modding Wingsuit smaller armwings relative to leg wing?

[5.samadhi 0]

just curious, what do the arm wings do for a wingsuit in terms of forward drive? It seems to me (very inexperienced opinion only have about 20 wingsuit jumps) that they act more like brakes and slow the suit down (in terms of forward speed and descent rate).

What would a wingsuit with arms like the prodigy and leg wing like the vampire be like? Would the pitch be too headlow? What would the distance be like?

I am flying a Vampire2 and I notice that when I sweep the arms back I really start to fly forward much faster. In the beginning I was 'cupping' air too much and it was like brakes....fighting the forward movement...

So my idea is what would happen if you modded the arm wing on a VAMPIRE2 to make it smaller (say like a shadow or phantom ending basically at the wrist). Would this affect the pitch of the wingsuit too much negatively?

Would this be a wingsuit that would have good distance still but yet remain easy to use (pulling in a base environment for instance).

sorry for rambling thoughts this is what was bouncing through my head on the drive back home yesterday after flying all day.

[5.samadhi 0]

if my first post was not clear enough the mod I was thinking about on the Vampire2 was cutting from the wrist to the body of the suit on the arm wings (basically reducing the arm wing by 4 inches removing the gripper) and then sewing the arm wing closed again.

I'm not contemplating actually doing this at this point, but rather the theory behind what it would do to the suit.

I strive for distance and ease of deployment. I do not care at all about range for the suit, or time/descent rate. All I practice wingsuiting for is to take them off of objects and to get good object separation when I do. (just to clarify my desideratum for a wingsuit is different than typical).

thanks for your thoughts! peace!

[The111 0]

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I am flying a Vampire2 and I notice that when I sweep the arms back I really start to fly forward much faster. In the beginning I was 'cupping' air too much and it was like brakes....fighting the forward movement...

You are flying forward AND down much faster, most likely. And your glide is probably not any better.

A similar effect can be achieved by having proper bends at hips, chest, and neck, which is the correct body position for glide/distance.

Shrinking arms on a Vampire seems like an odd choice. I am sure Robi know better than me or you how to size arm wings for his flagship suit.

www.WingsuitPhotos.com

[roostnureye 2]

here is a pic of what you are referring to:

in my case the v4 arm wings were a little over 4" too short.
i know im a knuckle dragger lol

i would never want to order a suit that fit like this, although the pull would be allot easier

Flock University FWC / ZFlock
B.A.S.E. 1580
Aussie BASE 121

[Freeflaw 0]

A buddy of mine flies a mach one or raptor with the arms trimmed to the size of a phantom. He uses it a lot for flocking with smaller suits (Xbird is his regular weapon of choice). He just unstiched the wings from the body half way and then rolled the wing onto itself and taped it. After he had figured out the ideal amount of wing for his purposes he had me trim and sew them up.
Also: If Yuri_base is ever on here...he has taken the prodigy legwing out of planes for shits n giggles and really enjoyed it.

Also: on a V2 roll stability might suffer given the narrower legwing maybe?

Just some rambling to add to yours.

[Trae 1]

in reply to "I am flying a Vampire2 and I notice that when I sweep the arms back I really start to fly forward much faster. In the beginning I was 'cupping' air too much and it was like brakes....fighting the forward movement... "
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I've found my V2 flocks better with fatties when the I i tuck my elbows in. This reduction in arm wing area allows for nice steep flight so you can easier keep down with the tubby boys.

However the V2 wasn't made to flock with.

the V2 is a speed machine pure and simple.

At full speed it turns like a top fuel dragster ie not well and then you get to the high speed stall on the inner wing... and then you flip under as the inner wing loses lift suddenly... at high speed it skids more than turns, not fun on a base jump and this very thing has killed at least one person I knew who tried too hard to fly proximity with his V2.

It was/ is a one trick pony.
Wanna get off a cliff, fly in a straightish line as fast as you can away from it ?.... its the machine. if you wanto turn effectively you gotta slow down first .
If you wanna flock with it , ?? you'd be better off getting something slower that can turn nice.

[voilsb 1]

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in reply to "I am flying a Vampire2 and I notice that when I sweep the arms back I really start to fly forward much faster. In the beginning I was 'cupping' air too much and it was like brakes....fighting the forward movement... "
..........................................


I've found my V2 flocks better with fatties when the I i tuck my elbows in. This reduction in arm wing area allows for nice steep flight so you can easier keep down with the tubby boys.

However the V2 wasn't made to flock with.

the V2 is a speed machine pure and simple.

At full speed it turns like a top fuel dragster ie not well and then you get to the high speed stall on the inner wing... and then you flip under as the inner wing loses lift suddenly... at high speed it skids more than turns, not fun on a base jump and this very thing has killed at least one person I knew who tried too hard to fly proximity with his V2.

It was/ is a one trick pony.
Wanna get off a cliff, fly in a straightish line as fast as you can away from it ?.... its the machine. if you wanto turn effectively you gotta slow down first .
If you wanna flock with it , ?? you'd be better off getting something slower that can turn nice.

and there's Adrian, who flocks and does acro in his V2 ...

Brian

[Trae 1]

in reply to "and there's Adrian, who flocks and does acro in his V2 ... "
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I saw a guy make a dog dance once too

[mccordia 73]

the V2 is a bit more geared towards speed/distance, but in the jumps Ive done on one had no issues flocking with it at all, at various speeds.

Nothing a thousand jumps wont fix though

JC
FlyLikeBrick
I'm an Athlete?

[5.samadhi 0]

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in reply to "I am flying a Vampire2 and I notice that when I sweep the arms back I really start to fly forward much faster. In the beginning I was 'cupping' air too much and it was like brakes....fighting the forward movement... "
..........................................


I've found my V2 flocks better with fatties when the I i tuck my elbows in. This reduction in arm wing area allows for nice steep flight so you can easier keep down with the tubby boys.

However the V2 wasn't made to flock with.

the V2 is a speed machine pure and simple.

At full speed it turns like a top fuel dragster ie not well and then you get to the high speed stall on the inner wing... and then you flip under as the inner wing loses lift suddenly... at high speed it skids more than turns, not fun on a base jump and this very thing has killed at least one person I knew who tried too hard to fly proximity with his V2.

It was/ is a one trick pony.
Wanna get off a cliff, fly in a straightish line as fast as you can away from it ?.... its the machine. if you wanto turn effectively you gotta slow down first .
If you wanna flock with it , ?? you'd be better off getting something slower that can turn nice.

this is exactly why I bought the suit! To practice and learn enough to safely get off and AWAY from a wall as far as possible. Also its incredibly fun Im finding to push the distance that you travel on a skydive (oh I got out over the road this time and made it back to the DZ, or over the pond, or a little past the pond, etc etc whatever...as long as winds stay the same this can be a good judge for your improvement).


so what would reducing the arm wing do to the forward movement??? I know it would make pulling more easy.

[DSE 3]

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what would reducing the arm wing do to the forward movement??? I know it would make pulling more easy.

How so?

[Butters 0]

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this is exactly why I bought the suit! To practice and learn enough to safely get off and AWAY from a wall as far as possible.

Personally I find people who buy a large suit to learn in are doing themselves a disservice as I believe you learn faster on a smaller suit.

"That looks dangerous." Leopold Stotch

[5.samadhi 0]

well it doesnt matter anyways because its the only suit I have and rent is hard enough to pay so another wingsuit is never going to happen.

DSE, I have reached for the pull and the fabric below the wrist can obscrure the pull, causing precious seconds lost. I thought to raise the wingsuit's arm wings similar to a shadow, but obviously do not want to throw off the balance of the suit...

*that is my real question, what would happen to the flight dynamics of the vampire2 if the arm wings were reduced*

[Butters 0]

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well it doesnt matter anyways because its the only suit I have and rent is hard enough to pay so another wingsuit is never going to happen.

DSE, I have reached for the pull and the fabric below the wrist can obscrure the pull, causing precious seconds lost. I thought to raise the wingsuit's arm wings similar to a shadow, but obviously do not want to throw off the balance of the suit...

*that is my real question, what would happen to the flight dynamics of the vampire2 if the arm wings were reduced*

I've flown a Vampire 3, Stealth 2, and Ghost 3 and never had the fabric obscure the pull. You're problem isn't the suit, it's the fact that you don't have the skills to fly the suit. This quote ...

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just curious, what do the arm wings do for a wingsuit in terms of forward drive? It seems to me (very inexperienced opinion only have about 20 wingsuit jumps) that they act more like brakes and slow the suit down (in terms of forward speed and descent rate).

... shows your lack of knowledge and experience.

PS: It's funny that you bought a larger wingsuit and now want to turn it into a smaller wingsuit.

"That looks dangerous." Leopold Stotch

[johnmatrix 21]

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*that is my real question, what would happen to the flight dynamics of the vampire2 if the arm wings were reduced*

Reduce them and find out?

[phoenixlpr 0]

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well it doesnt matter anyways because its the only suit I have and rent is hard enough to pay so another wingsuit is never going to happen.

DSE, I have reached for the pull and the fabric below the wrist can obscrure the pull, causing precious seconds lost. I thought to raise the wingsuit's arm wings similar to a shadow, but obviously do not want to throw off the balance of the suit...

*that is my real question, what would happen to the flight dynamics of the vampire2 if the arm wings were reduced*

You are so right! Vampire2 does not match your extraordinary skill, you really have to reduce wing area. Get a Firebird, Phantom2 or Shadow.

[davelepka 4]

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Personally I find people who buy a large suit to learn in are doing themselves a disservice as I believe you learn faster on a smaller suit.

You're the one who doesn't get it. Didn't you read his post, where he says -

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this is exactly why I bought the suit! To practice and learn enough to safely get off and AWAY from a wall as far as possible.

We already went through this with him in a thread about tracking, where he insisted that he was better off diving after a skydive to gain speed, and then going to flat track, as opposed to just flat tracking away from the jump. He went on to explain that a BASE jumper had told him that diving and then flat tracking was the best way to get away from a wall, so that's the way he does it on skydives, to practice for when he needs to get away from a wall.

Again, he claims he bought the fastest suit he coudl so he could get as far away from a wall as possible. Paying no attention to the fact that there's a learning curve, and that he's nowhere near jumping off of any wall big enough to wingsuit, and that even if he was, the first wall he should be wingsuiting off of should be an easy one that doesn't 'require' you to get far away before pull time.

No sir, he's focused on the end, end, end goal of a wingsuit flight off a wall where you either fly the line fast and far, or become a stain halfway down route, and doing everything today as if that was the first thing he's going to tomorrow morning. See? Now do you change your tune?

He might even be jumping too small of a suit? What about moving the PC to a leg pouch, maybe then he could keep the big wings and still be able to reach his PC?

[5.samadhi 0]

dave hahaha

I'm going to temporarily tack the arm wings (I will have to take out the drumstick to do this) and see what happens...after I get another 20-30 jumps or so. If I like it then I will cut and resew the end of the arm wings to remove the Black Death factor of having some arm wing rolled/tacked up

Butters, the fabric never gets in the way even during odd body positions??? I find it hard to believe honestly! There's a lot of fabric how would it not flap occassionaly during armwing collapse to obscrure (even minor obscuring)??? Who is good enough to say that they will never have an unintentional odd body position immediately prior to pulling on a BASE jump which causes their arm wing to obscure the clump of PC???

I am in the process of getting a GPS unit that can track my glide ratio...so I will learn more with the unmodded suit and then modify it and compare the glide ratios/distance achieved....this is really all I care about with this wingsuit (getting far away from exit whether its aircraft or wall!).

My theory is that the shadow and phantom can glide pretty far and their arm wings are not nearly as big as the vampire....so if the leg wing is slightly bigger on the vampire, then I would think the glide would still be superior to the phantom/shadow. There are wingsuit companies that make smallish arm wings and biggish leg wings for BASE jumpers.

I'll post when I have more information. Peace!!!!!

[5.samadhi 0]

I just had a thought, that kind of tripped me out, what if this thought process I am on now saves my life eventually? What if instead of jumping the vampire unmodded I research and innovate and modify my suit and find not much performance loss, but a return in ease of pulling...and what if it saves my life on a split second pull on a base jump? Not an aircraft jump where I pull at 4,000' but on a base jump over talus where I am pulling at 300 feet???

I am glad I am an independent thinker then because I would love to survive such a hairy episode!!!

worst case scenario I grab wing fabric and pull until I impact!!!!! I'd sacrifice a couple decimal points of GR to avoid that!!!!!!!!!

[davelepka 4]

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I just had a thought, that kind of tripped me out, what if this thought process I am on now saves my life eventually?

what if it saves my life on a split second pull on a BASE jump? Not an aircraft jump where I pull at 4,000' but on a BASE jump over talus where I am pulling at 300 feet???

I wasn't joking with my post, well, not joking for your sake, just for everyone else. You know, the old, 'Laughing at you, not with you' routine.

Either way. your 'line of thinking' is more likely to see you killed or injured long before you have any business pulling in a wingsuit 300ft above a talus.

The line of thinking you should be embracing is that the goals you're trying to reach take 1000's of skydives and as many BASE jumps, and literally years of your life to achieve. By the time you reach those goals, it will be your own wisdom and experience that will keep your from meeting that talus at high speeds, not these early, and juvenile attempts to circumvent what others have proven is the only way to get there, time, experience, and hard work.

What you need to realize is that the scope of your goals is so large that you really cannot afford to overlook the here-and-now, and skip ahead to the end-game. There's a lot to be done between now and then, and if you lose focus on the current situation, you'll find yourself never making in anywhere near the end.

Want to jump a wingsuit? Good for you, consider your skills and experience today, and find a good suit that fits those perameters.

Want to track away from a skydive? Good, use techniques that best suit the skydive you're on, and worry about seperation from a wall when jumping a wall of that size is in your near future.

Your approach is not uncommon, it's been tried over and over again. Many, many young jumpers have alaigned themselves with much more senior jumpers, and attempted to mimick their actions and choices, and almost all of them come to the painful reality that it's simply not possible without 'putting in your time'.

They also shared your inflated opinion of your skills and intellect, and again, came to find out that gravity, and the solid objects that it pulls us toward have no knowledge or concern for your thoughts about yourself.

Keep joking around about it, keep thinking you're special, and keep trying to cut corners, and you may find out the hard way that you're not, and you can't.

[ifell 0]

I know nothing about wingsuiting, some might argue I know a bit less than that even...

What I do know is that it is better to get a smaller suit and try to get the most out of it than to get a bigger suit and try to get less out of it! That however is not knowledge, just logic

Now I just need to learn how to get my fat ass to push that little suit to its limit

[DSE 3]

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worst case scenario I grab wing fabric and pull until I impact!!!!!

This happened only last week to someone else.

Another question to ask yourself then, is "What if my 'process' teaches me bad habits and flying techniques that I use with the bigger wing and it makes me unstable and flies me into the wall?" (That's happened too, look for cliffstrike on YouTube)

No matter what, the suit will be out of balance. There're at least two modded suits I've seen, and many of the Pete Swan-modified Firebirds (wing got larger, not smaller). All fly nicely. However, your process isn't dissimilar to the guy that buys a small container because it was a good deal, and then proceeds to find a main too small for him to fit it.
You'll probably be OK (famous words in skydiving, right?) But chances that you'll possess any real skills at the end of the "process" is questionable.

[5.samadhi 0]

Thanks DSE. I think you're right.

one question: what do you mean by out of balance? Is my original assumption that the pitch of the suit would change to more headlow by subtracting surface area off the arm wings?

Do you recommend this as a safe experiment to gain knowledge about wingsuit dynamics (temporarily removing the gripper and tacking the suit's armwings to resemble the shadow ie smaller than the vampire and gripperless). Everything compared/contrasted with GPS data to determine fall rate differences and glide ratio differences.

peace

ps Dave, I know you're right too (about slow/steady progression)

[hjumper33 0]

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Who is good enough to say that they will never have an unintentional odd body position immediately prior to pulling on a BASE jump which causes their arm wing to obscure the clump of PC???

Me. If you arent in enough control that youre going into unintentional body positions at pull time, you dont belong in a wingsuit at all, and definitely not on a base jump.

[DSE 3]

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Thanks DSE. I think you're right.

one question: what do you mean by out of balance? Is my original assumption that the pitch of the suit would change to more headlow by subtracting surface area off the arm wings?

Do you recommend this as a safe experiment to gain knowledge about wingsuit dynamics (temporarily removing the gripper and tacking the suit's armwings to resemble the shadow ie smaller than the vampire and gripperless). Everything compared/contrasted with GPS data to determine fall rate differences and glide ratio differences.

peace

ps Dave, I know you're right too (about slow/steady progression)

If you want to experiment, do it AFTER you've got a solid body position, have dealt with instability on multiple occasions. If you don't have solid ISR techniques, then you probably should avoid experimenting with suit mods. Experiment with body positions instead.
Put another way...Does PD employ new skydivers as experimental canopy test pilots, or do they employ people whose instincts are honed so that when things go bad, the basics become like breathing?

There is no downside to learning and becoming proficient in a smaller suit and then progressing upward. The thought process of going big so soon is demonstrably flawed, one such example are the several experienced pilots in Phantom's outperforming lesser experienced Apache pilots.
Learn your body first, and the suit will follow.