Althouse: "Increasingly, when diving solo in their free time, the two wore wingsuits, sometimes called squirrel suits, to extend their flights before pulling the parachute."

August 20, 2013

"Increasingly, when diving solo in their free time, the two wore wingsuits, sometimes called squirrel suits, to extend their flights before pulling the parachute."

"The suits are webbed under the arms and between the legs to slow the fall to earth and give experienced users some ability to maneuver through the air before pulling the parachute."

It works, but not all the time. BASE jumper Mario Richard hits a cliff on the way down and dies. He was 47.

ADDED: Here's video of the kind of human behavior we're talking about:

There's the age-old dream of flying like a bird, but I don't think birds do that, deliberately flying against a cliff, touching it, feeling the thrill of the dare. Watching that video, I thought: These people are consenting to death, if death should reach out and grab them. Thrilling. That's the video they generate, for us... to live vicariously. We're not the ones who die.

14 comments:

Mountain Maven said...: Seems that many if not most of the big time flying squirrels and extreme skiers (lots of overlap) die "doing what they loved" much to the dismay of their surviving spouses and children. Always a memorial to one of them in the annual ski movies. Throw in a few mountaineers to that group of the dead.; 8/20/13, 1:40 PM
Emil Blatz said...: Never had so much as a sprained ankle...until he was turned into soup by the kinetic energy of near free fall x his body mass decelerating to zero in a very, very short period of time. I read that Mark Sutton, who died last week had to be identified by DNA matching, that even dental records wouldn't help. Yuck. I know there is a YouTube out there of one of these wing-suit "flyers" breaking a leg (or was it legs?) as he came in too low over a ridge where cameramen were recording the flight. He was able to pull a ripcord and parachute to earth, but...; 8/20/13, 1:49 PM
Moose said...: Wholly appropriate in my opinion. Hardly a "tragedy" as what they do is so close to suicidal that this was just a normal outcome...; 8/20/13, 2:34 PM
Clyde said...: Sometimes death will not be defied.; 8/20/13, 3:32 PM
jacksonjay said...: The wife and the daughter scolded me for saying this fellow "killed himself" being too daring. Something about intent!; 8/20/13, 3:37 PM
khesanh0802 said...: The people who excel in these extreme activities -rock climbers are a good example - don't seem to be able to stop until they reach a wall that they can't climb, whence they fall. Yvon Chouinard is one of the few exceptions who went on to other things before the "death wish" got him.; 8/20/13, 4:29 PM
The Godfather said...: I've seen several videos of people "flying" past cliffs and through canyons in their wingsuits, and it's truly breathtaking. But can the thrill really be worth the risk? Not for me, certainly. I wonder what the degree of risk of death is: How many deaths per person-hour of wingsuit flying?; 8/20/13, 5:01 PM
Bob said...: I wonder in the second before flying into rock if they thought that seeing their kids birthday was better than the thrills?; 8/20/13, 5:20 PM
Ann Althouse said...: @Bob Mario Richard had no children. You've got to give him that. He chose to live on the edge of death, and that was the thrill, the feeling of being deeply alive. It's a costly feeling, and the bill arrived. Did it come to soon? He had no reason to think the day of his death would not be the day of his death. No one should mourn. He said yes to a life that invited death, and he got everything he sought.; 8/20/13, 6:27 PM
PWS said...: Love how with different camera angles they can make these guys look like they're "flying" even though it's much closer to falling.

Search for Jeb Corliss on youtube; he has a lot of these videos that are great including one where he flies/falls through a naturally occurring stone opening in a mountain in China.

Does it really matter whether the guy who dies consented to death or whatever? He's dead. Why do we feel the need to discuss some moral reconciliation about it?; 8/20/13, 7:50 PM
Tari said...: I'm glad he had no children. It's one thing to have a spouse - she will miss him, surely, but she obviously signed on with her eyes open. But parents with hobbies like this hold children hostage to their thrill-seeking, and that's just sick.; 8/20/13, 8:16 PM
Paul said...: Downdrafts and wind shear can slam you right into the rocks.

Any pilot knows that and they don't fly near the mountains.

Well as P.T. Barnum said, 'There is a sucker born every minute'. In this case it's a fool that is born.; 8/20/13, 10:01 PM
madAsHell said...: When I was young, I never feared heights.

I'm a bit older now, and I can't imagine falling, and suffering all the "you fucked up this time" thoughts as I fell.

Falling would be far more anxiety than I can contain.; 8/20/13, 10:13 PM
ByondPolitics said...: I've been watching these wingsuits for the past couple of years and I've never seen anyone deliberately TOUCH a cliff. I sat through your posted video just to see where it might occur, and didn't see it. They're moving quite quickly and therefore it would make no more sense than it would for a driver to reach his hand out to touch a passing object. Sloppy language.

As for having children, or not. Irrelevant. Plenty of parents lose their lives while developing new, uplifting and joyful experiences for others. Few criticize them for having children while practicing their chosen profession.; 8/21/13, 9:11 AM