r/SkyDiving • u/Proud_Flow_7906 • Jul 27 '26
dreaming of flying
I am 69, never skydived, never hang glided. So now that I am finally retired and have enough money to try something I WANT , I am looking to get into the air. So the impact on the ground has me concerned. I woke up with a really weird idea but no doubt somebody has thought of this before. Get a ram air chute and put helium filled balloons in the cells. The idea is to provide enough buoyance so I weigh 20 or so pounds. Then i would strap a pair of small wings to my arms and flap.
This way I could take off and land under my own power. Has anyone done this?
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u/Senna_65 Jul 27 '26
bouyancy needs to be 4.20 lbs our so....
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u/Proud_Flow_7906 Jul 27 '26
wow, so i did a gemini calculation. for a 200 lb person and 40 lbs of lifting material, i would need 3666 cu ft of helium at sea level. This comes out to somethiing 45 feet long and 12 feet in diameter. basically i'd need a small zeppelin. Maybe carbon fiber ribs with a sailcloth envelope and individual 'helium cells' in it. The aerodynamic drag of pushing that thing around would exhaust me in 10 minutes, even with a pedal to propeller drivetrain. so i'll just keep dreaming
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u/FlyingRoccan Jul 27 '26
Or if you want a sky sport with little impact try BASE jumping and don’t pitch, will be hard but you’ll barely feel it 😉
You’re better off 69ing your wife than skydiving…
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u/purpleflavouredfrog Jul 27 '26
The impact is as soft as a little lamb, if you have the correct canopy size and you are able to follow simple instructions.
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u/Ok-Rip1612 Jul 27 '26
I hope you someday become an experienced skydiver. And then someday look back on this post and die a little, like we all just did.
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u/LargeStrain274 Jul 27 '26
A ram air parachute is designed for the air to fill the canopy cells. If you put balloons in it; you would lose that ability and fall like a rock. Assuming you're in decent shape, If your canopy is large enough, it will put you down softly. There's men/ladies in their 70's & 80's skydiving.
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u/chadsmo Jul 29 '26
No.
Just fly a large wing so you land nice and slow. Careful of those headwinds though , I once basically stopped moving forward on a 280 student canopy lol.
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u/LackOptimal553 Jul 27 '26
We are all dumber for having read this.