G.I. Joe, Call Your Office!

Battle_wingsMan, if the guy in the photo on the left only existed in the real world, with real, functional flying wings like the ones he’s got on, that would be WICKED COOL, wouldn’t it?

Well, he does! And it is!

It turns out that

Elite special forces troops being dropped behind enemy lines on covert missions are to ditch their traditional parachutes in favour of strap-on stealth wings.

The lightweight carbon fibre mono-wings will allow them to jump from high altitudes and then glide 120 miles or more before landing – making them almost impossible to spot, as their aircraft can avoid flying anywhere near the target.

GET THE STORY.

Author: Jimmy Akin

Jimmy was born in Texas, grew up nominally Protestant, but at age 20 experienced a profound conversion to Christ. Planning on becoming a Protestant seminary professor, he started an intensive study of the Bible. But the more he immersed himself in Scripture the more he found to support the Catholic faith, and in 1992 he entered the Catholic Church. His conversion story, "A Triumph and a Tragedy," is published in Surprised by Truth. Besides being an author, Jimmy is the Senior Apologist at Catholic Answers, a contributing editor to Catholic Answers Magazine, and a weekly guest on "Catholic Answers Live."

24 thoughts on “G.I. Joe, Call Your Office!”

  2. Ha ha, I’m dying Father.
    Those wings would be cool for the next Bond movie.

  3. “ESG claims the next stage of development will be fitting ‘small turbo-jet drives’ to the wings to extend range even further.” Commando Cody lives!

  4. and how much did they have to pay the first “testers” when they took away their time-proven parachutes and said, “hey, strap this on and now jump from 40,000 ft!
    talk about heroic virtue or else, again, no brains… (or no choice, “yes, sir”)

  7. You can read another article on this, and see a picture of the back/top.
    Here is the German press release from ESG.
    The very nice demonstrations have no doubt taken place during realtively stable weather, with nice laminar air masses. Unfortunately, “real world” atmospheres are often irregular, turbulent and have problems like wind shear. Owie for batman.

  9. If you’re crazy enough to join special forces, you’re crazy enough to fly a strap-on glider.
    I think a lot of those guys are already trained in using hang gliders and ultralights, though.

  14. Hm…so the US-Mexico border fence becomes obsolete even before it’s constructed.

  15. It doesn’t sound like there are any definite plans by the military to accept and use this new invention, as far as we know that is. Until that time I will remain skeptical. There were a lot of silly hovercrafts and I think jet packs that the military was very serious about in the past, but were complete flops. Until I learn more I am prepared to add this to the list.

  16. What’s a “wuffo”?
    That’s some one who stands on solid ground, looks up and asks, “Wuffo those guys jump out of a perfectly good airplane?”

  18. They still land with parachutes. This is just an alternative to HALO drops. The SF jump at high altitude – 30 angels in airline lanes, and then have considerably more cross-range capabilities than with a traditional parachute, but not nearly the difficulty and fatigue of the para-wings they use today, then, at low altitude, they open their chutes.

  19. You guys have no idea what you’re talking about. We’ve had an been using the technology since the early 40’s at least. Its only now comming out.
    See..the aliens at Roswell gave them to us.
    Alternatively, all you need is a big kid standing off in the distance to throw the soldier where you want him to go (my GI Joe’s never survived a landing though…their chutes didn’t open.)

  20. Dj,
    I think you haven’t been wearing your tin foil hat lately, have you? 🙂

  22. I want one of those, too!
    Um . . . the wing thing & the tin foil hat.

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