Parajumping is dangerous work, especially when the jumper is just hanging there, dangling below his chute, with angry people shooting at him.

The solution is to dispense with the chute altogether, going into free fall with a parabag, a deflated air bag in a canister that dangles 20-30 feet below the jumper, inflating upon impact, so as to decelerate the jumper without harm.

To make sure that the parabag is below the jumper, and not above him (a most unfortunate circumstance), the jumper holds a “personal orienter” in one hand, which looks ever so much like a Mary Poppins umbrella.

-- pluterday, Mar 29 2003

The marrypopper http://images.art.c...040000/10040369.jpg
[pluterday, Oct 04 2004]

Never work. Even if the jumper managed to have the bag inflate below him, it couldn't inflate fast enough in the time it takes him to fall that last 20-30 feet. And at that speed a little bag wouldn't do much good anyway.
-- sambwiches, Mar 29 2003


Think of car air bags that have to work in just inches and milliseconds...
and it's not a little bag, why, it's a great big bag!
-- pluterday, Mar 29 2003


Why not have his suit inflate like a giant fat man... would that help?
-- futurebird, Mar 29 2003


If there's shooting on the ground, I suspect it would be marginally harder to unentangle oneself from a giant airbag than from one of the parachutes these guys use.

However, I am sure you could make this into a sport. Maybe you could put the bag on the ground and the jumper has to steer to it.
-- DrCurry, Mar 29 2003


[pluterday]

Is that the Big Bag theory?
-- Blind Lemon, Oct 16 2003


A feasible idea, seems to me. You would need some kind of radar to know when to start inflating the device, since it would require at least 2 seconds to inflate. Since a human body has a maximum free-fall speed of something like 120 mph, that's 176 feet per sec. Now, comes the problem of the "explosively fast inflation". If the bag is still inflating when the parachuter hits it, the 'chuter will be sent back upward at a considerable speed. Think of the g forces decelerating him/her to zero and then back to at least 10 mph the other way! So, the bag must inflate & then begin DE-flating immediately. Actually, some bullet holes from ground fire might be helpful. Then when the 'chuter hits the beg, they are more gently reduced to a safe zero velocity.
-- Garboon, Sep 27 2005



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