Wingsuit Flying
"When once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skywards, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return." - Leonardo Da Vinci
Flying like a bird has always been one of humanity’s greatest dreams. Everyone at some point or another craves to soar like a bird in the open blue skies. Air travel is but a shadow compared to what flying like a bird must be like.
A new sport that has become extremely popular in recent years among the more adventurous and daring thrill seekers is ‘Wingsuit Flying’. Basically a Wingsuit flyer dons a special suit called a ‘Wingsuit’ which has a lot of surface
area and is aerodynamically designed to allow the wearer to fly just like a hang-glider or a paper airplane, only at much faster speeds then a hang-glider can manage. A parachute is attached to the Wingsuit which is opened when the flight ends.
The concept of Wingsuits has been around since the 1930s but it was only in the late 90s that the technology was properly explored and commercially developed and allowed people with an urge to soar to get the ultimate flying experience.
The Wingsuit flyer finds a suitably high spot, such as the top of a high cliff or a tall building or antennae (Legally designated BASE - Buildings, Antennae, Spans (bridges), and Earth(cliffs) jumping areas) and simply takes a
running jump, spreads out the suit and glides down. For those flyers looking for more flying time as well as altitude, they can jump off planes at skydiving altitude.
The Wingsuit is a very modern piece of technology and its design allows maximum maneuverability in the air as well as providing enough surface area to make the descents lower then a free fall.
This sport is not for everyone as it requires a lot of willingness for someone to jump out of an airplane, 30,000 feet above the ground. Using the suit safely requires a lot of practice and skill. Jumping off an airplane is different
from jumping off a high stationary point such as a cliff. The flyer has to estimate wind speeds and directions as well as the movement of the plane itself before jumping off and has to spread the suit at precisely the right time so as not to hit the plane.
The flyer will have a starting horizontal speed equal to that of the plane and that provides most of the lift needed to glide instead of descending rapidly.
Jumping off of BASE points or from a stationary helicopter requires techniques that are different from jumping off a moving airplane. There is no starting wind speed to provide lift for gliding and the flyer first dives straight
down to build up speed and then opens up the suit, rather like an eagle diving down to gain speed and then straightening out for a level flight.
The flyer learns to manipulate the Wingsuit to control the rate of falling (lift) and forward movement (drag) and uses body movements and postures and body angle to get the desired speed and rate of falling. The average forward
speed of a typical Wingsuit is around 160 km/h although this varies depending on the wind direction.
As exciting as this sport already is, new developments in the Wingsuit technology are allowing even more thrilling ways to experience flight. One of the most promising developments is the ‘Wingpack’ which is a variation on the
Wingsuit idea. It is basically pair of wings, rather like airplane wings, and these provide much more lift then the Wingsuit and allows for a lot more time to glide forward while descending slowly.
An even more extreme addition to the Wingpack is a currently experimental jet powered Wingpack designed by Swiss inventor Yves Rossy which allows horizontal speeds up to 260 kilometers per hour.
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