Cooolwyp

I have been skydiving several times, though have not yet finished my certification. I do plan on finishing it and building more experience. Yes I am not very experienced in the sport, though very willing to learn. Please continue with thoughts/suggestions/concerns, as they help to make the design more robust and safe. Also, for concerns, what options do you know of that might help minimize/eliminate the issue? This is a very unique cross of airplane and skydiving, so there will be much to learn and resolve, but then again, who said doing something new was easy. Thank you to everyone for all of their help and suggestions.

I hope that WingBoard purchase costs will be on par with mid to upper range hang gliders ($5k-$10k). I do envision a structure similar to glider clubs though where the club owns the WingBoard/tow plane and several people use it. As far as tow costs, looking at glider towing costs, it would be in the $25-$70 range per 15-20 min flight. As far as safety goes, there is still a lot to prove, and that is the goal of the 40% model, particularly the emergency safety features and protocols. My threshold is for it to be as safe as wingsuit flying before actually strapping a person to it with a target of as safe as skydiving. As I plan to be one of the first riders and have a family, I am not planning on taking unnecessary crazy risks. One question I ask... If you saw a bunch of other people able to do it successfully and safely, would you do it?

pchapman - thanks for the great analysis! You hit many of the main design points that I have been working on over the last year and a half! One addition to your analysis, which took me nearly 6 months worth of scale models to determine, the rider actually does not use weight shift to control the board. To pitch up, the rider actually "leans" forward. What the rider is actually doing is picking up the nose of the WingBoard, increasing its angle of attack. The rider moves the board underneath them instead of moving in relation to the board. This is possible due to the tow rope being attached to both the board and the rider through a Y connection. It seemed backward at first, but after significant analysis and wind tunnel (AKA car tow) testing I was able to investigate the behavior. This also makes the design inherently stable in pitch. You hit the nail on the head with roll stability, a wing leveler is used to help keep the model upright in the current design. The current design opts for more maneuverability and thus is slightly unstable (inverted pendulum) in roll. The wing leveler keeps it upright and stable while allowing for full maneuverability. If you look at some of the earlier designs with high dihedral/sweep, they were stable by themselves without wing leveling, it is the same way a low wing airplane is stable, though with much more dihedral required. All models have been designed so that no control input is required from the rider to maintain stable flight. Stability and control have been a significant focus of the design. It also helps that my specialty in my day job is aircraft stability and control. I did have an X-plane model during some of the early development, but it is unable to model the tow rope - board - rider interactions. My prototypes, specifically the last prototype, have had significant attention to detail to ensure that not only the size, but the mass and inertia are scaled correctly. Thank you again for the comments/thoughts and please keep them coming! If you are interested in more in depth discussions or details, feel free to shoot me an email.

Yes, the WingBoard is real, though it is still in development. We hope to have the first full scale manned version flying in 2016 with the first production boards released in 2017. Thank you for everyone who is commenting as the more input the better. As a test pilot and aeronautical engineer, the aero design comes easy. Though with only a few skydives under my belt, I welcome all thoughts and ideas (which are continuously incorporated into the design, but have not yet been included on the prototype). Our end goal is to make WingBoard as safe as wingsuit flying. If you are interested in more information, you can check out the WingBoard website: http://www.wypaviation.com/wingboard.html A few further details to some common questions: Rider Strength: Rider strength requirements are significantly reduced by the tow line design, which splits forces between the rider and the board. The rider also uses a harness similar to a Kite Surfer to transfer the forces to their torso instead of through their arms. The rider could be positioned laying down to reduce forces, but standing up is more fun and more interactiveThe current RC model is fully articulated with small nylon bolts at each of the joints to ensure forces are not too high on the rider. The small plastic servo gears also served as a great test for over stressed joints. The balance of rider force was worked and reworked on the scale models for over a year. When intolerable forces were experienced in the early models, it was readily seen as the specific joints of the rider would break. The 40% model in the next phase will have high end servos at the joints capable of measuring the torque requirements. A key element to the design was also minimize shock on the rope, a specific amount of spring is required to absorb turbulence and not result in sling shooting the rider. The next prototype will also incorporate the quick release foot bindings and tow releases that could not be scaled down to the current prototype. These will ensure that the rider does not experience excessive forces. Air Launch/Wake Turbulence: Air launch was the original goal, but it is hard to find an aircraft that has a 12 foot wide opening. Also, the tow rope likes to cause lots of oscillation when it is short, it needs to be at least 150 feet long for the tow rope forces and the aerodynamic forces to work well together. The wake turbulence close to the tow plane, especially one big enough to launch the WingBoard is too much, thus requiring a smaller plane and a longer tow rope, the high wing loading of the WingBoard is then enough to cut through the turbulence (notice how smooth the video is). Too hard to learn/ take off from the ground: There is a plan to tow with a tail-rotor-less / enclosed tail rotor helicopter for initial tests and learning. Climb to 5000ft and then start. The tow rope limits the maneuverability to avoid the main rotors. Parachute Deploy Height: The great thing is that when you are on tow, you can deploy the parachute without losing much altitude (10-20 feet). Deploy parachute and then automatically timed cut the tow rope a second or two later. Canopy is fully inflated and you have barely come off tow. Think of how a parasail is deck launched from a standing start Tow Plane Control: We towed the 1/6th scale model with a 1/6th scale piper cub. Yes the tow pilot can feel the WingBoard pulling him, but mostly in yaw and rudder is able to counter the effects. The forces generated by the WingBoard are much less than a glider (it only has to lift 300lbs total vs 1000+ for a glider). It is all about weight ratio, the WingBoard is 1/10th the weight and force of the tow plane ( a glider is typically 1/3rd). -Aaron Wyp WingBoard Inventor