lurch 0 #101 October 6, 2017 The goal is to develop a suit that flies like a canopy- in every way. So far, so good. And no, these things (Albatross series suits) have to be flown very dirty for any other suits to stay with them, or for them, to stay with any other suits. Their native fallrates and forward speeds are wildly out of spec relative to how everyone likes to fly. Useless for competition. But what happens when I open it up at breakoff? Last flock, I broke off with everyone else- levelled off at 4,000 and started slowly burning off speed. Watched everyone else drop away and deploy. 20 seconds later, looked at my alti. I was still at 4,000-3800ish with about 10 seconds of power left till it was gonna stall. The suit IS an antigravity battery. Doesn't store charge for long, but while you've got power, you can all but stop dead in midair. It's fun. Live and learn... or die, and teach by example. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
jakee 1,254 #102 October 6, 2017 lurch5 foot 10". If you're wondering about the 35 square feet, it's simple. Yeah. cut off 11 inches for your head and neck and the suit needs to be 7ft wide all the way down to make it 35 square feet. Even if you allow a few square feet for the tailwing extension you're looking at 6'6" width minimum. Have you actually put a tape measure on the suit?Do you want to have an ideagasm? Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
lurch 0 #103 October 7, 2017 Have you ever tried to measure the surface area of a 3 dimensional object the size of a very large wingsuit? You'd need a nailgun to get it to stay put enough to measure properly and that doesn't count curves. Now let's see you do it on a suit wide enough to hang off both sides of a queen bed mattress. When it was stretched out on the floor at Zhills, we took a Petra 69, folded it in half, and laid the Albatross II over it. It hid the entire canopy. We all looked at it and went, shit, that'd be a 35 square foot freakin' suit! And let it go at that. Roughly measured by yanking various chunks of the suit flat and throwing a tape measure across it, the thing is at least 6 feet from shoulder to tailtip, 5 foot 5" maybe 5 foot 6"wingspan gripper to gripper depending on how tight you've got it pulled, and some additional surface area added forward of the shoulders by moderate forward rake. It takes the form of nearly a square with a bunch of minor detail features hanging off it. The grippers alone were 21". Best estimate given crude and unsophisticated measurements and available evidence against a canopy, I'm callin' it 33-35 square feet not counting me face. You wanna argue with it, you come measure it. 6x5 would be 30. The A2 was 6x5 plus a bunch of big chunks of change when inflated. The A3 makes even that look small. We lost some wingspan by making the forward rake, but made up for it in sprawled-out inflation, hung a lot more wing both forward and aft, on 24" grippers. There's spots where the thing is almost 7 feet from gripper held forward of my head to tailtip, and counting cell slack, stretches almost as wide as the last one did. In the A3, the leading edge point of the aircraft isn't my head, it's my hands. The body position is a cross between flying squirrel and Superman. I don't GIVE a damn exactly how big it is. Just WHAT it is. If the mechanic plays out as well as the last two did, the Albatross IIIa Expansion Pack gets built. The body position the A3 is built around, was done to enable supporting much, more wing area than even this. I'd like to see if I can push this to the mid-50's, low-60's. -BLive and learn... or die, and teach by example. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
DHemer 0 #104 October 7, 2017 Sounds crazy The inflation pressure must be pretty good to be able to have a forward arm sweep I can only imagine exiting an aircraft with that much un-inflated fabric Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
jakee 1,254 #105 October 7, 2017 Quote Have you ever tried to measure the surface area of a 3 dimensional object the size of a very large wingsuit? No, but I could quite easily come up with an upper limit by measuring vertically and horizontally. Quote Now let's see you do it on a suit wide enough to hang off both sides of a queen bed mattress. I'd use the floor, not a bed Quote The A2 was 6x5 plus a bunch of big chunks of change when inflated. But it's not a square and the tail extension isn't 5 feet across. Being realistic it's 6x5 minus big chunks of change.Do you want to have an ideagasm? Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
lurch 0 #106 October 7, 2017 Quote "but it's not a square" You haven't seen the suit, have you? -BLive and learn... or die, and teach by example. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
pterodactyl1986 0 #107 October 7, 2017 lurch Quote "but it's not a square" You haven't seen the suit, have you? -B Do you feel like the Michelin man in it? is it extremely awkward until it pressurizes? Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
lurch 0 #108 October 7, 2017 Nope. Once you get used to it, it is surprisingly not-awkward. Flies just fine with airlocks open wide with little pressurization, (just gets a very wide fallrate range, makes it easy to fly it dirty with a flock) and flies like a dream with the airlocks totally closed, although fully closed renders it almost impossible to fly with other suits. I've had jumps where the fallrate never topped 38 mph whether I was trying to fall slow, or not. -BLive and learn... or die, and teach by example. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
pterodactyl1986 0 #109 October 7, 2017 Badass! I love that you are pushing the boundaries, be safe! Maybe you can help out these guys (not for public sale as far as I know) their goal is to make a wingsuit glide 5:1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFLhFJ9C8aU Some action shots https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GskvmrP5LCk Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
jakee 1,254 #110 October 7, 2017 lurchQuote "but it's not a square" You haven't seen the suit, have you? There's a photo of it in flight in this thread. Simple question, if it's a square, is the trailing edge of the tail extension as wide as the armspan? Look dude, if you don't care how big it is why are you getting so defensive about how big it is? Just because it isn't 35 square feet doesn't mean its not still awesome.Do you want to have an ideagasm? Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
lurch 0 #111 October 10, 2017 Took me a bit to realize my sense of humor should be handling this. The correct answer is, no, you haven't seen the suit. You've seen a picture of the suit. Your opinion and credibility will be given equivalent weight to your knowledge and experience with a suit that size. There being only one of them, which you have never actually seen, by all means, please, tell me all about it. I wonder if Luigi had to put up with this crap? -B Live and learn... or die, and teach by example. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
jakee 1,254 #112 October 10, 2017 Quote I wonder if Luigi had to put up with this crap? That is funny! Because Luigi jumped for Icarus, and Icarus canopies were measured differently to everyone else. Like, what they said was 100 was actually a 90 (according to everyone else). So if, like with Icarus canopies, your wingsuit is 35 hypothetical square feet then cool, it's 35 hypothetical square feet Do you want to have an ideagasm? Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
