Gryphon (parachute system)

The Gryphon or Griffin is an in development befindliches, civilian or military usable mini- aircraft, consisting of a small, similar to a backpack on your back supported wing of the German company ESG. It is intended to supplement or replace, at the parachutists by height and distance from the target can penetrate into a controlled airspace unnoticed the technique is utilized in the military field High Altitude Low Opening parachute jumping. The Gryphon is not a flight suit ( Wingsuit ) in the traditional sense, since the buoyancy of a rigid and non-integrated into clothing wing comes.

Skydivers can therefore currently leaving an aircraft altitude of 10 km, 40 km wide glide to a landing site and thereby carry 100 kg equipment. Paragliders are clearly superior to the Gryphon in this performance, but the Gryphon flies much faster. The application possibilities of the flight suit demonstrated the extreme sportsman Felix Baumgartner on 31 July 2003 with the predecessor model SkyRay with the crossing of the English Channel.

A further aim of the development is to extend the sliding distance up to 200 km and thus to allow more extensive military surprise attacks of parachutists as they are already being conducted with slower paragliders also with the Gryphon.

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