Humans that can fly?: 13-06-2008
Icarus supposedly tried it when God was a lad, but his wax/feather wing combination let him down when he tried to BASE jump from a cliff in the Greek sunshine.
Maybe it would have worked if the sun hadn’t melted the wax, probably not though.
But that story isn’t stopping South African designer Maria von Egidy of Jii-Wings, Cape Town.
Ms von Egidy's team are racing to be the first to design a wing suit, which skydivers use to manoeuvre in the air, that doesn’t require a parachute.
"It's pretty much considered impossible," she says, confirming that she is a realist and not as crazy as Icarus after all.
In fact, she isn't even going to try the suit herself, preferring to watch some other poor fool try it out.
Amazingly, she says they've almost cracked the design.
"In terms of downward speed, we're actually within the margin of safety there for landing, but of course the forward speeds are tremendous."
If deployed straight away, the wing suit has the capability to slow the diver to 30 miles per hour, the same speed as a small parachute.
The problem is that when divers use the suit to perform manoeuvres, they move forwards as well as downward and thus impact the ground at higher speeds.
Whenever the prototype is ready to be tested in the air, adventure travellers from all over Africa will be rushing to buy the test pilot a drink.