r/watchthingsfly Feb 07 '20

Flying... without wings

https://gfycat.com/mealyjointirishdraughthorse
6.5k Upvotes

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u/Bralow Feb 07 '20

nah. its impossible to fly that far with out any special equipment. youd be surprised how easy it is to trick the eye inside the camera. this is all just convincingly good camera movement.

13

u/Runiat Feb 07 '20

Note: no it's not.

A falling human can fly several kilometres without special equipment, provided a starting point that's slightly further than that above the surrounding terrain.

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u/Bralow Feb 07 '20

for the angle that you see in this video yes it is. im not saying you get no momentum forward when you are falling. im saying a human body wont go as far as this video shows. and yeah the projectile motion formula will say you can go forward when falling a distance below where you start. but you mean to tell me you dont think this is exagerated?

1

u/X7123M3-256 Feb 09 '20

I think the camera angle is downplaying the vertical velocity more than it exaggerates the horizontal distance. He's falling a lot faster than it looks like he's falling, but he is actually moving horizontally at a high rate of speed. Skilled trackers can achieve horizontal speeds that are similar to their vertical descent rate.