Anyon tried wingsuit flying?

[OwlHoot]

Wing suit flying looks insanely dangerous, and I can't imagine the average IT contractor being into it.

I wondered idly if someone trapped on an upper floor of a skyscraper, like the unfortunate people above the flames in the twin towers during 9/11, would have any chance of surviving had they been able to don a wing suit and jump from a window or the roof.

I would imagine they'd have to build up quite a speed before being able to level off, and the biggest risk would be crashing into an obstacle such as another building before they could glide safely to the ground.

[PurpleGorilla]

[OwlHoot]

Makes me feel queezy just looking at that!

To answer my own question, I imagine the big problem with landing safely even after leveling off would be the horizontal speed, which is probably well above 100 MPH and maybe a lot nearer 200 MPH!

Mind you, when jumping from the top of one of the Twin Towers (as was), if one headed out into Hudson bay then maybe "pulling up" at the last moment and braking by being transverse to the direction of flight would slow one down somewhat.

[CoolCat]

They often do that for a while then parachute down the last bit

If escaping the twin towers parachutes would have been useful

Steerable parachutes and heading for open water would be the best plan, assuming you can swim

[Lance]

Wing suit flying is an extension of BASE jumping. It would have been perfectly possible to BASE jump from the NY towers. Therefore wingsuit would work as well.
Not really much use for the people trapped. It's not easy and as it was once explained to me by a base jumper, if you've not done hundreds of normal parachute jumps then do you BASE jump without a parachute as the result will be the same.

[PurpleGorilla]

Anyon tried wingsuit flying?

Makes me feel queezy just looking at that!

To answer my own question, I imagine the big problem with landing safely even after leveling off would be the horizontal speed, which is probably well above 100 MPH and maybe a lot nearer 200 MPH!

Mind you, when jumping from the top of one of the Twin Towers (as was), if one headed out into Hudson bay then maybe "pulling up" at the last moment and braking by being transverse to the direction of flight would slow one down somewhat.

The space shuttle had an emergency zip line on the launch platform. You come down that at a fair lick.

https://youtu.be/DHBLwstvLEA

[MarillionFan]

I do believe the guy who did this is now dead.

[ladymuck]

There was a base jump done off Pan Peninsula in Canary Wharf

Video: Watch two guys illegally base jump off the 48th floor of the Pan Peninsula building in Canary Wharf – Now. Here. This. – Time Out London

So, yes, you could have jumped off the top of the twin towers and lived to tell the tale, in theory

[deebeegee]

Wing suit flying looks insanely dangerous, and I can't imagine the average IT contractor being into it.

I wondered idly if someone trapped on an upper floor of a skyscraper, like the unfortunate people above the flames in the twin towers during 9/11, would have any chance of surviving had they been able to don a wing suit and jump from a window or the roof.

I would imagine they'd have to build up quite a speed before being able to level off, and the biggest risk would be crashing into an obstacle such as another building before they could glide safely to the ground.

I have a wingsuit but I only ever use it out of aircraft. There's actually quite a lot of IT geeks into it, and it's definitely on the nerdier side of the sport - lot's of flight data and statistics to capture and analyse.

There are not many buildings in the world which you could use a wingsuit from as, like you premise, it takes a while to get flying. To survive a wingsuit landing takes a lot of cardboard boxes - only Gary Connery (jumped into the 2012 Olympics opening ceremony from a helicopter dressed as the queen) has ever done it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5_ITt2LM0A
So ruling that out you'd need to wear a BASE rig (parachute system) and you would be better off getting a parachute open as high as possible as this will give you a better glide angle than a wingsuit.

Plenty of people have jumped from plenty of office buildings, including a few I've worked in. Most have had quite a lot of training on how to fall stably enough to deploy a parachute and how to steer and land it in a tight urban environment.

Specifically looking at the 9/11 scenario i would expect the winds to be super sketchy due to extreme heat but given the alternative it would be worth a shot. You'd want to be at least 160ft up to have altitude for the canopy to open before you landed though

[centurian]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWfph3iNC-k

"Grinding the Crack"

Look at the shadows at 1:26

And the same point from a static camera at 1:40