yuri_base

I'm not a rigger and the most complex thing I can do with my hands is to pick my nose. So maybe my question would sound stupid to a pro, but so be it: A customer brings their suit and all necessary materials. The rigger closely examines the suit and based on their prior experience (this won't be their first wingsuit done!) carefully unstitches it. Suppose it takes the full 8hr workday. On the second day, he puts the parts on top of fabric roll and makes outlines of them with a marker and cuts them with scissors (the old fashioned way, no expensive laser cutter, no computer necessary!) The whole day - just outlining and cutting. On the 3rd day, he puts together the main "envelope" pieces. On the 4th day, he puts all the ribs inside. On the 5th day, he sews in the zippers, inlets, grippers, pockets and other small parts. All this assuming this is not his first suit, he already figured out the general flow. The suit replica is ready. For 5 days of work, he receives $1000 cash (and no material costs). Then he has a normal weekend. Next week, another customer, another suit, another $1000. Weekend. Rinse, repeat. That's more than $4000 a month. Clean, hard cash. Is this unrealistic? One full day for each step? Full workweek to copy a suit. $1000/week. No one would be interested? Maybe, riggers make $400,000 a month pencil-packing and $4K is a pocket change? Android+Wear/iOS/Windows apps: L/D Vario, Smart Altimeter, Rockdrop Pro, Wingsuit FAP iOS only: L/D Magic Windows only: WS Studio

Can't wait for this! Maybe even wingsuit kits where there are pre-made arm and leg wings in several sizes, and then there's a jacket and pants, you just connect wings to them with zippers and bam! - you have a wingsuit, no sewing necessary! If parts are made in bulk in China or Vietnam or Bangladesh, I can't see why we can't have $50-100 arm/leg wings. Android+Wear/iOS/Windows apps: L/D Vario, Smart Altimeter, Rockdrop Pro, Wingsuit FAP iOS only: L/D Magic Windows only: WS Studio

Unfortunately, there's a big difference between unskilled me and a skilled worker in Vietnam who gets $5 for 16-hour workday and can make two complete $2K suits in a day. Android+Wear/iOS/Windows apps: L/D Vario, Smart Altimeter, Rockdrop Pro, Wingsuit FAP iOS only: L/D Magic Windows only: WS Studio

That why I don't buy expensive shoes and other things when there's a decent low-cost alternative. I don't like this feeling that I'm feeding this whole ecosystem of "rich will get richer" parasites. For example, for years I've been buying climbing boots for BASE and hiking, typical low end cost 120-150 Euro. They have similar "Gorilla Marketing" (tm) tactics - new model every year, colorful booklets describe all the advanced materials and construction - and of course, everything is presented as revolutionary and that you'll appreciate the difference. Guess what? I've never felt any difference. (if anything, they're less comfortable than any cheap shoe because they make them so narrow!) They don't last long (2 seasons tops). They slip even on dry rock despite their Vibram BS sole. They make horrible blisters on toes when hiking down. When my eyes became wide open from wide shut, I discovered an amazing low cost alternative - some hiking shoes at Walmart for about $35 that are comfortable, durable, have a good traction, and I've been hiking and jumping in them for about 3 years now and can't stop smiling! (and it looks like they will last at least 5 more years!) Same with a lot of skydiving gear - helmets, goggles, gloves, altimeters - I started looking elsewhere and found great alternatives at a fraction of the cost. Unfortunately, with wingsuits there's no budget alternatives. Android+Wear/iOS/Windows apps: L/D Vario, Smart Altimeter, Rockdrop Pro, Wingsuit FAP iOS only: L/D Magic Windows only: WS Studio

Sorry for my misunderstanding. I do think that the manufacturers are ripping us off selling suits for $2K. Look at their network of sponsored pilots and dealers and other affiliates. On every DZ there will be several who will show you brand new suits and try to convince you that it's so much better than anything before. And you know they're getting free suits and possibly $$ from the manuf. Then they have dozens of sponsored pilots who get free gear and paid travel to exotic locations. Then they have professional video editors and website developers. A good chunk of that $2K goes to all this. Pennies go to Vietnamese, Cuban, Mexican, Eastern European etc. workers. The bill of materials for a wingsuit is not so big, maybe $200. They get the materials in bulk, so it's not like buying 10 sq.ft. of fabric from Paragear. We pay out of our pockets for all these luxurious expenses. We pay a lot for all this BS. Android+Wear/iOS/Windows apps: L/D Vario, Smart Altimeter, Rockdrop Pro, Wingsuit FAP iOS only: L/D Magic Windows only: WS Studio

Good idea. Actually, for my own needs, I do not need a full replica. For example, my suit uses a flimsy material in some parts that easily tears apart (mine started tearing apart only after ~5 jumps in stress points). The bulk of the arm wings and leg wing can last for a long time; it's just some stressed areas on the torso. I don't want to constantly patch them, I want the the whole torso piece be built as a tank and last me as many years as rigs do. Most of the modern wingsuits don't even have reinforcement tapes! They are already built with obsoletion and quick degradation in mind. "Buy our suit every year!" $2K $2K $2K. Cha-ching! Android+Wear/iOS/Windows apps: L/D Vario, Smart Altimeter, Rockdrop Pro, Wingsuit FAP iOS only: L/D Magic Windows only: WS Studio

Making a copy of customer's existing gear is not a scam. If I bring an already-made templates to a local tailor and ask to sew them together, this is not a scam. If I bring a suit and ask to tear it apart and make templates for the parts, this is not a scam. Combine the two - I bring the suit and ask to make a replica for my personal use. This is not a scam. Hire some sewing shop in Vietnam to make copies of used wingsuits. Customer sends in their used wingsuit, pays for shipping forth and back, receives an exact replica for $500. Many pilots would be happy to just have a fresh copy of their worn out suit they love. This is not a scam. Android+Wear/iOS/Windows apps: L/D Vario, Smart Altimeter, Rockdrop Pro, Wingsuit FAP iOS only: L/D Magic Windows only: WS Studio

Maybe it's time for some entrepreneur to start this business. Hire some sewing shop in Vietnam to make copies of used wingsuits. Customer sends in their used wingsuit, pays for shipping forth and back, receives an exact replica for $500. "Gorilla Replication, Ltd." to mount a healthy resistance to all this Guerilla Marketing. Many pilots would be happy to just have a fresh copy of their worn out suit they love. Android+Wear/iOS/Windows apps: L/D Vario, Smart Altimeter, Rockdrop Pro, Wingsuit FAP iOS only: L/D Magic Windows only: WS Studio

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_engineering#Legality "In the United States even if an artifact or process is protected by trade secrets, reverse-engineering the artifact or process is often lawful as long as it has been legitimately obtained." I don't think that covers making copies. For example, it would be perfectly legal to buy and take apart something (say a wingsuit) to establish how it is assembled and designed. Making and selling copies of that, however, would not be 'reverse engineering', it would be counterfeiting. They won't be selling copies. The customer will just pay for their labor. It's like some plastic part in your car broke and you make a 3D-printed copy of it in some shop. They're just taking measurements of the old part and printing a copy of it, and you're paying for their labor. This is not illegal. They're not "selling copies". Android+Wear/iOS/Windows apps: L/D Vario, Smart Altimeter, Rockdrop Pro, Wingsuit FAP iOS only: L/D Magic Windows only: WS Studio

I think most riggers most of the time work on small tasks - reserve repack, patches, lineset changes, etc. $30 here, $50 there. And suppose I have a huge roll of ZP and other materials and bring them to the rigger. Wouldn't there be a poor rigger somewhere who doesn't get a lot of work and who will be thrilled to get $1000 just for their work, materials excluded? There's lot of riggers out there who don't own a shop and light up like a Christmas tree when you ask them if they can do a repack for $60! Besides, I'm talking about a professional facility with high capacity, multiple workers, etc. A well-oiled machine. It's just hard to believe they can't make a copy of almost anything at under the retail cost. Maybe even a shop in the same countries with cheap labor where the original gear is made (e.g. Vietnam, etc.). Android+Wear/iOS/Windows apps: L/D Vario, Smart Altimeter, Rockdrop Pro, Wingsuit FAP iOS only: L/D Magic Windows only: WS Studio

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_engineering#Legality "In the United States even if an artifact or process is protected by trade secrets, reverse-engineering the artifact or process is often lawful as long as it has been legitimately obtained." Android+Wear/iOS/Windows apps: L/D Vario, Smart Altimeter, Rockdrop Pro, Wingsuit FAP iOS only: L/D Magic Windows only: WS Studio

Suppose you have a wingsuit, or canopy, or container, or jumpsuit, etc. that you've been using for years and it's well worn now and falling apart, but you love it and just want a fresh copy of it. Meanwhile, the prices for new gear are sky high. (Any new big wingsuit is now almost $2K!) Since you obtained the original piece legally, it's legal to make a copy of it for your own use. Right? What are the options for doing this? 1) Do it yourself. - Not everybody has the skill. 2) Find a random tailor. - They will probably struggle with skydiving equipment, since it's so different from sewing regular clothes. 3) Find a rigger. - Hard to find one that would take on a big project like wingsuit. So, why haven't anyone yet started a professional rigging shop that will specialize on this business idea? "Bring us your old gear - we'll make a new copy for ya!" I would gladly pay $1K for my old $2K wingsuit and continue flying the familiar suit, I don't buy all that marketing BS about how each year's suit is sooo-massively-better than the previous year. Of course, the copy won't have any branding, won't have any guarantees, and there will be appropriate wavers in EULA to protect the shop, etc. etc. You simply asked them to disassemble and reverse-engineer your used gear and make a replica for your own use. And of course, they can't become a manufacturer using these designs. Just on per-customer basis. Thoughts? Anything like this exists already? Android+Wear/iOS/Windows apps: L/D Vario, Smart Altimeter, Rockdrop Pro, Wingsuit FAP iOS only: L/D Magic Windows only: WS Studio

That's a joy to hear. This is just a basic start, but you can evolve it into anything you like and make an altimeter exactly how you like it! For those not familiar with Android development, here are the files you can start making changes to: /Resources/layout/Main.axml (for Wear, there will be two: Round and Square, for different form factors) - open it and you will see the visual designer of the main screen; you can drag&drop controls from the Toolbox pane on the top right, change their properties in the Properties pane on the bottom right /Resources/xxxxxxdpi/Icon.png - these are your app icons for various screen resolutions /Properties/AndroidManifest.xml - specifies what minimum version of Android your app supports, package name (must be unique for the app), etc. /MainActivity.cs - this is where the main code is. Also, specifies the app name as it appears on the device (Label = "Altimeter"). The formula for altitude AMSL is exact from the US Standard Atmospere 1976, you can trust it. For Android dev't guides, see https://developer.android.com/guide/ For Wear OS, https://developer.android.com/training/wearables/apps/ For sample code for multi-platform dev't in Visual Studio, see https://developer.xamarin.com/samples-all/ For list of smartphones with barometer, see (it's in Russian, but phone names are English) https://market.yandex.ru/catalog/54726/list?hid=91491&glfilter=8547228%3A1&onstock=0&local-offers-first=0&how=aprice For list of Wear OS devices, including which sensors they have, see https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1lbKhNnFBARrT5TVo3bkyp1UzT0S5Iahy3W9dAQf_sfc/view#gid=0 Since a new batch of Wear OS smartwatches with the new Snapdragon 3100 SoC is expected soon, I would not recommend buying a previous generation 2100 watches now, only used ones for cheap. As a starter, a used Moto 360 Sport can be found on ebay and such for about $50. It has a transflective screen that's easily visible in direct sun: [inline Moto.jpg] It works great as an altimeter (especially on cheststrap or mudflap, where its power button cannot be accidentally pushed), and I use it on every skydive (although I do have Viso for a backup). Besides desirable high sample rate of barometer, it's important to be aware that some devices have water resistance and so the breathing hole for barometer/microphone can be covered by a membrane that will introduce lag to fast changes in pressure. For example, on my LG G Watch R I had to puncture this membrane with a needle. Moto 360 Sport has an excellent membrane or grille that doesn't delay pressure changes. Nixon Mission has a unique feature - a mic lock/door - that when open, allows free air access to inside. Known to me high sample rate barometric devices currently are: Nixon Mission - 167Hz LG G Watch R - 90Hz Moto 360 Sport - 25Hz Huawei Watch - 20Hz Google Nexus 4 - 30Hz Samsung Galaxy S8 - 30Hz iphone is no good - 1Hz. (and probably murdered by aggressive filtering) Any questions are welcome! Android+Wear/iOS/Windows apps: L/D Vario, Smart Altimeter, Rockdrop Pro, Wingsuit FAP iOS only: L/D Magic Windows only: WS Studio

Ah, yeah, it was just a typo, I meant V-1 in 2004. V4 was in 2011. Same with "gorilla marketing". Android+Wear/iOS/Windows apps: L/D Vario, Smart Altimeter, Rockdrop Pro, Wingsuit FAP iOS only: L/D Magic Windows only: WS Studio

For watches that do not have USB (such as Moto 360 Sport, etc. - wireless charging), here are the instructions: https://developer.android.com/training/wearables/apps/debugging Android+Wear/iOS/Windows apps: L/D Vario, Smart Altimeter, Rockdrop Pro, Wingsuit FAP iOS only: L/D Magic Windows only: WS Studio

Make a transparent case for it? Or 3D-print a case for it that protects the button? I wear my Moto on a pillow on the cheststrap and always jump wingsuit, it works well. Android+Wear/iOS/Windows apps: L/D Vario, Smart Altimeter, Rockdrop Pro, Wingsuit FAP iOS only: L/D Magic Windows only: WS Studio

I'm not sure where and when I got the 2.5 figure for V-1. A friend of mine in V-1 and me in Phantom-1 were jumping balloons a lot circa 2006, and recording balloon's track with GPS (to record wind profile), then vectorly subtracting wind from our flight data to obtain reasonably wind-free trajectory, and from the sustained part of it get our L/D. Maybe then. But I know for certain my max L/D in Phantom-1 - it's 2.15. (I measured it by various independent methods many times - with L/D Calculator in Wingsuit Studio from base jumps, from sustained parts of balloon and plane jumps with wind elimination, and with Analog L/D Meter.) And I'm fat. And the suit was measured wrong and was ridiculously small on me. And the leg wing was almost like on Prodigy-1 - the top of the arc was barely below the knee. So, extrapolating to 2.3 or even 2.4 for fit flyers in properly sized P-1 is not unreasonable. And then 2.5 for V-1 seems to be a good bottom estimate. I've also owned V-2 (it was a flop) and V-4 (max L/D = 2.75, precisely measured with L/D Magic and L/D Vario). Source of 3.3? Anyone actually scientifically measured it with a proper tool? My impression is 3.0-3.1 is the max. (Mine in Aura-2 is 2.9, measured with L/D Vario.) Maybe, with an integrated container and those thin rubber climbing shoes (like for climbing gym) I've seen James jump, it's close to 3.3? Maybe. But it would be a very strange coincidence that in about 2 decades of wingsuit, no scientific approach whatsoever has been used in R&D and yet we have magically arrived at maximum performance by doing a Brownian motion random walk! It's like a cat walking on a piano and you hear the Beethoven's Moon Sonata! Are there any examples in history of aeronautics when massive progress has been achieved without scientific approach, just by trying this and that? (Rhetoric question.) When the random trying this and that saturated about 6-8 years ago, at least one of the manufacturers even started asking people around, via their affiliated pilots, "what else can we do? how can we improve the performance?" [as in, we don't know what else to try] Trying to fish some fresh ideas. Then, the Great Savior - gorilla marketing - was brought to wingsuiting. The model was taken, perhaps, from the gadget world - a new model every year, unnecessarily many different models in lineup, and aggressive marketing of each new model as oh-so-much-better than the last years, "outdated" model. The network of sponsored or affiliate pilots has exploded. They're everywhere now, and you turn left, and someone is showing a v.3 of some model and saying that it's massively, massively better that v.2. You turn right and someone is showing all the hidden pockets in the crotch area the revolutionary new suit has. From the back, you hear that the flare is so massive that you have to take the PC out of the pouch, flake it like a mushroom as if you're doing a handheld go-n-throw jump, and pitch it up for it to grab air, as the flare brought you to a complete stop. From the front, you see someone showing a zipper with a new color in R,G,B=57,34,154 - never been done before in human history! And you feel surrounded with the BS. BS has won! Well, at least one does. I actually get more satisfaction from a perfectly executed max L/D performance flight than from proximity. It's an amazingly satisfying feeling when you land and try to see where you jumped from and can't because some small hill or cliff completely obscures it. Android+Wear/iOS/Windows apps: L/D Vario, Smart Altimeter, Rockdrop Pro, Wingsuit FAP iOS only: L/D Magic Windows only: WS Studio

Because there's too much fluctuation in raw altitude when the device is just sitting on a table (this is not noticeable in freefall, of course) to my liking. I want to smooth it enough that it fluctuates by inches, not by feet. But at the same time I don't want to introduce too much lag. Simple low pass filter is, unfortunately, too laggy - if, for example, you take 98% of the previous smooth value and 2% of the new raw value, the lag is in the order of 50 samples (1/0.02). Simple LPF is what iphone uses in its GPS data - if you jump with it, you'll observe a ridiculous lag of thousands of feet; you land and it's still thousands of feet in the air. In search of better smoothing algorithms, I found Butterworth LPF, it's much better than the "vanilla" LPF. Also, I needed to calculate the first derivative of altitude - vertical speed, so I found Savitsky-Golay algorithm that both smooths the altitude data and calculates smooth derivative of it. Using of 3 layers is purely experimental, and it's an attempt to achieve my goals: obtain very smooth data (reflecting real pressure changes), but without any noticeable lag. My target bandwidth after all the filtering is now about 10Hz for devices that are capable of it (such as Nixon Mission @167Hz and LG G Watch R @90Hz). S-G algorithm has 12 sample lag (but in the latest update I temporarily disabled it, to investigate why it's sometimes creating spikes), LPF is set to 0.1s lag, BW was set to 5Hz, but again, I disabled it, need to do more work on it. Now I know what to do next: let the user assemble the chain of filtering themselves! Start with raw altitude, then stack whichever filters (from several choices) you like, configure their parameters, and achieve the end result you like. Maybe even have presets that emulate traditional digital altimeters for those who are old-fashioned. "Want a Viso-like zero from take-off to 400ft? Here, help yourself." Android+Wear/iOS/Windows apps: L/D Vario, Smart Altimeter, Rockdrop Pro, Wingsuit FAP iOS only: L/D Magic Windows only: WS Studio

Thank you, Peter, for the kind words. I think the time has come to rethink altimeters from the ground up, because powerful and affordable hardware is here. The old concept of a little black box that we don't know what sensor it has, at what sample frequency, what barometric formula it uses (I've seen a few variations, and most of them have some inaccuracies, compared to USSA1976 standard), what floating precision its CPU has (I've done some programming for Texas Instruments EZ Chronos 430 a few years ago and struggling with 8-bit floats was miserable), what postprocessing it does, etc. - is so 1980's or 90's. We now can do so much more. We now live in era of nanocomputers on our wrists. Let's harness this power. Let's "Make Altimeters Great Again"! Android+Wear/iOS/Windows apps: L/D Vario, Smart Altimeter, Rockdrop Pro, Wingsuit FAP iOS only: L/D Magic Windows only: WS Studio

No, I don't want that. What I want is instant response to pressure changes, but without the sensor noise. If I'm raising my hand by 3.5ft, I want my altimeter to show me that in real time, as if it was a digital caliper. If I stick my arm out of the plane's door, I want to see the effect of dynamic pressure. (I smile every time I see Smart Altimeter go below zero by tens of feet when the plane is accelerating on the runway, due to dynamic pressure build-up in the cabin.) I don't want the phlegmatic Viso's "Keep calm and show 0 until you're hundreds feet in the air." And I don't want its constant silent calibration of 0 on the ground. Pressure changed due to weather - I want to see that, and zero it out myself just before boarding the plane. For instant response, the lag should not be greater than 0.2s (I think). 0.2s at 120mph is about 35ft. If one were to do a comparison test with a fast GPS and made a special enclosure for the altimeter that eliminates pressure fluctuations and makes the pressure inside equal to static pressure, I don't want the altimeter to noticeably lag behind true altitude. Even 35ft is too much. Max lag of 0.1s is sweet. And there's a huge difference in terms of filtering the sensor noise when you have only 1 sample in that 0.1s window, or 16 samples (like in Nixon Mission). 10Hz for my purposes is way too slow. (I have an LG Watch Sport, it has a 10Hz barometer - it's useless for me, other than maybe for hiking.) "Faster, faster, faster!" (Cutaway movie) Android+Wear/iOS/Windows apps: L/D Vario, Smart Altimeter, Rockdrop Pro, Wingsuit FAP iOS only: L/D Magic Windows only: WS Studio

Pythagorus? Android+Wear/iOS/Windows apps: L/D Vario, Smart Altimeter, Rockdrop Pro, Wingsuit FAP iOS only: L/D Magic Windows only: WS Studio

Won't happen. Wingsuit in a research tunnel has been done several times already - Birdman long time ago, PF not so long ago. It was all publicity stunts, to make pretty pictures - "look, we're doing scientific research here, look at our serious faces!" No practical results. No even basic Cl, Cd vs. AoA data - this is what research wind tunnels are built for! Even the above linked Icarus project - no Cl, Cd, only pretty colored CFD swirls. No data, no papers, nothing. BS upon BS upon BS... Android+Wear/iOS/Windows apps: L/D Vario, Smart Altimeter, Rockdrop Pro, Wingsuit FAP iOS only: L/D Magic Windows only: WS Studio

Thank you for your tests. I haven't touched the app in 3 years after launching just a basic stub version of it. For some reason, I missed this bug with the lag and all this time thought that the lag was only 12 samples; I guess with the type of jumping I do (only wingsuit) it was not easily noticeable. Indeed, there's a bug in the code that ensures that for slow devices (like iphone with its useless 1Hz barometer) the lag does not exceed 2 seconds (12 samples would be 12 seconds!), it was actually setting it to 2 seconds for all devices... Argh! Super-embarassing. Let me explain what my app does under the hood. It takes raw pressure measurements (and on Android/Wear, it's truly raw) and then passes them through 3 consecutive smoothing filters: 1) Butterworth Low Pass Filter, 2) "vanilla" Low Pass Filter, and 3) Savitsky-Golay smoothing/differentiating filter that not only additionally smoothes altitude, but calculates smoothed vertical speed from it (if one were to calculate speed just by subtracting consecutive altitudes and dividing by time interval, the result will be extremely noisy). Additionally, speed is smoothed by similar 3-layer sandwich. It's the Savitsky-Golay that introduces a lag of 12 samples (which is ok for the Mission, since it outputs massive 167 samples per second). What I missed was the bug in #2, the plain LPF, where by mistake the delay was always set to 2 seconds. It is fixed now in the new 1.0.4 version for Android/Wear. It is also updated for Wear 2.0, so the app can be downloaded from the watch's app store (and thus should be available even if the watch is paired to an iphone). Release notes: - fixed unintended 2s lag due to excessive smoothing; the lag on devices with fast barometers should not exceed 0.1s now or 12 samples, whichever is greater - increased frame rate of screen updates to 15fps (up from 6fps) - changed number formatting of altitude to resemble skydiving altimeters: altitude is rounded to 10 units if below 1000 units; displayed in thousands with 2 decimals if above 1000 units - removed Butterworth and Savitzky-Golay smoothing filters as altitude smoothing layers (with only Low Pass filter remaining) for now to resolve issues with sudden altitude spikes - reduced jitter in vertical speed by limiting it to values above 1 unit and by removing Butterworth and Savitzky-Golay filters (with only Savitzky-Golay filter for altitude used as a smoothing differentiator to obtain speed, and Low Pass filter for speed remaining) - added raw altitude AMSL output, for observing sensor sensitivity and accuracy - fixed a bug where the measured barometer sample rate would multiply if the app is placed in background and entered again I would be grateful for any feedback on this new version, since the next time I skydive will be probably in a few weeks. Now, as far as agreement with other altimeters such as Viso, we need to do some tests with a good GPS to truly compare. It might well be that the Viso is off, not the Mission. I am using the most accurate altitude formula in full accordance to the U.S. Standard Atmosphere 1976: altitudeAMSLInMeters = 44330.76923076923077 * (1.0 - Math.Pow(1013.25 / pressureInMillibars, -0.19026323650861)) (can be found in MainActivity.cs in the C# project I posted in another thread) Who knows what formula L&B uses and what kind of float precision its chips have; the emperor might be somewhat naked - let's find out! One absolutely ridiculous example is Samsung Gear watches, see the sample code here, it uses the simplified barometric formula that doesn't take into account temperature lapse: altitude = -8727 * Math.log(value / reference); Not only that, but the factor 8727 is actually calculated from physical constants rounded to 1-2 digits after decimal point! (the precise value is 8434, quite a difference) Just another proof that Tizen = garbage; the Samsung's coding monkey just searched the webz for some formula and found this lame one. Just to emphasize, the excessive smoothing/lag was due to my code, not due to pressure data coming from the watch. Android/Wear is terrific in this regard in that it gives the programmer truly raw data. I'm still stocked about this amazing hardware that fits a real nanocomputer in a wristwatch form factor. Here's a teardown of a 4-year old LG G Watch R: [inline lg1.png] [inline lg2.png] (from https://www.onethesis.com/2015/03/31/the-lg-watch-r-teardown/) It has an Alps electric Digital Pressure Sensor, outputting 90 pressure samples per second. [inline lg3.jpg] I don't know what type of pressure sensor Nixon Mission uses, but if closeness of its sample interval (6ms) to popular Bosch BMP280 (5.5ms) is any indication, it might be using Bosch. We live in amazing times, and the best is yet to come! (I hear rumors of imminent release this Fall of a new Quallcomm Snapdragon 3100 SoC for smartwatches with more power and better battery life for always-on screens. Android+Wear/iOS/Windows apps: L/D Vario, Smart Altimeter, Rockdrop Pro, Wingsuit FAP iOS only: L/D Magic Windows only: WS Studio

// The winner was by 0.4s faster, out of 29s total - a difference of only about 1%. As an illustration, here's a simulation of WBR in Wingsuit Studio showing a difference of 0.4s over 20s (not even 29!) flight at Gridset, with identical pilots/suits/flight modes, but with different exit push: one has a very strong push at 10mph, the other has a weak/medium push at 3mph. [inline WBR.png] This proves that WBR is not an indication of suit aerodynamics at all, there's too much variability due to pilot skill - push, dive/planeout technique, ability to nail the right flight mode, etc., as well as wingloading. WBR is just another BS the WS makers are using for marketing. Android+Wear/iOS/Windows apps: L/D Vario, Smart Altimeter, Rockdrop Pro, Wingsuit FAP iOS only: L/D Magic Windows only: WS Studio

Here we go, we can only applaud some fresh thinking. However, it's still unquantified. "Winning design" is a superficial measure because it's one pilot vs. other pilots. The winner was by 0.4s faster, out of 29s total - a difference of only about 1%. Take into account human reaction time to start signal and other errors in time measurement, and it's a moot point. A much more reliable measure would be a polar curve of normalized sustained speeds and comparison of it to polar curves of other suits. The polar curve goes to the right (increasing horizontal speed) and bends down (increasing vertical speed), then goes vertically down (max possible sustained horiz. speed is achieved) and bends back to the left (you can't go any faster horizontally, but can vertically). Once the max sustained horiz. speed is found for the same experienced pilot, but on different suits, you can make objective conclusions. "Flick Tail has Vxs_max = 160mph, Jedi 150mph. Clear improvement!" 100% scientific, 0% bullshit. The race results can't be trusted to make conclusions about suits. Race is like a river that can be entered only once - who knows what the result would be if the same pilot jumped Jedi instead? Maybe faster by a full second? Who knows. The winner did see me jumping my L/D Vario device (based on a smartwatch) at Lodi circa 2015-ish and examined it closely, was interested. It wouldn't be hard for a big wingsuit manufacturer to build such a device, it works on any smartphone or Wear smartwatch, all you need to do is to make a vane that fits your device. And then you can have scientific results and be the first WS maker in the Solar System (and possibly, the Universe) without all this marketing BS. In terms of further developments in wingsuit, it would be a good start to precisely measure max L/D for each model of wingsuit (with the same factory pilot) and build a graph "L/D vs. planform surface area", to see a trend, then we can see if there's an asymptotic saturation or there's still some room to squeeze some more sweet L/D. Reaching the 3rd magic L/D = 3.57 (for which the trajectory becomes level (infinite G.R.) at some point after BASE exit) would be a major milestone in history of wingsuiting. It will also put us much much closer to achieving zero total speed at the end of a flare, making possible things like "landing" on a trapeze or a net suspended below a hot air balloon. Every 20% increase in L/D will bring us amazing things, like the 2.5->3.0 increase did (no flare -> massive flare). Android+Wear/iOS/Windows apps: L/D Vario, Smart Altimeter, Rockdrop Pro, Wingsuit FAP iOS only: L/D Magic Windows only: WS Studio