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DROP TEST
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Safety in aviation means coming down softly. I once wrote that it would be impossible for a skydiver in a wingsuit to flare and land without a parachute.
THE AERODYNAMIC EFFICIENCY of a wingsuit is so low, and its area so small, that even with all the stored energy of a 100-mph fall it could not simultaneously support a human body and slow to a safe landing speed.
Shortly after I delivered this pronouncement, a 42-year old British stuntman named Gary Connery did it.
Not quite the way I imagined, however. Connery, accepting that he would not be able to land, like a duck, at a fast walk, and certainly not at a standstill, like a pigeon, decided instead to fly at full tilt into a runway-cum-shock absorber consisting of 18,000 large cardboard boxes. The You Tube videos of his arrival – there are several – are impressive. He disappears into the pile – it’s very long, of course, but not that deep – in a cloud of flying debris, like a three-year-old trying to whip cream.
After a considerable lapse of time, during which associates poke around the outside of the stack like archaeologists searching for the entrance to an ancient tomb, a grinning Connery strides out unscathed.
It was he, by the way, who, as part of the opening ceremonies of the 2012 London Olympics, parachuted over the stadium disguised as the Queen of England. His wig was white, his dress salmon.
Fast forward to July of 2016. Luke Aikins, a professional skydiver, jumped from an aeroplane at 25,000 feet without a parachute. He landed safely, though off centre, in a 30-meter-square net suspended 60 metres above the ground by four cranes.
Gary Connery heads for the landing zone of 18000 boxes.
That stunt seems to have been a dramatic application of the fact, familiar to all pilots, that the aim point is the one from which all the surrounding points appear to spread outward. Reportedly Aikins made a number of practice jumps, opening his chute at 1,000 feet rather than the customary 2,200, in order to test whether he could aim for the net and position himself directly above it. Evidently he developed quite a lot of confidence that he could.
What Aikins’ and Connery’s stunts have in common is the need to dissipate a good deal of energy in a short distance.
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