Teams of modern-day birdmen are racing to pull off a stunt they hope will be groundbreaking – but only metaphorically

Video: Wingsuit skydiving

Landing in a wingsuit without a parachute presents a few challenges (Image: James Boole) Jeb Corliss (Black suit, right of centre) makes another jump (Image: James Boole) (Image: James Boole)

Update: on 23 May 2012, a wingsuited but parachute-less Gary Connery jumped from a helicopter 730 metres above the ground in Oxfordshire, UK, and landed safely on an expanse of cardboard boxes after a flight lasting less than a minute. He is the first person to survive such a jump.

Original article, posted 17 November 2009

ON A bright day in 1912, an Austrian tailor named Franz Reichelt jumped off the Eiffel Tower in Paris, France. This was no suicide attempt. Reichelt was wearing a special overcoat of his own design that was supposed to let him glide gently to the ground. Sadly, it didn’t work. As the crowd watched and movie cameras whirred, the “flying tailor” plunged 60 metres to his death.

Over the next few decades, up until the 1960s, daredevil showmen continued to experiment with homemade wings of canvas, wood or silk – with one crucial difference. These so-called “Birdmen” relied on parachutes to land; the wings were just there to let them “fly” on the way down. Even so, many died, usually when their wings interfered with the parachute. The idea fell out of vogue until the introduction of safer commercial wingsuits in the 1990s.

Now a small group of fearless – some would say foolhardy – wingsuit enthusiasts is reviving the dream of the very first birdmen. Their ambition is to jump out of a plane, glide thousands of metres and land in …