BASE Jumper Wants To Land On His Feet... Without A 'Chute

Look! Up in the sky! It's not a bird, or a plane... or even a flying squirrel. It's Jeb Corliss, who wants to jump from a plane... reach terminal velocity... and land, without a parachute.

Yes, it's strange... but a YouTube video of flights with the suit became globally popular last month. At least a half-dozen groups -- in France, South Africa, New Zealand, Russia and the United States -- have the same goal in mind as Corliss, according to the New York Times.

The adventurous goal has evoked the spirit of nations just like the pursuits of Everest, the North and South Poles.

"All of this is technically possible," said Jean Potvin, a physics professor at Saint Louis University and a skydiver who does parachute research for the Army. The real challenge is how well you can control your dive. "The thing I’m not sure of is your margins in terms of safety, or likelihood to crash."

"You might do it well one time and try another time and crash and die," said Frenchman Loïc Jean-Albert, who achieved fame from the YouTube video, philosophically.

Those interested in achieving the feat aren’t talking about the landing... for fear of having their idea stolen. Corliss will wear nothing more than a wing suit, an invention that, aeronautically speaking, mimics a flying squirrel.

The plan is to land on a specially designed runway, borrowing from the principles of Nordic ski jumping. The attempt will cost about $2 million.

"The basic idea is getting parallel to the snow so we don’t have a vertical speed at all, there is no shock, and then slide," Jean-Albert said.

This spring, Corliss will attempt a test before trying the real thing. Wearing his wing suit, he will jump from a plane... which will then execute a diving 270-degree turn.

Corliss plans to fly down to the plane, and attempt to re-enter it... proving the suit can be controlled to the level needed for an earthen landing. This will be Corliss' second attempt at the effort; his first attempt failed, and he deployed his parachute and glided to earth.

"The plane was flying too fast," Corliss explained.

Wing suits are nothing new; they have captured the imagination of storytellers since man dreamed of flying. But the suits began to take on a different purpose in the early 1990s, when a modern version created by Patrick de Gayardon improved safety.

Contemporary suits offer designs to improve a flyers maneuverability, allowing flight in something besides a straight-down trajectory.

Corliss thinks he can land safely at about 120 mph. He will attach his helmet to a rigid-framed exoskeleton with the wing suit, to protect his head.

"Is there some crazy person out there who might beat me because he’s willing to do something more dangerous than me? Yes, but I’m not that guy,” Corliss said.

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