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lurch

One legged amputee wingsuiter challenge

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Ok.
So,
Long story short: I met a guy yesterday calls himself Stumpy. Military. Has 140-something military static line jumps with 2 legs and another 90-odd sport jumps with one leg, plus a lot of tunnel time he did when dialing in basic freefall.
Guy is pretty badass. Got to talking with him and he was asking about adding a small crotch wing to improve his freefall because he backslides a lot.
This led to us discussing whether it'd be possible for him to work his way up to a full blown wingsuit. Guy really wants to do it.

I think it can be done safely. Guy has a couple prosthetics... I'm thinking set one up with a knee locked at a 45 degree angle to start with. Basic neutral cruising shape, get him used to flying that, then tweak prosthetic to taste.

Obviously he's gonna have a very asymmetrical flying style, but hell, I've flown with half my legwing blown off and it wasn't a problem. I've got plenty experience though and he doesn't. So this is going to be more like a really radical First Flight Course.

His left arm got chewed up by a freaking helicopter tail rotor too. He has the use of it, just can't extend it all the way to straight-arm. But I had him take a "flying wingsuit" arm pose, then pressed up and back on his hands to test his strength the way a wing would if he had one on. Looked totally workable to me. Although he's certainly missing some left arm function it does not appear its any function he can't fly without.

He has a 260 canopy and butt-slides his landings. No problems here.

I've told him I want to see another 100 sport jumps at least, before we can even think about trying to do this but I'm willing to work with him to set him up with the gear needed to do this, develop techniques to make it possible. I'm pretty sure we can build or modify existing gear and make it work. This will be LESS drastic than some of the crazy exoskeletal junk I was building and flying awhile ago.

When he's ready I figure I'll do a bunch of freefall jumps with him first, get a look at what he can do and how he does it, design his wingsuit setup around the technique he has developed for normal freefall.

Single biggest controllability problem is going to be the thigh I think. He has about a 3 inch leg stump. So no thigh control. That side of tailwing will be limp unless we can couple it to the torso or the other leg somehow. Configure it so the one leg is controlling the whole tail like a spatula. There are rigidity and balance issues with this approach and a high likelihood of creating an angled propeller effect, built-in flatspin.

Am also considering other options:
A tailless wingsuit: start with just armwings, add a rudimentary tail later, make it bigger as he learns to control it.

Or a one-legged tail. Am thinking this gets iffy though because I want to guarantee theres no way he gets into a spin he can't get out of. Really want to guarantee no spin at all, so probably start with tailless suit and build on that.

Anyway its gonna be quite awhile before he's ready to have a whack at this but I figured I'd start the homework and research now, well in advance, throw this out there and start soliciting any advice I can get from anyone who may have done this before, and any ideas anyone else can come up with, maybe somebody raises an idea I haven't thought of.
Are there any amputee wingsuiters? If so how do they do it? No need to reinvent the wheel if this has been done already.

If not then he'll be the first, IF we can figure out a way to guarantee he can control what he flies.

"Can't be done" is not an acceptable answer. Imagine the inspiration it would provide for other disabled people if we can make this work.
Ideas, comments, anyone? -IF- we take on this challenge we'll need all the help we can get.

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

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I think that would be a amazing personal accomplishment for him. It definately is possible, and I think it could be done safely.. His prosthetic leg would likely be a part of the design as you mentioned. The key would be for him to keep symmetry of the good leg with the prosthetic one. There could be a lot of great media attention for the disabled if he can pull this off.
Base# 1638

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Bingo... Now THATS a good place to start. I wonder if Robi would be willing to sell him half a Prodigy? Maybe buy the whole thing anyway and work the tail into it later.

By itself that won't be sufficient though. I want to see him able to participate in a flock. Include him. Just a set of Prodigy armwings won't do all that much. I don't think it'll be all that satisfying an experience unless we can make it possible for him to fly in a normal flock and really be one of us. He'll need a lot more wing for that.

Still, its a perfect place to start. Once he's flying with that we can work on gradually building his wing area and cutting his fallrate till he's flying with the rest of us. I was thinking starting from wings so small they're barely different than standard freefall and go up from there anyway, and a Prodigy is perfect for that. Was thinking starting even smaller though, at least at first. Will not take chances with his life.

Progression, theoretical: Camera wings, Prodigy, small GTI-ish suit, finally Mach scale suit and he'll have the range to fly in a normal flock.
Got the beginnings of a logical plan here.
-B
Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

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Am also thinking if his armwings are big enough in time maybe we can sidestep the entire tail issue by working him up to Mach-size armwings big enough to do without a tail at all, the big lower segments of armwings being a workable substitute. Being shy the mass of one leg he's not as heavy as he looks and can get by with less wing than most.
-B
Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

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Dana Bowman, former Golden Knight, still jumps with both of his prosthetic legs. If memory serves, we last tackled the amputee wingsuit issue in 2005, but it was an arm that had to be figured for.

I think the scenario is completely do-able, but it will be dictated by his range of movement or lack there of. I am assuming he can close his good leg to his prosthetic leg for the pull. Over time I think he will learn to compensate to some degree with the rest of his body/wings to reduce any induced turns the prosthetic would cause if he bent his good leg and took tension off of the tail wing. Unzipping shouldn't be an issue as he could leave the prosthetic leg zipped up unless he needs to adjust it before landing.

Given his range of motion he will basically have 2 speeds right out the door for the whole flight, balls to the wall or 3/4 flocking legs.

The progression of suits is a good idea for sure until he is sure of his ability to control his leg and the strength/range of motion of his one arm.
"It's just skydiving..additional drama is not required"
Some people dream about flying, I live my dream
SKYMONKEY PUBLISHING

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Quote


made clicky.
good idea on Al Hodgson.

though the difference between Al and this guy is Al is a world-class super bad ass freeflyer... which I'm sure comes in very handy when trying on a wingsuit. Seems to me that someone who regularly flies atmo this well will be much better prepared to handle a flat spin before it even happens.
The more freeflying/atmo/tracking experience the guy can get before trying on a wingsuit, the better... the more aware he is of what the air is doing around every little inch of his body and how to counter any accidental inputs from the prosthetic leg, the easier it will be to learn...

I, too, feel like it's doable, since we've all experienced the busted tailwing zipper and it's interesting how nicely current well-pressurized suits keep flying just fine when this happens.
And even when the tail loses pressurization... Hey Lurch, remember Pepperell boogie, 2008? 6:33 in the video, Steve H flying in his slot, not moving a freakin inch, despite the busted legwing flapping around...

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Perhaps some form of electrically controlled leg positioning could work.
If a solenoid threw the prosthetic leg between two positions this might not be so complicated.
The good leg could then balance the forces.

If the design was sophisticated enough the moveable prosthetic could be controlled by the good legs movement and have a full range of leg movement.

The mechanism could be something along the lines of a model aircrafts retractable U/C but more powerful.

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Jarno, only purpose of having him fly camera wings a few times would be to start getting him used to having at least SOME wing on. Intention isn't really to go anywhere yet.
If we try to do this, (and thats still a very big "IF"), I'm going to have to be very step-by-step and systematic about it. I talked more to him and he really wants a tailwing. My biggest concern here is the possibility of setting him up with something that creates unexpected asymmetry he might not be able to deal with.
I love your Prodigy wings idea. That would make for a great stepping stone to bigger armwings. I'm not willing to start trying to set him up with a tail until he is equipped with armwings big enough to easily dominate anything an asymmetrical tail could do, and the easy, automatic skills to do it.

I know what a 2-legged bird can deal with, but not what his limits will be except that I know he won't be able to casually cock the tail angle to counter any turns or even outright spin the tail might do if he does not or can not tightly control it.

He has at least 100 more jumps to do before I'm willing to begin though, so he has a lot of time to build stronger freefall skills. The thing is, he -isn't- already a highly experienced flyer which makes me FAR more cautious about my approach to this. If I test some gear myself and it doesn't work the way I expected or tries to spin me, I just casually counter it, fly it as long as I want to analyze the failure, deploy and then think "Oops, I didn't think of that."

Can't do that with him. "Oops I didn't think of that" will get him killed. Before he flies a piece of gear I have to have thought of -everything- which is why I put up this thread to consult with guys like you and Scott.

If he has the stamina and does the hundred jumps he needs, when and if we start working to get him winging it I'll most likely put up detailed descriptions and photos of the gear in this thread for peer critique. Somebody might catch a dangerous flaw or possible failure mode I've missed or overlooked. With my own experiments I was willing to risk uncertain gray areas where I didn't quite know what the gear was going to do. That was kind of the whole point of the stuff I used to make and fly... to find out. With Stumpy, I will tolerate no uncertainty. If I can't prove he will be able to work a piece of gear we won't fly it until we find a way we CAN prove it. My first and foremost commitment in this venture is HIS safety.
-B
Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

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Thank you Scott, Gecko, Andreea.
Al Hodgson is an example of a guy I think would be easy to work with. He has extreme skills already. Unfortunately Stumpy does not which makes this much riskier and a lot more difficult.

Scott, what can you tell me about the one armed wingsuiter you just mentioned? His initial skills, how you addressed the issues involved, and final results? What did you guys do? Theres not a whole lot of prior art on this one and I think Stumpy may prove to be unusually challenging as these things go given the nature of his disability and current skills base. I need to know as much as I can before I begin.
-B
Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

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Trae-
Your suggestion is the kind of thing I could actually whip up in my home shop fairly easily, I have a lot of experience creating electromechanisms, robotics etc.

The mechanism is easy to construct. The control and proportioning systems... not so easy.

Thing is its also the kind of gear only an already-master bird should be flying. Even the simplest such setup is actually -very- complicated and if it fails or gets stuck... we got a major problem.

Much rather start with no tail at all and very gradually work him up to one. The lack of a thigh is a major complication issue here. It could be simplified by adding a structural tie-in to, say, a pelvic harness that would allow a stiff-legged thigh component to build on, but then that complicates landings bigtime so I don't think I'm going to bother trying to work up such a thing. If he lands on it wrong he's gonna get hurt. Simpler is better. This needs to be easily manageable even if the skydive goes wonky and the gear doesn't work as expected.
-B
Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

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In those 100 sport jumps build up you might want to look at a modified tracking suit to get him familiar with flight orientation and some of the assymetry issues; plus he can build some different m,uscles group control thast is likley to be more relevant for future wingsuit jumps. ;)
Dont just talk about it, Do it!

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Well, unfortunately looks like its not going to happen. Stumpy had a rough year- one legged guy stepped on a nail, now I ask you, does reality have a cruel sense of humor, or what? You'd think his odds of catching a nail in the foot would be half that of average. Anyway he only got in a small handful of jumps this season. He's motivated but in rough enough shape physically that making just a few jumps wipes him out pretty good. So I think we're gonna just kind of drop the idea and let it go. If he starts again next season and works his ass off, I'm still willing to try to get him winging, but I'm not holding my breath. Guy's got a lot going against him lately, or did last time we spoke. Bummer, but the impression I get is the guy is just too beat up to go at skydiving hard enough to be a candidate for wingsuits.
-B
Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

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Don't give up on it. I just flew in the tunnel with a buddy who lost both legs to an IED with both of his prosthetics on and it went fine. I'm sure you and your guy will make it happen when the time is right.:)

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

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