s6 mods = s6s

[imsparticus 0]

Hi guys, just wanted to share with you some mods i have made to my s6 as an attempt to modernise it, and a bonded patch repair that turned out better than stiching.

basically all i have done is remove the armwing deflectors (needed the material and didnt think they did all that much anyhow no suit has these anymore and there is probably a good reason for it).

Then with the material from the armwing deflectors i ditched the mesh armvent and made airlocks. then removed the mesh armsleves and relaced them with zp material and sewed closed the gap under the armpit sealing the armwing.

for the legwing i just removed the mesh vent and used the bonus patch material from the repair kit for a airlock,

at the corners of the trailing edge of the tail and armwing there were little outlets that i glued up with "aquaseal" (eurethane glue for repairing wetsuits, got the idea after i had a go at a patch over a tear on the leg wing that turned out great no stiching required) completely sealing the wings air can now only escape through the stiching

photos are attached

[imsparticus 0]

cant take credit for the sewing i did all the unpicking designing and patturns but wouldnt have been able to put it all together without my mum...thanks mum.

have only flown it once since doing it (more jumps comming up tomorrow cant wait) and in comparison the suit just feels so much more rigid and easier to keep in a good body position previously i always felt it was such an effort to lift my core above/against the drag of the wings but now its a sinch and no where near as tired after the jump as before felt like i could maintain max flight forever. with a neptune my previous averages were 80-90km/h (have only got about 30 winsuit flights all bar 2 with this suit) with a slowest average of 78km/h.
on the first dive back and having not jumped it for 2 months due to the mods and doing 3 180deg turns during the jump i got total average for the dive of 78km/h and a slowest partial average of 72km/h which i am contributing to the mods. I have also gotten rid of the thumb loops and while the suit doesnt need them in flight it seems to be harder to unzip without tension on the zipper can anyone else with suits without thumbloops comment??

[Ludde 0]

Cool!

Next step: Backflying inlets :)

Edit: The thumbloops isn't for tensioning the wings; it's for making it easier to unzip the armwing, so if you remove those it'll just be harder to unzip the wing. No gain in that...

It's not over untill the bearded lady swings!

[The111 0]

Quote

The thumbloops isn't for tensioning the wings; it's for making it easier to unzip the armwing, so if you remove those it'll just be harder to unzip the wing. No gain in that...

As somebody who climbs to the camera step in a wingsuit regularly, I can say that there IS an advantage to not having thumb loops (greater mobility). And I can still unzip fine, because I have a tab where the loop used to be which I can grab onto.

www.WingsuitPhotos.com

[lurch 0]

Not bad! Neatly done, too. Looks better than the stuff I've made.
I've got a tattered old S-6 I made into a convertible...zipon panels from trailing edge of wing to near the ankles. Gets fallrates down into the high 20's at will, good for about 220 second flights. Makes the suit competitive with the X-bird class suits, but its not for the timid and the armload is brutal. I didn't do anything to try to make it easier to fly.
Just a suggestion... as a new wingsuit pilot, ask around about suit features like those thumbloops if you're not certain you understand what it is for before deleting it from the design. You might want to put the loops back. You may find yourself in a bit of trouble if the increased difficulty of unzipping slows you down at a critical moment. Suithacking is normally not something undertaken by novice wingsuit pilots, but to your credit, your mod set is more subtle than radical and aside from the thumbloops I don't see much there thats any more likely to get you in trouble than the stock suit. Well done!
-B

Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

[imsparticus 0]

ok had some more flights yeaterday and posted another personal best of 68km/h partial average @ 6000 (was just trying to keep max flight the whole way) and total average of 78. the suit feels alot more resposive bordering on twichy now. while i feel I have defiatly moved forward with the armwing (cannot get it to flutter anymore when i point it into a steeper dive which it used to) i have done the oposite with the legwing (the legwing never used to flutter and now will give afew when i decrease angle of attack almost seems like the incresed air from the defector pulls it up during the initial change and then it settles).
I flew with afew v3's on the weekend and and it was interesting to note that they now have a mesh inlet for the legwing so maybe legwings with air deflectors are better off with the mesh and i should have left the legwing how it was.

as far as the thumbloops go i like the extra mobility now and for unzipping i just pull the zip towards my hand then grab the sleeve with that hand then unzip im sure with practice it will be eventually just as fast as thumbloops.

can anyone comment on the corners that i glued up are they there for a reason and should i have left them open??

[imsparticus 0]

one of yesterdays flights. www.youtube.com/watch?v=_oNg_tKvvXs you can see the leg wing flutter as i put it in a little dive to get down to the cloud

[Costyn 0]

Quote

can anyone comment on the corners that i glued up are they there for a reason and should i have left them open??

The holes in the corners are indeed a thing you want closed. The material there was Y shaped (I think) so the tension gets divided somehow (not sure of the reasoning behind it actually).

When I modded my old Blade some years ago I had my rigger close up these holes as well. The cuffs don't fit as nicely, but there was definitely no air leaking out any more. Why go through all the trouble of getting as much air into the wings as possible and then having a giant hole for the air to leak out (even get sucked out by the Bernoulli effect).

Nice mods. They look really neat. The glue looks better than the sewing on the Blade (which was done by a skilled rigger).

Cheers

Costyn van Dongen - http://www.flylikebrick.com/ - World Wide Wingsuit News

[imsparticus 0]

thanks guys

i think i have fixed the legwing flapping by (temporarily) sewing a little bit if metal to the inlet to keep the lip of the inlet always a little open on one of the inlets got rid of about 90% of the flapping and while watching the inlets while flying its obvious the one without the metal just stayed completely closed while the other was open about 1/2cm, will figure out something a little more permanent shortly.

[Costyn 0]

Interesting idea, but I think you'd need quite a heavy piece of metal to counteract the force of the air coming past.

What I and others did on their Blade is make an air scoop for the leg wing inlet with a piece of stiffner material (any type of plastic that isn't too rigid) to get more air into the wing. Most wingsuits being made these days have some sort of scoop design on the inlets, mesh is on the way out. Unfortunately I can't seem to find any pics on my computer. Maybe someone else has some of their scoop mod?

Costyn van Dongen - http://www.flylikebrick.com/ - World Wide Wingsuit News

[imsparticus 0]

it sort of ends up like a servo tab on a plane the force towards the rear of the metal tab is greater (larger surface area) than the front and in getting pushed down lifts the front of the inlet up into the airstream. I fiddled with the scoops on the ground but they seem to distort the inlet tomuch and afect the efeectivness of the airlock ie, just blowing on my inlets they will close when i stop blowing and hold pressure i can pump up the legwing and it will more or less hold, with scoops the air just seemed to come straight back out as fast as i blew it in. I only have about 2 inches of overlap for the airlock the inlet is 4 inches wide maybe if i tack the rear of the airlock in the middle down the scoop and airlock would work better. (pic of tack idea attached)