landing a birdman suit.. it IS doable..?

[mccordia 73]

If your going to use wires/towers and who knows what, why not make a huge net from bungie and jump without a wingsuit at all :)

Kinda pointless to come up with huge contraptions....if you want to land, land like a parachute...anytime, anyplace...but IMHO...just fly and have fun...and don't try landing....:):)

JC
FlyLikeBrick
I'm an Athlete?

[Jasmin 0]

He was wearing a rig...its just he only had a pilotchute out

xj

"I wouldn't recommend picking a fight with the earth...but then I wouldn't recommend picking a fight with a car either, and that's having tried both."

[LandABirdSuit 0]

Right, it's deffinitely not worth trying to land if we have to use some external devise... maybe the technology isn't here yet for a landable wingsuit, but I think we are damn close. If anyone has any kickass ideas for how to modify the actual suit (not landing gear!) but a way of improving flight performance, share them. I will continue dreaming about a landable suit and when someone makes a breakthrough we can all nod our heads and agree that they are a freckin' genious, and we would never have thought of that. See you in the skies or the recordbooks if you figure it out.

Larkin

I want to land a birdsuit! I'm here to collect information from everyone with anything to say on the topic before I start designing a suit that IS landable.

[ber 0]

Im too new and for sure i will not fly one, my opinion should not count much but anyway...

two things seems obvious.... Flaps and airbrakes(to use instead of flare)

Ber
---------------------------------
"Who Needs Oxygen Anyway?"

[billvon 2,395]

>Or struts allowing for an extra few square feet of wing?

If you add structure the problem becomes trivial. There are plenty of hanggliders that will land you just fine; a suit "built into" such a wing should have no problem landing you as long as it provided for control via weightshift, wing warping or something similar. The challenge (I think) is designing a landable suit that:

-can be flown (relatively) safely
-can be jumped from a normal skydiving aircraft
-can be used with a parachute

[ManBird 0]

Just some disconnected thoughts on the matter...

DISCONNECTED THOUGHT 1:

Would a suit that is slow enough to land be as fun as suits we are flying now? Would it just be a different type of fun? In flying along with Zaz in his VX, I know that those flying really high performance canopies are going about the same speed, both down and forwards, until the air density increases at lower altitudes, where a wingsuit flight doesn't change much, but a canopy's flight changes a lot (at least in terms of descent). So our Skyflyer 3s already match high performance canopies, more or less.

DISCONNECTED THOUGHT 2:

Canopies were headed once head in the direction of getting smaller and smaller and people believed that large wingsuits and small canopies would eventually meet in size. As canopies shrunk and wingsuits grew, we encountered limits. A canopy could be too small to perform well, so the canopy pilots and manufacturers backed off of going smaller. Wingsuits are still getting a bit bigger, but we are running into issues of endurance. I think I've already dislocated my thumb a couple times as the resistance on the wing causes the loops to try to sever my thumbs off my hands.


DISCONNECTED THOUGHT 3:

It seems that the goal for wingsuits is docility through performance. This is very ironic compared to all that we know in skydiving. Docile canopies are usually less enjoyable to fly than high performance canopies (for a lot of people... yes, this is subjective). As performance goes up in wingsuits, so does docility (in regards to the goal of landing a wingsuit). The more slowly you can go in a wingsuit, the more amazed you are (in terms of fall rate). Will this irony hold all the way through to this goal, or will a suit docile enough to land safely be less enjoyable than a "faster" suit?

DISCONNECTED THOUGHT 4:

If this goal is met, will the payoff conceptual, or tangible? When you land a wingsuit, what will be your reward... the experience or the fact? Will this be something you will want to do time and time again for the love of it, or will you do it once or twice just so that you have done it?

"¯"`-._.-¯) ManBird (¯-._.-´"¯"

Click

[billvon 2,395]

>I know that those flying really high performance canopies are going
> about the same speed, both down and forwards, until the air density
> increases at lower altitudes, where a wingsuit flight doesn't change
> much, but a canopy's flight changes a lot (at least in terms of
> descent).

Hmm, I don't think that's true. I think we're affected by the same change in air density as parachutes are.

>Wingsuits are still getting a bit bigger, but we are running into issues
> of endurance. I think I've already dislocated my thumb a couple
> times as the resistance on the wing causes the loops to try to sever
> my thumbs off my hands.

I don't think that will be too much of an issue at least in the near future; few people have explored how strong they can become by working out specifically for wingsuit flying. I think it might become an issue as wing sizes get significantly larger unless you cheat (i.e. clever suit designs to keep pressures on your arm down.)

>If this goal is met, will the payoff conceptual, or tangible? When you
> land a wingsuit, what will be your reward... the experience or the
> fact?

I think it will such a specialized stunt that it won't be a goal of most wingsuit flyers, at least in the near future. Sorta like jumping a 4:1 canopy is nowadays. A very few people do it, but most don't because they want higher performance or more margin of error.

[ManBird 0]

Quote

I think we're affected by the same change in air density as parachutes are.

Of course, but it doesn't seem to be in the same way. When flying with Zaz, our fall rates stay around 40 MPH until about 6,000 feet. My fall rate will stay at 40 MPH until pull time, yet he will start to float on me. My fall rate at lower altitueds, for the same body position, decreases by maybe 2 - 4 MPH at most. His fall rate by the time I pull (usually 4,000 feet) is probably somewhere in the low 30s. I have some theories as to why this may be, but they're probably wrong.

"¯"`-._.-¯) ManBird (¯-._.-´"¯"

Click

[LandABirdSuit 0]

Good thoughts all of you, this thread is getting very interesting. No way is it worth needing hanglider type strute for a landable suit. We need something WAY more low key. More like splints for the weak parts of our arms and legs. This would allow full performance during the free flight portion of the jump, but when it came time to land a 25cm to 50cm extension could easily flip out of an overlaping portion of the wing giving us the extra surface area.

Struts would allow flaps which hopefully in turn would allow loops, higher level stunts and eventually landing. If all I wanted was a landable suit there are many ways of increasing the surface area however we must keep with the ideals of wingsuit flying.

Larkin

I want to land a birdsuit! I'm here to collect information from everyone with anything to say on the topic before I start designing a suit that IS landable.

[kevin922 0]

yeah i've been thinking of some type of skeleton that would go on before the suit to help your arms keep the correct position, only problem is designing something that is failproof so your arms don't get locked in position where you can't pull :)

Something like this would be required if the wings get much bigger than they are now, or another way of looking at it - something like this would allow for larger wings :)

[billvon 2,395]

>Of course, but it doesn't seem to be in the same way. When flying
> with Zaz, our fall rates stay around 40 MPH until about 6,000 feet.

Might that have something to do with how your respective bodies cope with having that much stress on your arms for that long? Our postures change a bit after we've been standing a long time even though we don't notice a change; a lot of our movements are unconscious, especially those we do to compensate for a defect (weakening muscle, stiff joint, previous injury etc.)

[ManBird 0]

Quote

>Of course, but it doesn't seem to be in the same way. When flying
> with Zaz, our fall rates stay around 40 MPH until about 6,000 feet.

Might that have something to do with how your respective bodies cope with having that much stress on your arms for that long? Our postures change a bit after we've been standing a long time even though we don't notice a change; a lot of our movements are unconscious, especially those we do to compensate for a defect (weakening muscle, stiff joint, previous injury etc.)

It's hard to say. I can definitely tell when I'm getting fatigued, and it has happened on some of our flights, but the difference also shows up in JumpTrack. Whereas other flights, I maintain my fall rate, but his descent still slows. I think it's some kind of a damn sorceror. Word advice: never get on a sorceror's bad side.

"¯"`-._.-¯) ManBird (¯-._.-´"¯"

Click

[GigaBuist 0]

Quote

yeah i've been thinking of some type of skeleton that would go on before the suit to help your arms keep the correct position, only problem is designing something that is failproof so your arms don't get locked in position where you can't pull :)

I've never been in a birdman suit (and won't be for a fairly long time)... but what about elastic or rubber hoses attached to your body and your arms to help "pull" them into the right position? Maybe they could take 10-15lbs of pressure off each arm?

If the bands were attached to the wrists using a quick-releae velcro perhaps at deployment time you could bring your hands in to undo them and free your arms up entirely. Of course, that's assuming it's okay to move in such a fashion. I have no idea. if you can't move your arms like this then what about a pin release on one arm that would have a cord velcro'd on your left or right shoulder. You could nab it with your mouth and yank the pin, free your arms, and take care of business.

Of course, now you have a problem with two 3 foot long bungee cords flying past your head. Attach the bungee cords running from your body to your arms to two more cords anchored around your ankles with high elasticity that could grow to 6-7 feet in length but shrink back to 2 feet to pull the stronger cords back under your body and out of the way of deploying bag.

Where does this fit in with landing it? Makes it easier to hold the proper position with an even bigger wingspan I guess.

[ManBird 0]

Option 2: Don't be a wuss.

Actually, after flying the S3 for awhile now, I'm finding it very easy to stay maxed out for the full flight, for many flights. I used to be unable to hold it for even one whole flight, but by flying the suit and doing a wee bit of weight training, I don't get fatigued until the fourth or fifth maxed out flight of the day. This leads me to believe that the endurance needed for larger wings can be achieved, just as it was needed for the Skyflyer 3.

"¯"`-._.-¯) ManBird (¯-._.-´"¯"

Click

[TheJokergs 0]

this thread is old but im a creative person and this sounds cool.
Change the wing suit so that the fabric is between your legs and then there is fabric going from your legs strait to your arms, so that you have to extend your arms fully forward to get the material taught. this creates a bigger wing, each would have to be individually made but an average wing would now be about 25sq feet.
Now that isn't big, so have seems added to create a stack of wings, sort of like a bi-plane, but more like 5 of them, you could make the pattern of the suit push air in certain directions as it left these tunnels so that you create force going downwards and stuff like that.
Anyway just an idea i had, but to land it you would need to be riding a street luge face down a rung way.
and you would also need a small chute to stopp your movement so you don't take off once you star decelerating on the rungway.

Build a man a fire and he will be warm for a night, set a man on fire and he will be warm for the rest of his life.???

[gus 1]

Quote

Change the wing suit so that the fabric is between your legs and then there is fabric going from your legs strait to your arms

There's a thread about a suit like that here.

Quote

so that you have to extend your arms fully forward to get the material taught

I think Birdman have tried this but the force on your arms becomes bigger as you push the arm position further forward, to the point where it becomes impossible to hold it.

Gus

OutpatientsOnline.com

[TheJokergs 0]

use a brace that you wear on your back, it would be able to 'click' into the extended position and you have your wing.

Build a man a fire and he will be warm for a night, set a man on fire and he will be warm for the rest of his life.???

[kevin922 0]

Quote

use a brace that you wear on your back, it would be able to 'click' into the extended position and you have your wing.

Of course this would be a sure fire way to ensure you're landing it and not deploying a parachute since you couldn't reach back and deploy one with your arms clicked in place :)

[gus 1]

If you do that you've created a rigid frame and we'll start on the "is it really a wingsuit" argument all over again .

Gus

OutpatientsOnline.com

[ManBird 0]

I've given some more thought to the possibility, and am realizing a few things. Zaz can land his VX 68 with weights straight in and I can match his flight. This is because a canopy can be flared. Awhile ago, I started working on "flaring" the wingsuit as much like a canopy as I could... deflecting my tail, in essence. I kept a solid A-frame, and would (keeping my legs straight), bend at the hip (see attached pic). The pressure on your legs is very high, so it took a little while to be able to get a good solid "flare" in and hold it.

There's good news and there's bad news. The good news is that you can, in fact, hit amazingly low fall rates. If done properly, your flight time can increase dramatically (sort of a cheap trick to get those flights over three minutes), but more importantly is the way that it feels. I had a some flares last weekend that, per JumpTrack (ProTrack worn in front pants pocket), slowed me down to the low and mid 20s for about four seconds on each one. Now here's what's crazy... I was flying in a crosswind and when I flared, I felt and heard the wind coming from my left... not just in front of me. It also picked up my S3 on one side and tilted me a bit. The bad news is that even with practicing big fat flares many, many times over the past while, a "stall" on the suit isn't enough to put you down safely. However, if a suit is ever developed that does get your stall speed down to zero, it could be landed without pullout maneuvers... just put your feet down, come to a stop, and land. You might not want to downwind it, though. ;)

"¯"`-._.-¯) ManBird (¯-._.-´"¯"

Click

[kevin922 0]

no attached pic

[ManBird 0]

Shut up. The picture is mega-detailed. The stick is flying to the right.

"¯"`-._.-¯) ManBird (¯-._.-´"¯"

Click

[joboulay 0]

Too much details....confusing......

I jump, I live, I love. Ourson #1 Ordre des Ours Polaires Volants

[robibird 2]

my observation ....


Regarding attempts of landing the wingsuit, much bigger wing area will be needed to generate more lift and reduce minimum airspeed. But human body has definite shape, which is not suited for flight at all, and we'll need at least few million years of evolution effort to change it to more appropriate shape for wingsuit flying. That means that wingsuit potential for more lift is limited by human inadequate shape and available strength. The only option for more lift will be some kind of rigid wings, but we already have these. They are called airplanes.

Also, if you are still thinking of landing the wingsuit, do one normal parachute jump, but when you open the canopy, try to position your body horizontally (can be done by hooking your feet around rear risers) and try to land small elliptical canopy in that position. After that painful experience, multiply pain and injuries by 9 (three times the speed = nine times the forces of impact = 9 times the consequences), and decide if you are willing to give it a try.

regards
Robi

Robert Pecnik
[email protected]
www.phoenix-fly.com

[kevin922 0]

Quote

my observation ....


Regarding attempts of landing the wingsuit, much bigger wing area will be needed to generate more lift and reduce minimum airspeed. But human body has definite shape, which is not suited for flight at all, and we'll need at least few million years of evolution effort to change it to more appropriate shape for wingsuit flying. That means that wingsuit potential for more lift is limited by human inadequate shape and available strength. The only option for more lift will be some kind of rigid wings, but we already have these. They are called airplanes.

Also, if you are still thinking of landing the wingsuit, do one normal parachute jump, but when you open the canopy, try to position your body horizontally (can be done by hooking your feet around rear risers) and try to land small elliptical canopy in that position. After that painful experience, multiply pain and injuries by 9 (three times the speed = nine times the forces of impact = 9 times the consequences), and decide if you are willing to give it a try.

regards
Robi

*lol* So i guess your glass is half empty?



just jokin, good to see the thoughts from the man...

see you next week.

-Kevin