woud have to be the size of a parachute. I have seen outfit like this in Popular Science, but you still need a parachute for landing, the suit just enhances free fall manuvers. The inventor says that the control surfaces are as big as he can control, of it was big anough to land it would rip your arms off.
Article the other day (I’ll try and find it) about the German air force recently equipping paratroopers with carbon fiber “winglets” on their back, the theory being they could be dropped from high over non-hostile territory and maneuver their way to a landing behind enemy lines – I think they were mentioning dropping them from 30,000 feet (they’d need oxygen, though) and maneuvering to a landing something like 60 kms away. Still need a chute to land.
Doesn’t the guy in Dan Brown’s “Angels and Demons” (same character as in “The Da Vinci Code”–Langdon?) jump out of a helicopter and use a canvas sheet for such a thing? He ends up landing in the Tiber without any injuries.