Growing up, my favorite books were the Green-Sky Trilogy, by Zilpha Keatly Snyder. I also played the Commodore 64 game, Below the Root, a sequel to the books set in the same universe. The residents of Green-Sky, a low-gravity world, could jump off the branches of the giant trees they lived on, open the wings of their silken shubas, and fly. Description from the video game manual:
SHUBA: The shuba is an outer garment worn by the residents of the Green-Sky world. It allows your character to glide through the air safely. It can be torn if your character falls or trips too often. Beware of SPIDERS and SNAKES as these will make your character fall. (http://www.gamesover.com/walkthroughs/belowthe.txt)
Judging from this video my brother just sent me, shubas now actually exist in real life, and they’re called wingsuits:
wingsuit base jumping from Ali on Vimeo.
I notice this video doesn’t show any shots of people landing, but I assume they have some plan for that too, since they seem to be around to give interviews afterwards.
Edit: It’s all explained, including the landing, in the Wikipedia article about BASE jumping.
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