GS1 Review

[mccordia 73]

Just 3 days before the weekend, We were asked to shoot a GS1 for a television item on NBC.
Us being media whores, we of course sayd yes, so a GS1 was shipped to us ASAP.

A little bit of background (Maria will probably correct me if I say anything that's not completely correct)

Jii-Wings is mostly focused on doing some of the actual work they do to pay the rent and make a living.
Which is producing costumes/clothing for television and film.
Selling commercial wingsuits is (at the moment) not something they are expecting to return to anytime soon.
Also as the market is pretty much swamped. But they are still very active in working on some wingsuit stuff. Trying new

things that will hopefully amaze/surprise us beyond belief us at some point :)

So flashback to friday afternoon.
The doorbell rings, and after signing some autographs (didnt know I was THAT famous!) I was the proud owner of a box!
After nearly loosing an eye and my pinky trying to remove the 2 tons of tape used to close the box, a big red/white hump of

fabric lay there starring at me.
So flash forward 2 minutes (the suit does attach to a rig quickly) and picture me running around the house in a wingsuit, watching myself in the mirror and making wussshhhhhh sounds and striking 'the pose' (que Madonna song in the background!)

We'll skip the part where I go to sleep in the suit, and flash forward to the next day.

The wing on the GS1 goes from the tip of the arm, to the point of the heel.
This means that any move you make with your arm/hand, also influences your lower leg.
For me this meant, that slightly dipping my right arm to make a left turn, caused my right leg to lift, initiating a left turn. Causing a sideways slip, instead of an actual turn.

Id jumped a (TIIIIGHT) fitting GS1 before, and experienced a lot of sideways slip/slide movement in the suit then.
This time it was a lot less. But still noticeably there. I think the tight fit of the suit back then made things a bit worse.

As for performance. The amount of lift in the suit is amazing. Coming out of a diving turn, slightly braking/flaring I immediately shot upward. And had to really dive to get back down.
And the slight issues in turning aside, it flew quite stable, and the big wing wasn't any issue at pulltime.

I did notice a slightly lack in forward drive at breakoff. Where I'm normally used to see people fall away underneath/behind me, this time they flew out ahead of me at breakoff, though a lot lower. Slightly 'stally' flight (slow fallrates, but also low forward speed) seems to be what the suit is prone to do when you push it. Though I am interested in seeing what happens when I dive it a bit more. Something I may get back to later, as I intend to try some more jumps on the suit.

Flutter/flapping of the wings (arm/tail) seemed to be no issue. Nice inflation. And even backflying (though a bit wobbly) the armwings stayed open nicely without flapping.

Should there ever be a future release of the suit, I would like to see the wing stop at the knees, to prevent the suit from flying so 'slippery'. As the little 10 cm wide piece of wing from knee to heel also doesn't add all that much in surface area. And with the suit I had, the cutaway was completely covered by my chest-strap. Having it a bit higher on the chest would be recommendable.

All in all I had a lot of fun jumping the suit. Definately a different animal then the one Im used to. And seeing other peoples peformance (especialy in the heaby people/fallrate area) its seemingly capable of some amazing things.

There is some video on one of the 2 jumps I made at our website (12 MB).
Costyn did a beautiful job at shooting it (2 cameras, one with wide-angle lens, one without).

Enjoy...

JC
FlyLikeBrick
I'm an Athlete?

[Tony-tonysuits 0]

cool, the arm wing looks a lot smaller at the hip than the older ones Ive seen

Life is a series of wonderful opportunities,
brilliantly disguised as impossible situations.

tonysuits.com

[voodew1 0]

So if I understand you properly and I will qutoe what you said

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The amount of lift in the suit is amazing. Coming out of a diving turn, slightly braking/flaring I immediately shot upward.

Your saying that vertical speed went to a negative fall rate and you started to climb without any prop blast to ride.


Now you sound like Heffro

I need to see a graph of that one

Just messin' with ya both and yes I know what you meant

I like my GS1 and if anyone is interested I still have some GS1 demos

The pimp hand is powdered up ... say something stupid

[mccordia 73]

No..I really went up

When I reach my stall-speed, I poo, and I gain a few meters more..its awesome..
Ill make a tutorial video someday, involving lots of beans for breakfast!

JC
FlyLikeBrick
I'm an Athlete?

[yuri_base 1]

Just by watching the video, it's obvious that the suit is so misbalanced towards the head-high stall that it should be considered a small round parachute with some forward movement. It's the ParaCommander of the wingsuit world.

To balance this suit, you would need to wear my Magic Shoes on your head, Jarno!

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[bodypilot1 0]

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Just by watching the video, it's obvious that the suit is so misbalanced towards the head-high stall that it should be considered a small round parachute with some forward movement. It's the ParaCommander of the wingsuit world.

To balance this suit, you would need to wear my Magic Shoes on your head, Jarno!

From flying with a friend that is 195lbs and 6'1" in his GS1, I can tell you that comment is utterly ridiculous......



Ed

www.WestCoastWingsuits.com
www.PrecisionSkydiving.com

[mariavon 0]

That's exactly right Jarno, the wingsuit business has not proved viable for us to date - Cate actually had to sell her house to put us back in the black after our investment in getting the GS1 to market. No regrets at all though, it's been wonderful to discover what I really really want to do.. design wings ! and be part of this totally exhiliarating renaisssance of the development of human flight, it's WONDERFUL !
We are completeing an order at the moment for 80 pairs of huge feathered angel wings for some commercial, and that's just one more sign for me- WINGS are ITThe GS1 was designed to be a platform for the development of different wing designs, to be easily and cost effectivly interchanged, all with the aim of improving flight performance. Over the 2 +years that the suit has been out there we have had a lot of valuable feedback from pilots and there is concensus over what the flaws with that wing design are. (we call that wing the sugarglider because it has the exact outline of that prototype)
I have had a new improved design on the pattern table for ages, but since our stall and fall on the business side it has not yet tasted the sky.
There is no more pressure for us to sell suits, but I work consistently on wing design, including the wings to land with. I cannot make any promises but if all goes well we should release the new wing for the GS1 early this year- there are some radical new features so we will not be taking orders until they prove to really work. Flight testing is quite a challenge for us since we have no resident test pilot, but Rod Rocket swears he will fly anything I send him!

(pronounced G - jii is the force that makes you fly!)

Jii-Wings - no strings!

[LouDiamond 1]

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but Rod Rocket swears he will fly anything I send him!

Rod is the one person I know who can really fly that suit like he stole it. He proved that at the AN-72 boogie and at the wings over Marl competition. Rod still holds the record for most spectacular flat spin and recovery from a flat spin at the An-72 boogie. To his credit, he actually made back into the formation afterwards. Rod is a good dude.

"It's just skydiving..additional drama is not required"
Some people dream about flying, I live my dream
SKYMONKEY PUBLISHING

[mariavon 0]

Yuri from the cruel kindness of your heart you helped me a lot once by confirming a suspision I had about the "rig box" on the GS1 .. you called it a "canyon of drag" and I am happy to say that is sorted on the new wing. Since then I have had a keen ear for your insults ...

(pronounced G - jii is the force that makes you fly!)

Jii-Wings - no strings!

[aarthus 0]

What about the arm load ? not too tiring ?

Patrick de Guillebon

[birdynamnam 28]

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but Rod Rocket swears he will fly anything I send him!

Rod is the one person I know who can really fly that suit like he stole it. He proved that at the AN-72 boogie and at the wings over Marl competition. Rod still holds the record for most spectacular flat spin and recovery from a flat spin at the An-72 boogie. To his credit, he actually made back into the formation afterwards. Rod is a good dude.

Yes absolutely, Rod made everybody think positively about that suit. Jaw-dropping performance. I never understood why he did not want to post the video showing this. It would have sold tons of GS1's...!

[mccordia 73]

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What about the arm load ? not too tiring ?

I flew the suit palm up (S-Fly stylee) on the first jump, and had some problems zigzagging too much, and I was way tired when the flight was over.

The second jump (the video) I switched my arm position to what I was used to, and actually grabbed the wingtips in an effort to controll the surface a bit more. It flew with the same arm-load I was used to in other suits and would definately call anyone who thinks its heavy a big pussy

Though my (right)armstrength should of course not be under-estemated!

I think a lot of people wrongfully comment on armstrain on a suit, when its actually just a new body posture, and muscles they didnt use that much before in that position, they are complaining about..

JC
FlyLikeBrick
I'm an Athlete?