Adding power to a paraglider makes it powered
paragliding. Adding power to a skydiver makes it Powered
Skydiving. It takes a lot of power to keep a skydiver aloft
without his parachute open. The amount of power required to fly any
craft, including a powered skydiver, depends on its weight and sink
rate. A skydiver, even wearing a wingsuit, has an enormous sink
rate—in excess of 3000 feet per minute. That requires a lot of
power. Parachutes are made to basically get the skydiver safely
down to earth after some amount of freefall although a few are made
to open immediately upon exit of the aircraft. Paragliders
evolved from parachutes that were optimized to let mountain climbers
glide down after their ascents. But a powered skydiver wants to fly
level without a parachute.
Wingsuits are specially made outfits that a skydivers wear to
reduce their descent and extend their glide. The best of them slow
the skydiver from around 120 mph to 60 mph. No amount of power has
ever been worn by the skydiver to allow level flight with such a
suit.
In 2004, however, Yves Rossy developed a rigid wing that fully
extended after he jumped out of an airplane. It was dramatically
more efficient than a wingsuit. He then added four small jet engines
to it and was able to obtain level flight. Powered Skydiving was
born.
This is obviously not something for the masses. Besides being
incredibly expensive (four small turbine engines isn't cheap), it's
risky. The early wingsuit flyers had a miserable fatality rate and,
although modern varieties have improved, it's still risky business.
Powered paragliding is obviously a lot cheaper, and dramatically
safer, at least it would seem so. There aren't enough powered
skydivers to compile a list but the accident rate for skydiving is
about 4 times that of powered paragliding. Skydivers are represented
by the United States Parachute
Association. |
