Hi, I've been interested in wingsuits for a while now. Never skydived but I want to get into it for the sole purpose of flying a wingsuit. One of the things that confused me is how soon the wingsuit actually gets flying. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0vQvHdN5qA http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMhoNGWMclc In the last video the person in the wingsuit basically sinks and hardly gets any flying with it before it catches drift and starts to soar. The Dubai skyscraper video shows the guy soaring but the building is so large that he probably dropped hundreds of feet first. The point I'm trying to make is that in another video which I cannot find right now of a compilation of base jumps there is a wingsuit jumper mixed in with the bunch. I saw this video in 2007 but I can't find it right now, it was one of those base jumping festivals and everyone was jumping off of a building or tower on a bright sunny day. All of these people jump at the same time and one guy had a wingsuit and it looked like he didn't drop hardly at all before he started soaring. It almost looked like something was propelling him but the only time I've seen a propelled wingsuit is when someone put the jet propellers on his feet (rip). Refering to the video I can't find, it seriously looked like he made a big leap off of the building and right when you expected him to start really falling he just glided through the air. Since I'm curious how wingsuits work I basically wanted to ask about how they fly because I want to get into skydiving and fly one myself one day once I *ahem* make more money just to get the 200 skydives. Like I said I watch plenty of videos of wingsuits and they might take a while to really get flying either that or the person just likes the freefall and delays the flight of the suit for a few more seconds because they want to free fall longer. Like I said though I saw one video where someone just glided off of a building, hardly started falling before he started to soar and probably could have made quite some distance before pulling his chute. My reaction to that is that you can base jump off of something, even something not that incredibly high, and fly right off of it. However seeing the one or two examples of this is one thing when all of the other videos show someone free falling for a while before flying. The videos kinda contradict each other if you see what I'm saying. Some of my questions might seem silly 1.Does what you are jumping from make any difference in how long it takes before you start flying (plane jumps excluded)? Say you jump from a 10,000 foot cliff and then jump from the KL towers. After seeing the video that I can't find right now I would say yes, but all of the other videos seem to contradict that, thats why I'm asking. 2.How much distance could you get if you jumped off of something like the Kl towers. Assuming that the answer to my first question is that you can jump off of a structure around or under 1,000 feet how much distance could you get until you reach the point where you are as low as you can go and have to make what you would call a low pull? 3.Would the choice of wingsuit make a difference in base jumping with a wingsuit off of a large structure like the Kl towers (but not the Dubai building, answer is probably yes because it is the largest)? Lets use Pheonix Fly's products. Assuming that it could make a difference, what would be better for a jump off the KL building, a Vampire, or a Stealth suit, or any other suit for that matter for more glide, less freefall? (assuming that the free fall times aren't all the same for jumping off something like that) 4.If you can jump off something under 1,000 ft and get flying at a pace not too slow without too much freefall is it possible to jump off something 600 ft, 500 ft, or even 400 ft and if so how long could you travel flying a wing suit for before you have to make a low pull? 5.Like I said the only video that I've seen where someone uses a propoller is the one with the small jet feet engines. Is there something that people actually use that can't really be seen? Do people basically attach anything else to their feet except for the one guy who died recently (rip) that attached a large bulky propeller to his feet? 6.Oh and last but not least. Would running and then leaping give you less free fall before you start to fly and if so would it make you go faster (perhaps in a suit such as the stealth or ghost by pheonix fly)? I've been interested in this for a while and think I may have even signed up for this site a long time ago and made a couple of posts on a long lost account. It isn't until now that I'm out of a bad situation and actually have a job that I'm considering doing my first skydive. I know I should be worried about that first but the curiousity and confusion about the wingsuits is driving me insane. You know when you have a question about something and you just want the answer to it even though it really doesn't even matter, its kind of like that. Any answers will be greatly appreciated so I can finally stop wondering about them and end the headache that I gave myself from typing this great wall of text.... Thanks.
