[Note: I frequent other forums, mainly skydiving, but this topic overlaps ski jumping]
Recently, somebody successfully did an intentional injury-free skydive from almost 1 kilometer up, and landed without a parachute, at only 50 miles per hour!
See this Youtube -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRB-woVjlFY
That's slow enough enough to do a freefall ski jump from an airplane!!
I have been checking out other rather impressive videos, including ski jumping, skydiving & wingsuits, and I now believe it is possible to skydive from a mile up & land on a ski slope without a parachute, because:
- The world record in ski racing is 156mph (251.4kph) - link
- Ski jumping using a ramp can reach 60mph (100kph) - link
- The speed of the successful wingsuit landing was ONLY 50mph glide
First, you may be aware of the wingsuit skydiving discipline, where hundreds/thousands of us skydivers have tried wingsuit at high altitudes before pulling.
....Wikipedia -- Wingsuit Flying -- a sub-discipline of skydiving
Next, there's successful high-speed proximity flying over a ski slope or along cliffs:
....YouTube -- Salomon Wingsuit Video
....YouTube -- Flying wingsuit along cliff
Note: these are high speed flight, not braked flight (as done during the wingsuit landing)
Next, people have tested wingsuits during ski jumping:
....YouTube -- Andreas Küttel jumps with Wingsuit
Gary's wingsuit landing with no parachute (50mph glide, 15mph vertical speed):
....Google Search -- "Gary Connery" -- CNN, Fox, MSNBC, NYTimes, BBC, etc.
Related Theory discussion on Dropzone.com on this topic
....about Wingsuit takeoff from slope
....#1 about landing on ski slope after skydive from plane
....#2 about landing on ski slope after skydive from plane
It would be very interesting to discuss this subject matter with actual ski jumpers --
About the theoretical mechanics of landing on a ski slope from a skydive, given the proper equipment (of both sports), WITHOUT DEPLOYING YOUR PARACHUTE -- at least in theory?
Cheers
mdrejhon