Why can’t you just slowly bleed off speed and just land like a flying squirrel or other animals that glide? Why do you need a parachute?
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In rough terms the lift force you get is a factor of both speed and wing area. If you want to glide then the force of lift needs to match the force of gravity so we can consider it constant. This means that you can either fly fast or have a big wing in order to glide. But you can not go slow with a small wing.
A wingsuit is a tiny wing and you therefore have to go pretty fast in order to generate enough lift to glide well. A wingsuit does slow you down a bit compared to freefall but not very much. You are still going pretty close to terminal velocity, just mostly sideways. A parachute though is a much larger wing so you can go much slower and still maintain enough lift. This is important when trying to land without dying. Smaller animals can get away with gliding because they are much lighter and therefore have a much lower terminal velocity.
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