0
kevin922

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

Recommended Posts

Quote

HOLLY SHIT then I just did it. Jumped off my couch onto the floor. Landed on my belly and was able to walk away unharmed.



I call bullshit. Two feet to your belly has got to hurt. Padded landing area doesn't count! :P:D
www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Quote

Quote

HOLLY SHIT then I just did it. Jumped off my couch onto the floor. Landed on my belly and was able to walk away unharmed.



I call bullshit. Two feet to your belly has got to hurt. Padded landing area doesn't count! :P:D



Dang it! I just pulled all the cushions off the couch and belly flopped it. Of course I hit knee first at an attack angle then chest keep my head high.

Tomorrow I'll try the running approach onto a skateboard and let you know how it goes:P
<--- See look, pink dolphins DO exist!

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Quote

Landing the suit is easy. Doing so without an inflated parachute may be a bit more difficult, but can also be achieved if:

(a) there is no human in the suit at the time, or
(b) exit is ultra low--like 2 feet.



Nahhh... Landing the suit even without a fully inflated parachute, with a human inside, and from higher than 2ft is easy.

Being able to do it again after the first landing, now that's the hard bit!:P;)

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Here is a thought: How about getting in your wingsuit without the parachute. Get a decent water ski boat and find a large body of water. Have the boat pull you fast enough to get up on belly plane. Increase speed incrementaly until you were flying like a kite. The hard part would be that you can't hold the ski rope with your hands, the rope would have to be attached to your torso at about the chest. You need your hands free for flying. You would have to have someone you really trusted to be on the quick release. I think you could really learn to fly close to ground and see how much the "groud effect" plays into slowing a wingsuit. I think landing a wingsuit is very doable but the magic key is timing. I also like the idea of having a profession long jump snow skier were a wingsuit. This would also teach you the necessary timing and would verify the "ground effect" of flying low. I just know somone is going to do this very soon.

P.S. I think that wingsuits could increase in size without adding additional stress to the body by using inflatable sections. You could add "tubes" around the perimeter of the suit that were "shaped" so that the suit was rigidly open because of the air pressure inside the tubes. You could add inflated "ribs" that held the wing shape perfectly with little effort on your part (think inflatable spar). These tubes could be around an inch in diameter and would just be part of the suit. The pressure would have to be low enough that you could still move your arms and legs enough to manuever by deforming the wing shape slightly. You could have several of the inflatable tubes in the area between your legs all the way down to the end of the wingsuit that would keep your legs apart with no effort. The ribs on the upper part of the suit would keep your arms apart for you and would greatly reduce fatigue. You could make the suit larger overall without increasing the stresses on the body, should even reduce the stresses on the body. To jump, you could have the wingsuit be completely "loose" at launch and then just hit the C02 charge to inflate the tubes for flight. This would allow you to jump from aircraft or BASE equally well. When you are ready to pull the chute, just deflate the suit with a quick release valve and then pull your chute. Just a thought...

P.P.S. Did anybody see the episode of Myth Busters where they dropped an inflated life raft (from a jet airliner) from a helicopter with "buster" inside it? They were testing the myth that you could escape an airplane in danger by using the inflated life raft as a parachute. Anyway, the raft floated down in a very slow flat spin and landed gentle as could be, around 10MPH, with buster inside it (about 180lbs). An inflated light-weight structure seems to fly slowly.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
in reply to ' I also like the idea of having a profession long jump snow skier were a wingsuit. '
................................

It's hard to believe no-one has tried this yet. Do the rules of ski-jumping forbid the use of wings???

If not then whoever does it first is gonna set a huge new record.

As for landing the current wingsuits:S:S:S:S>:(:S..................:)

I agree that some form of inflatable wing would be much more likely to achieve a repeatable landing. Inflatable kites kick ass ... and I see no reason why inflatable wingsuits wouldn't do the same if designed well.

What we need is an aeronautical engineer or threee to make it his/her /their pet project. Current efforts though wonderful are still relatively amateurish .

This wingsuitin' landin' trip needs a quantum leap.
Overcoming the 'fabric only ' crew and getting into some truly modern materials and attitudes will also give the whole thang a boost.

In the meantime small improvements to the same basic design will have to do.

:)

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Quote

Do the rules of ski-jumping forbid the use of wings???



I believe they do. I saw a show on the history of ski jumping some time ago, where they talked about how the current clothing evolved. At one point they were wearing stuff that looked kind of like tracking suits, and it apparently got banned.
-- Tom Aiello

[email protected]
SnakeRiverBASE.com

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Quote

Overcoming the 'fabric only ' crew and getting into some truly modern materials and attitudes will also give the whole thang a boost.



Actualy, that's already underway. There are a few people doing some pretty cool stuff right now that just might make that goal one step closer.:)
"It's just skydiving..additional drama is not required"
Some people dream about flying, I live my dream
SKYMONKEY PUBLISHING

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
inreply to TomAiello's "At one point they were wearing stuff that looked kind of like tracking suits"
.....................

Perhaps ski-jumps placed at key locations could be used for BASE launches. What to do with the ski's after take-off could be an issue. If the ski's were integrated some-how they could be used to land with as well. Dream dream..:)
& in reply 2 "Actualy, that's already underway"
.................

That's good to hear Lou.
It'd also be good to hear more about it.
I'm supposing financial interests restrict such info until a product is commercially available.

Pity ........cause it'd speed up product development if this sort of creative info was more freely available and shared.

Such is the nature of capitalism??

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Quote

Perhaps ski-jumps placed at key locations could be used for BASE launches. What to do with the ski's after take-off could be an issue. If the ski's were integrated some-how they could be used to land with as well. Dream dream..:)



Wingsuit ski-BASE! Sounds like fun. You could cut away the skis shortly after launch and then fly the wingsuit, then deploy a parachute. OR you could fly both the skis and the wingsuit similar to a ski jumper with wings, and then either try to land the skis (assuming you're using something like a prodigy) or deploy a parachute.
BASE 1224, Senior Parachute Rigger, CPL ASEL IA, AGI, IGI
USPA Coach & UPT Tandem Instructor, PRO, Altimaster Field Support Representative

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Wow, what a fun and long topic! A few things I want to comment on though:

Training someone like a skijumper to wear a wingsuit is in my opinion the easiest way to succesfully land a wingsuit as design is today..... however, this will merely prove what it's possible to land a wingsuit safely. Does it mean that people with wingsuits will be taking to the air with bigjump skiis though... highly unlikely!

One thing that I feel has slightly been omitted from the whole discussion is the physical aspects of the actual wingsuite wearer. Body mass index has a very big role in the picture as it dictates fall rate, and for someone wanting to fly in a wingsuit to land it - their stall speed.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
"fly close to ground and see how much the "groud effect" plays into slowing a wingsuit."

I am pretty sure it would become measurable at around 1 to 1.5 meters above th ground.

ground effects' effectiveness is greatly increased by Wingspan and aspect ratio, (two things that a wingsuit does NOT have at any advantage)

Ground effect is mostly decreasing drag, not inducing lift... aside from bernouli effect, a wing gets most of its lift by the displacement of air from the top surface of its wing, it leaves the trailing edge at a downward angle and re-joins with the air from the bottem surface. ground effect happens when this angle is changed from interferance with the ground or water, (or snow, granite;)) As the angle decreases, the induced drag(drag used to create lift, measued at an angle relative to the lengthwise axis of glider, wingsuit) decreases as well (in a glider, this means that the amount of work needed in the form of kinetic enegy (altitude/gravity) and the glider becomes imensly more effeicient.

A wingsuit, (guessing here) has a relative angle of attack of about 20-40 degrees, depending on suit and pilot. (this number means probably nill to a aerodynamics engineer working on a wingsuit, as there is no main "wing", there is a system of wings, all flying at diferent and constantly changing angles of attack.

This means, that as a wingsuit closes in proximity to its choice of landing medium, the leg wing will start to experience ground effect long before the upper wings, especialy if landed on a slope, and this will be a large factor in control if the pilot is trying to do anything but crash and slide (tumble[:/])...

On an attempt, i think a wingsuit may be closing its distance with the ground at much to high a rate for this to come into play, but its something i thought of.


The compression of air, between a wing and the ground, is commonly mistaken for ground effect, this actualy happens even closer to the ground and is most apparent on wings with a lower aspect ratio, i am not sure what it is called, but it would probably be called aeroplaning...
wait,,,, what?

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Quote

> You know that in theory , it is possible to build a
> belly flying formation so large that it will move so slow
> that no one has to pull.

The first time I heard this theory was at the Gulch in 1975.

We were building these kind of dynamic motion things and
Seattle was leaning more towards big, very floaty blots.
(Big was like 20.)

We heard that someone up there had calculated that they
could land a 172 way wedge. We immediately started
scheming about skateboards on our chests and some kind
of nose wheel.

A few beers later in the night someone pointed out that if
we could land a 172 way we should be able to dirt dive
a 300 way and float up to altitude.

It did seem to make sense at the time, but the desert has
that effect on people.

Skr



Hehehehehehe.... Yeah we used to discuss such things back in the early 80s when the 60 and 72 ways were the world records. Was neat to speculate on such stuff, especially over a few dozen beers or so.....
_____________________________
"And when the prophet shall arise who appeareth as a bird then the time of the Lord draweth nigh and the flock shall rule the earth."

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

0