What is the maximum glide ratio for a wingsuit these days?

[Bluhdow 31]

The N of the entire sport is too small. The N for performance pilots is like 15 people.

Again, the people that wingsuit the most are the best wingsuiters. 

The body type/ape/whatever theory makes academic sense, but without enough pilots who are identical (or substantially similar) in experience and different in body type you will not be able to isolate that variable.

[RolandForbes 41]

Agreed Bluhdow, however the same pattern can be seen in a multitude of other sports.

Taller swimmers tend to be faster, because their drag to power output ratio is smaller. Taller runners have longer glide, taller rowers have longer range. These are well documented phenomenon in a few different sports.

I think it all comes back to the idea that volume and surface area do not scale in unison. As bodies become larger, they have less surface area relative to their volume. I dont see why this theory would be different for wingsuit flying, I mean were cruising through a fluid, just like swimmers do.

But yes, sorry for the dum science rant. You are correct that in real world conditions, skill is the only thing that really matters! I can still flatspin on my back no matter what my weight lol

Edited November 4, 2022 by RolandForbes

[Bluhdow 31]

You are correct, of course. 

If there were 1500 performance wingsuit pilots I'm sure we would see certain physical patterns that align with this idea. 

That said, I highly doubt a very small slice of a small discipline in a small sport is ever going to reach an N high enough to play real moneyball. It's just a thought exercise. 

[galda 0]

Keep in mind that current wingsuit performance competitions consist of 3 disciplines: Time, Distance and Speed, with the scores added up. Tall and light pilots tend to do better at Time, while Speed favors shorter and heavier pilots, with weight being the main factor. Distance is less sensitive to height/weight. Top pilots (e.g., world champions between 2015 and 2022) vary in height noticeably, from about 5'6"-5'7" to 6'1"-6'2". Technique and equipment play a much bigger role than height, within a wide range. At the same time, extremely light or heavy pilots are noticeably disadvantaged because they're less competitive in 1 of 3 tasks.

I think the ape index makes a bigger difference than height itself, because it's related to wing span. Increasing an effective wing span, as we've seen at the Worlds this year, noticeably improves Time and Distance results, while the detrimental effect on Speed can be largely mitigated. It's physically very challenging, however, to maintain an efficient body/arm position as wings span in increased, because our shoulders are not infinitely strong.

To conclude, wingsuit performance flying tends to favor average sized lean pilots.

[DonnellyB 2]

On 11/4/2022 at 9:39 PM, galda said:

I think the ape index makes a bigger difference than height itself, because it's related to wing span. Increasing an effective wing span, as we've seen at the Worlds this year, noticeably improves Time and Distance results, while the detrimental effect on Speed can be largely mitigated. It's physically very challenging, however, to maintain an efficient body/arm position as wings span in increased, because our shoulders are not infinitely strong.

Yeah, this is actually what is so interesting about the 'ape index' in so many sports is that it does often show that outliers (folks with longer arms relative to their body size) tend to have strange advantages or disadvantages.  It would make so much sense to me if having a larger 'wingspan' would quite literally provide an advantage in wingsuiting in a way that additional "empty" fabric might not.  

If I'm not mistaken there are a number of NBA players with almost mutant wingspans (think 11+ inches longer than they are tall).  Maybe we could convince one of them to strap on a wingsuit  !