I just saw the news that an extreme athlete named Dean Potter died in a BASE jumping accident after jumping from a 7500 feet drop in Yosemite National Park. It turns out that it was only a few days ago I saw for the first time at least this kind of what’s called BASE jumping (I’ve now found out from readers that what I’m referring to is BASE jumping with a wingsuit, which is a particularly insane subcategory of BASE jumping). If you haven’t seen it, it basically involves jumping off an extremely high cliff in what looks something like a flying squirrel suit – basically a skin tight suit with webbing between the legs and between the arms and legs.
This makes possible what is basically a controlled downward glide. But it’s not just controlling your direction, like you’ve probably seen with parachutists. The one I saw was, I think, somewhere in the Swiss alps (video below). So the jumper had an open, forested terrain with what was basically still a pretty steep downward grade. The guy was basically ‘gliding’ in this squirrel suit not too far off the ground and treetops as he went down.
When I first saw it it seemed so ridiculous (correct) and gravity defying that I thought it was some kind of CGI-based hoax (incorrect). But it wasn’t. It was real.
My big question as I was watching was, how the hell do you land? Well, there was a pretty good answer for that. You have a parachute and the glide ends when you pull the cord and slow down for a conventional parachute landing.
Still, it’s almost mind-bogglingly dangerous. And not surprisingly, people do seem to get killed pretty frequently.
Here’s the video I’m talking about.
It’s amazing that this is physically possible. But when you think of the forces involved it is amazing you can do it more than two or three times without having a catastrophic accident.
