When base jumping isn’t enough… there’s always the wingsuit:
(Higher-quality version here. Lots more on YouTube).
What strikes me about the wingsuit, once I pry my heart out of my stomach, is its simplicity. With humans trying for millenia to fly like the birds, with the airplane having been with us for more than a century, it seems odd that the wingsuit is so simple, so elemental, and yet took so long to develop. “You need webs, like a bat!” Why wasn’t this invented a thousand years ago? Almost seems like it could have been made with deerskin and twine.
OK, I take it back. Wikipedia:
According to wingsuit lore, between 1930 and 1961, 72 of the 75 original birdmen died trying their wingsuits. Some of these so-called ‘birdmen’, most notably Clem Sohn and Leo Valentin, claimed to have glided for miles and inspired dozens of imitators.
In case you’re wondering, a wingsuit costs around a grand. Great photo gallery.
It seems like base-jumping parachute technology is really what makes these controlled falls possible. You are still falling down at a deadly speed. Doing it next to a cliff accentuates the horizontal.
Yep – the wingsuit is an outgrowth of basejumping practices and tech.
Where do I sign?
There was one in a Warren Miller flick a few years back where they captured it from the jumper (head-cam) POV and from the ground as the skiiers were climbing up the mountain to go down the ‘traditional’ ways.
Just found this.
Wow.
That’s the same one linked above (the higher-res version):
http://www.biertijd.com/mediaplayer/?itemid=4262
Wow is truly right.