Hey, cool stuff about cyborgs and what are essentially the first brain jars on History Channel right now. Totally worth checking out if you have it.

Sadly, I do not have access to that particular Trid Channel. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/frown.gif)

It's too bad. They have a robot that uses a culture of rat brain cells to run it. They also had 'Mr. Cyborg' on who can control machines with his mind earlier. And before that they had a military exoskeleton that they were planning on turning into powered armor. It's very sweet stuff. Now their on skydiving or something though (IMG:style_emoticons/default/frown.gif) Might move into something about personal flight though (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Hmm, yeah, wing suits for skydivers, looks like an awesome infiltration method. Can skydive from several miles away from the target. Fall speed can be as low as 25 mph, I can totally see an SR suit being able to absorb that kind of fall without damage.

Damn, Sounds interesting... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/frown.gif)

Yeah, History Channel and Discovery are basically the only channels I watch. HC in particular tends to provide really cool ideas for SR.

Yep, personal flight (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

Guy who used a powered glider type thing (Wingspan looked like about 6 feet) to go from somewhere in the alps to fly across the English Channel. Actually, I think that is already in SR isn't it?

Wingsuited powerarmored cyberzombie strike team or maybe cyborgs/mix? =nasty anit anything deathsquad.

"Shirt that can let you lift a car."

The problem is that those things have a glide ratio of about 2.5:1 to 3:1. That means that when you hit the ground falling at 25 mph, you're also moving forward at somewhere between 62 and 75 mph. If you're really nerdy, you could come up with a combined vector of between 67 and 79 mph. Which would be ... uncomfortable.

And that's just for the squirrel suits with the control surfaces between the arms and torso and between the legs; the rigid-form wingsuits have an even better glide ratio, which means even faster landing plowing-into-the-dirt speeds.

That particular piece of fantastic technology looks much like the SAMAS suit from Rifts.

When I am rich and become a gentleman adventurer, I shall have one, and I will use it to hunt rhino in Africa.

Yeah, but I don't think they fall that much faster when doing a 'free fall' with the suit, so they could go 3:1 for a few miles to the target, then go into free-fall mode and land at maybe 30-35 MPH. That is a fair amount, but I still think you could handle it with something like the milspec armor hydraulic jacks (Not with milspec armor, but specialized equipment)

If you could figure out the name of the episode, it is probably possible to locate it somewhere on the net. What time did it come on in your region?

So what is 30MPH equal to in fall height?

30 MPH is about 13.33 m/s. At roughly 10m/s^2 acceleration from gravity, that takes 1.33 seconds to achieve, and using distance = 0.5 * a * t^2 = 0.5 * 10 m/s^2 * (1.33 s)^2 = 8.89 meters. No problem for hydraulic jacks.

That means a DV of 9, resisted by Body + Gymnastics + Impact/2 (maybe even throw in some Edge). If you're a built for it, not that bad even without hydraulic jacks.

At 35MPH, it comes to 12 meters of fall height.

You can probably do a last-minute flare to stall your wing and lose most of your speed a few feet off the ground.

Actually, it must be possible, because hang gliders and paragliders have similar performance, and are routinely landed on foot.

Superhumans was the name of it I think. Was 10-11 EST last night.

http://www.history.com/shows/modern-marvels

That should be this episode, I think. It won't let me view it, stating it is not in my region, but the description sounds about right.

Yeah, think it was Modern Marvels because I remember the signature Modern Marvels fact that they do before each commercial break. Would be the superhuman's episode then.

This! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/talker.gif)

I don't think a wingsuit can generate enough lift to stall out like that. Also, I'm afraid I have to disagree with you: hang gliders have a glide ratio around 12:1, and paragliders are usually between 8:1 and 10:1 or so (Wikipedia says 11:1, so what do I know?). I think a glide ratio of 3:1 is nowhere near the performance of hang gliders or paragliders.

I've actually done some research into wingsuits and gliders in the past six months or so, but I could be wrong. Are there any documented instances of someone landing in a wingsuit without a parachute that I might have missed?

No, because 25 MPH is a 9 meter fall which is, maybe not necessarily deadly, but is going to end in broken limbs in the real world. In Shadowrun though, grab some leg armor with hydraulic jacks in it and you're good.

I'm fairly sure gliders drop you down to only a few MPH of falling down, which is why you can land on your feet, you stall it out a bit and run with the landing (AFAIK, never done it)

Well, if Karoline's estimate of a vertical landing speed of 30-35mph is correct, then that's equivalent to a 9-12 meter fall. Nobody is going to attempt that over land.

It is totally doable to land on water at that speed though, which leads me to believe the estimate is incorrect, because otherwise some dude from Nitro Circus would have done it (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

If I understand it correctly, and wingsuit falls at 25mph and forward velocity is 62mph at least? If he's freefalling in order to bleed of forward velocity and only reaches 35mph vertically, that's 10 mph or 0.44 seconds under gravity. Losing 62 mph, that's 27 m/s, in 0.44s, that takes 6 g of force. Obviously no way that a wingsuit can generate that amount of wind resistance, so the estimate is off.

Let us say a suit could give you 0.7 g of resistance. That would then take about 4 secs to bleed off your forward velocity. 4 seconds of acceleration gets you 40 m/s extra fall speed, or 90mph, on top of the 25mph you're already falling, that's 115 mph, close to terminal velocity. Splat.

Yes, I know that at low forward velocity, you can't brake with much force, and as you start falling faster wind resistance becomes a factor, etc. But I'm just guesstimating (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

I say it can't be done in a wingsuit.

Forward velocity doesn't negate any g force, so really the falling speed of a dead drop in one of these should be the same as the falling speed when gliding at 3:1. There might be a bit of lift created (like in an airplane) through the forward momentum, but that would be fairly minimal from the look of the suit. That's why I said 30-35 on a dead drop as opposed to the 25.

All the current wingsuits and fixed-wing jetpacks require parachutes for a landing.

Right, because we don't have hydraulic jacks that can absorb a 12m fall like it was nothing.