On May 27, 9:22*am, Mike Ash wrote:
In article ,
*Dana M. Hague wrote:

On Tue, 26 May 2009 10:53:34 -0400, Mike Ash wrote:

And there is of course an entire sport dedicated to this called
paragliding. I believe their parachutes are somewhat different, but that
just means it's harder to thermal a skydiving parachute, not impossible.

Despite some similarities in appearance and construction, a paraglider
is COMPLETELY different from a skydiving parachute. *A paraglider is a
wing (PG pilot's don't call them "parachutes"), designed solely for
gliding flight, and cannot be used for jumping (the shock of a free
fall opening would destroy it).

What do they think the "para" in "paragliding" comes from, then?

Good information about the opening shock. I had no idea about that.

--
Mike Ash
Radio Free Earth
Broadcasting from our climate-controlled studios deep inside the Moon

Yep. One of the most realistic moments in the latest Star Trek film
was the ad hoc tandem jump of Kirk and Sulu. Upon deployment Kirk's
canopy is immediately ripped away. Although (IIRC) the film indicated
a riser-harness (french links! those *******s!) failure it is more
likely that a riser connection would fail or seams would rip leading
to a 'blown out' canopy. That's one of the reasons tandem jumps use
drogue chutes.