Rapidly deployable personal aerodynamic decelerator

[S12mon]

I think for anything like this to ever be practical, you have to think of the deceleration of the subject as only half of the whole concept. As you brought up Batman early on, you would have to assume that the wearer has significant physical prowess. People who excel in parkour can jump a few stories and land with little to no injury. Now imagine someone with that capability, now wearing a device that slows there descent. Next, to assist in their safe landing, they are wearing a leg brace system, a human body "landing gear" of sorts. Making just a glider, is like a plane landing withingout landing without landing gear, it won't necisarily kill you, but the bottom of the plane won't be in too good of shape, and when the bottom of that plane is your legs, well that's an issue.

-Simon

 

[jgeating]

Well, your legs essentially are the undercarriage, and that's how hang gliders have worked for years. However, if you assume that the subject can handle a higher impact (probably a better word to use than that) velocity, that would make the design specifications a lot easier. However, the idea of altering the undercarriage (i.e. the legs) brings on a slew of complications. Wheel based defeats the purpose altogether. Some sort of dampening or shock absorbing system may be a little more understandable, but would require training (ok, no big deal), and more importantly, (IMHO) would reduce the level of interaction and feedback between the subject and the ground. For example, we still can barely get humanoids to run, and by isolating the user's feet from the ground, it may dampen the impact, but also increase the difficulty of maintaining stability and not falling or crashing as the subject lands. OK, a little off topic, but w/e. I had really been hoping to look more into the aerodynamics and scalability of a hang glider/wing suit hybrid rather than altering the problem statement.

 

[martha75]

Hello everyone. I have a solution but looking for lab to test the idea. If anyone knows of any, please let me know.
Thank You