KrisFlyZ

That's really interesting way of positioning the feet, very clean lines as a result. Thanks for sharing. When is the real world test video going to be ready?

Just ping Jarno. He said earlier they were in the process of updating the website to include this info. Maybe he cam email you one.

You should have said 'revolutionary technology' and 'secret ingredients' every so often

I actually think we'll see them diverse even more. Not every development is towards that of bigger wing. Also in the smaller wingsize, there are a lot of exciting changes and developments regarding backflying, aerobatics and performance. So far we havent really had a standard in inlet design or wingsize or shape. Every few years it changes. For better or for worse...who knows...but it seems to be an eternaly evolving thing... All current generation inlets on Tony suits and PF suits are functionally the same.

I think there is a basic difference in what you and I are trying to achieve. Slow flight in a wing suit does not interest me very much. I guess for your design goals, the wings can be attached with a positive angle of incidence like on the Rigor mortis or the Giboline 3(posting from memory, so definitely check that) . At neutral wrist position, the wings will have washout already. A wings with a slightly longer trailing edge than the arm will allow the forces to push the wing trailing edge up and help(as seen in practice already). Does that have something to do with diminishing returns in performance with increasing area due to no change in span but increase in area? Or worsening Aspect ratio and thus more induced drag? AR = (wingspan * wingspan)/WingArea http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lift-induced_drag Induced drag decreases with speed but bigger wingsuits being slower overall at best L/D must be worse off relatively than their smaller counterparts in this regard. As we cannot simply increase wing area and add taper to the wing geometry, the increasing length of that baton(wingtip) to make a bigger wing suit must contribute negatively as well. Diminishing returns again?

The miracle of low wing loading . Not my preferred style of flying but for skydiving Distance and Time competition, suits in the Venom size are a must.

I agree, decent forward speed is the key

Let me know what dates you'll be flying in, I'll make sure I'm there too... just to add some extra orange in the sky ;) Will be helping you with the orange...if the V3 is all I got by then.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ThXwCXV_olM That one? Pilot or not, I have fun in a wingsuit.

So the Vampire4 the X-bird the new Fusion all of them are not wingsuits? Because they got rigid extensions frames on their wings. Now probably you gonna say " ah but it is just small" Everything is relative, so if the frame from the Vampire3 was a bit longer that connected in the back of the pilot the vampire3 would not be a wingsuit anymore but a hanglider? A football ball is oval, a soccer ball is round but they still both balls. Paragliders now have rigid fibers inside them, and they still pragliders! Please open your mind people... What are you people calling a wing suit? Giselle: The addition of rigid materials in all the current winguits(V4, X-Bird, Fusion) only increases strain on the human frame. All the structural forces have to be supported by the human body when flying any of these suits. A hang glider has a separate rigid structure that handles all the aerodynamic forces. The human hanging under it handles none of the aerodynamic forces. Trae: I would not to call a non-fabric contraption a wing suit. It is well known that using rigid airfoils(Skyray) has produced better L/D than the best wingsuits of today. If rigid wings had to be used, I would want to go hang gliding or gliding in one of those 18m wingspan beauties. I am sure the wingsuit community would support(with everyone ordering one) any designer that can successfully design and manufacture a wingsuit that performs 5-10% better than the existing designs. Washout? Seriously!! It can be done to some extent in practice on today's suits. This can be seen in videos and on posts made here by people that have figured it out from experience. On fabric wings, the technology does not exist to allow the designer to have strict control on the run-time shape of the wing and also allow the human flying it maximum ease of flight. Trying to implement wing washout without pilot input is not possible on soft fabric wings. The span of a wing suit is roughly 6ft, without a sizable wingtip, the area of the suit goes down drastically. How much washout would drastically reduce the induced drag of a low aspect ratio wing? Angle of incidence, Camber, thickness etc. parameters have all been used in real world implementations since 2004. Angle of incidence has seen both sides of zero. Is that is all you can see of the ideas that went into wingsuit development since the Classic?

Sounds good. How is the weather? . I am stuck with the below. The only way this could be funnier in a twisted way is if the forecast was for rain next weekend as well. http://www.weather.com/weather/tenday/77583 Paul, get any Uni?

I love that part of the US. It is so beautiful. What's the sushi like there? It's fantastic out here in Houston.

Yup, HangGliding and ParaGliding are on the to do list.

Giselle, I don't know you and it doesn't really matter. It is only the idea that we are discussing here that matters. To me, there is nothing personal in this discussion. It is a very interesting discussion if we stick to the subject and leave personalities on the side. If we add a right structure to take the stress of the human body, can we still call it a wing 'suit'? Or should we call it a hang glider? It is a fact that wingsuits have hardly improved in L/D in relation to increase in area since the early 2000s. The best sink rate is still higher than 20mph these days, can that be lowered without a big increase in area? There isn't scope for a big increase in area compared to the biggest suits that are in the market without adding some kind of rigid extensions or a support structure. Improving glide by using better built airfoils will require some kind of rigid material. Inflatable materials cannot offer the same ultra smooth wing surfaces. Kris

While I agree with what Skwrl is saying, I disagree with the above statement. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lift-induced_drag Induced drag reduces with increasing span. The shoulder joint and the surrounding muscles have to counter some part of lift and drag.

It is hard to conclude that wingsuits have gotten a lot better in terms of Glide numbers. Based on data posted by Yuri K(2.5 in 2005, V1, same for S3), Matt G (3.0 in 2009, X-Bird) etc in the BASE world, and the skydiving competition data that is on wingsuitcompetition.com/ppc we can see about 20% increase in performance for a bigger increase in area.

A pic of the venom posted by JNo on the french forums. You have to scroll to the correct post in the thread. http://www.base-jump.com/index.php/topic,3629.msg10065.html#new The french to english traslator on google gave me a few laughs... ====================================== No offset handle on this model. This requires the effect of placing the bag on a party that does not swell, and yes we should put this one in the middle of the buttocks to the fabric side does not come to cover it. Use the bottom of the bag works perfectly. just get the handle, passing his hand over the wing of arms, the fabric side does not cover it. It resembles its American competitor? Venom is the reply Phoenix-Fly to this type of combination, thus tackling the same flight envelope. It has similar characteristics, which we brought our ideas and improvements. it's a bit like cars: Berlingo, Partner, kangoo, ........ for a given market, many things are alike. ======================================

You are correct. It is cut on the right side to make way for the pouch. Pretty hard to guess from the pics though

I don't see any adjustment to the Butt deflector to accommodate the BASE Pouch. To me it looks like the deflector is symmetrical with the PC pouch sewn on top of one side. A little asymmetry can occur because of the big fat PC stuffed in there. Which suit you buy is irrelevant to me.

What do you mean? It looks to be the same as v3 to me. The part of the arm wing cells next to the body extending down the leg makes it look different.

The most significant upgrade is size(area). In terms of size between V1 and V2, no increase. V2 and V3 a little increase and now a relatively bigger increase. I don't think any official Venom pics/video are out in the open but word is(from Base forums) that some people in the BASE world have been flying it since October last year(time of the ProBASE race).

You just want to see? I landed in Sunny TX a couple of days ago. I want to fly the new toys Gimme gimme gimme, I'm addiiiiiicted .

As DSE's got both suits for you to try, I would be very interested in hearing your thoughts about the two suits. I might(have to visit the DPS for the Driver's License test first...I am not in London anymore , on the other hand its sunny out here ) be returning to wingsuit flying after nearly 3 years this weekend. Very excited!!

Craig, Apologies for the thread drift. Have fun jumping with DSE and post some pics and video

Fair enough. This one trumps the back flying/performance issue question. In case this is not clear, I am conceding that a Shadow as suggested by Luke and Jarno is the better choice.