The Wingsuit: Ho-Ly Crap

As a teenager I remember reading a Robert Heinlein short story entitled "The Menace From Earth". The story takes place on the moon where the settled people have something called the Bat Cave - a storage tank of sorts for their air. Using special wings and other equipment, people could suit up and (in the moon's lesser gravity) go flying in the tank. Heinlein paints the pictures through his words so vividly that I could envision myself doing exactly what they were doing: soaring through the massive tank, skimming the walls and tumbling through the air only to regain control...

Apparently you don't need to be on the moon to do that:





Not only is this one of the more insane things I've ever seen a human willingly participate in, it's also one of the few extreme sport ideas that I would dearly love to do. OK, let's face it - I never will. But it doesn't mean that I can't almost feel that wind and feel like I'm "this close" to those cliffs...

It also shows that whatever amazing effects Hollywood has come up with to show Super Heroes flying through the air, they haven't quite got it yet. They need to capture things like the flapping parts of the wing suit, the roar of the wind, the shadows on the mountainside and that real feeling of speed.

Take that Hancock.