gliding the english channel on a 6ft carbon fibre wing!

Yes, but no one had made any big leaps (no pun intended!) until the so
called birdman, with his wingsuit, some time in the 90's. If I remember
correctly, he made a record glide with his wingsuit, for a horizontal
distance of 7 miles. This was just with some webbing between his arms
and legs (of course, with advanced technology, materials, etc).

This one is amazing in that the horizontal distance spanned was 35 km,
at speeds of upto 220 kph (stabilised to 130-190 kph). The aspect ratio
of the carbon fibre wing was 6:1 .

For me, the interest lies in the new technology, and the feasibility of
more to come. Man had always wanted to fly - it will be amazing if it
can be done as close to a bird as possible.

-Sridhar


Big John wrote:

I can remember in the late 20's there was a guy who did parachute
jumps at the air shows that came around each year.

He had designed a 'suit' where he had rudimentary wings when he held
his arms out straight and a horizontal stab when he held his legs
apart. With this getup he could maneuver around the sky and do rolls,
loops, etc.

A few years later after first seeing him, I heard that he got tangled
up in his chute when it opened it and had a streamer which killed him.

So, the current 'superman' who just glided across the English Channel
is nothing new G

Big John


On Thu, 31 Jul 2003 11:24:54 -0700, Sridhar Rajagopal
wrote:



http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/030731/mxth002_1.html