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Tenshi

Water landing now possible

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With the ability of modern wingsuits/pilots to flare the way they do, has a water landing without a chute now become a reality?

If the answer is no, I'm wondering how high the flare would be and what the forward speed would be at the end of the flare.

Thank you for answering.

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That said, a friend of mine used to postulate that a non-chute water landing might be possible if the water is bubbled to break the surface tension.

Since he’s been an active master rigger for both skydiving and BASE since the 1980’s, I think he’s qualified to discuss it

thoughts?

Wendy P. 

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One British, movie stuntman landed his wingsuit - once - in a huge pile of cardboard boxes. Those cardboard boxes were the same as used for high-falls in movie stunts.

Conventional wisdom says that standing/stagnant water becomes as soft as concrete when speeds exceed 40 miles per hour.

Go talk to Olympic high-divers/swimmers to learn how big and how fancy a bubbler you need to soften landings.

 

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i've heard that the breaking of surface tension is a myth, but hard to say these days.  i would think the angle would be shallow enough to bleed off some speed before taking the brunt of the impact.  maybe if they put some sort of wing extension on to get just a tad more glide.  probably want a full face helmet for it, and drowning may crop up as a side effect even if you slid across the water without getting hurt.

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Practically, you can probably time a flare to have the 'close to zero momentum' moment coincide with touchdown on an object. A true 'wingsuit landing'

But most methods discussed, practical and theoretical, including past (intentional or unintentional) successful attempts have all relied on boxes, water, a hill, trees, a huge slide, engines, windtunnels, rope/hooks etc . Though indeed all 'landing a wingsuit' you're still using an outside additions of a gradient/hill or various bits of gear to assist in decreasing velocity. If choosing to use an additional object, parachutes are most likely still the safest bet, until someone actually lands a wingsuit unassisted...:)

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Near-zero wing suit or skydiving knowledge here, so bear with me: been watching these videos which pop up every few years of landing into nets (skydiving) or boxes (wing suit - as mentioned here) or water (fake). Wondering if there wouldn’t be some cross-over potential with Nordic ski-flying? Speeds not THAT different (I think the box landing video said something like 70mph), body positions not that dissimilar, and even the suits worn for ski-jumping have some similarity to early wing suits, I’m thinking. Exit out of the rear of a cargo plane with a pair of 240 cm. jumping skis seems doable. Find a steep snowfield with upslope winds as an LZ (speed skiing course?). Some experience with Nordic jumping technique seems like it may be a good pre-requisite (but lots of those guys are nuts, so should be possible to find a crossover athlete, I’d think). 
 

pretty sure I can’t be the first person thinking of this. What am I missing here?

 

 

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