Jackie Chan jumps for his life

Watch the following clip of a Jackie Chan film (Rumble in the Bronx) and figure out how fast Jackie was running as he leapt off the roof of the parking garage.

The most chilling stunt in 'Rumble' comes when Jackie, trapped on a rooftop by pursuers, leaps to a balcony on an adjoining building -- a drop of fifteen feet to a three-foot target 26-feet away. "That's a small target," says director Stanley Tong. "You really can't even see where you're aiming before you jump." After trying the stunt himself with a cable harness, the director concluded that the leap wouldn't look real, and might even be more dangerous if it were done that way. Instead, he had a 24-foot platform built on the second floor for the star to rehearse on, enabling him to calibrate the exact path he would have to run before leaping. The path was then marked with tape on the roof of the building, and Jackie Chan executed the blind leap with nothing but an airbag to cushion his fall if he missed and fell eight floors to the ground. So, the questions are:

How fast must Jackie have been running when he ran off the parking garage? Assume that his initial velocity was horizontal.
Is this possible for a real human being? Let's find out by comparing this speed to that of some NFL football players. They are very good athletes, sure, but they are also wearing pads and helmets.
- convert Jackie's speed to miles per hour
- look at the latest statistics for fastest players in the NFL
So, could Jackie really have made this jump?
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The landing area was 3 feet by 3 feet. What was Jackie's margin of error in speed? In other words, how much faster or slower could he have been running and still land on the platform?

Answer part 1 Answer part 2 Answer part 3