It would be nice for me to become a bird, and turn into a big eagle ... Such a song, performed by the Cruise group, could be heard in the mid-eighties of the last century. There is no such person who at least once in a dream did not rise into the sky. I felt the pleasure of free and easy flight. Dreams Dreams. They devoured the minds of people of all classes and times. Starting with the tales of airplane carpets and legends about Daedalus and Icarus, and the first samples of Da Vinci's prototypes and drawings, the desire to fly gradually entered our lives. And it was not easy to enter, but to bring the idea to life.
His own glider.
Free floating in the air without additional, bulky devices long time remained inaccessible to many inventors. The hang glider and parachute wing no longer met the needs of people. And so, in 1996, man for the first time was able to make free planning. And he used in this only unusual elements of his clothes.
This innovator was Patrick De Gaillardon. He demonstrated his first flight in Paris, astonishing a well-worn audience. So, was laid the new kind sports - wingsuit.
Wing - wing, such a translation has this word with of English language... Suit completes the general meaning of the expression. Wing-shaped clothing. For those who still have no idea what we are talking about, it is enough to imagine a flying squirrel or a bat.
The wingsuit shape is as follows. If a person spreads his arms to the sides and spreads his legs wider, then this clothing will represent a semblance of membranes between the limbs. When caught in a strong air stream, they begin to work as a kind of wings. At the same time, giving the ability to control the flight. Back in the fifties, there were attempts to do something similar. But it was De Gaillardon who came up with the idea of using a two-layer fabric in the snout, so that with a completely small area it was possible to create sufficient lifting force.
And why do they fly?
Wingsuit is a type of parachuting sport. More precisely, this is a continuation of skydiving. The athlete rises on an airplane to a height of 4000 meters and makes a jump. In the air, it unfolds its "wings" and begins to slide through the air. The speed that fans of wingsuit can develop reaches one hundred and eighty kilometers per hour. Moreover, with proper control, and a certain experience, the horizontal speed will be much greater than the falling speed.
The first experiments using the wing allowed the inventor to fly over the ground a distance equal to the height from which the jump was made. The range and flight style have now changed significantly.
In the sky, the design of the suit allows you to perform a wide variety of tricks, sometimes the most incredible. Patrick de Gaillardon at one time amazed the audience by jumping out of the plane and, having flown a long distance, climbed into it again at a lower altitude. At the same time, he easily controlled the position of his body in space.
Wingsuit gives a person much more opportunities for aerial acrobatics. With the help of his technology, it becomes possible to plan and at the same time not to use the plane to climb to a height. It is enough to choose a gentle slope and, having accelerated, rush towards the air currents that will tear a person off the ground.
Caution - wingsuit.
Landing in this type of sky jumping is carried out using a conventional parachute. How many attempts have already been made to land only with the help of a suit. Unfortunately, they all turned out to be unsuccessful. Whatever the low vertical speed of the fall, it, together with the horizontal one, created a deadly situation. During the existence of Wingsuit, according to official figures, more than seventy people died. And no one even counts how many injuries there were. The inventor himself died while performing another trick. Only the American stuntman Harry Connery was able to land successfully without a parachute. He made a safe landing on an area filled with empty cardboard boxes. This softened the impact on the ground enough and allowed the hero to make his name in the history of aeronautics.
Be that as it may, failure does not make people turn away from wingsuits. On the contrary, more and more air adrenaline seekers are joining its ranks.
And it's not all that cheap.
But to become human. Which is involved in this sport is not easy at all. One set of a suit alone costs five thousand US dollars. Science itself will not be cheap. First you need to have at least 200 parachute jumps behind your back. Then hard training begins under the supervision of an experienced instructor. The average cost of a preparatory course is around 50,000 rubles. One hour in a wind tunnel alone is estimated at twenty thousand. And still, no obstacles can stop a true sky lover!
Ever since the time of Icarus, people have dreamed of enjoying a free flight. Soaring like a bird, freely and easily, allowed the wingsuit - or wing suit. In nature, flying squirrels plan this way with the help of a membrane stretched along the body.
How the flying squirrel costume works
The wingsuit as we know it now appeared in the late 90s. Although the first such suit was presented in the 30s of the last century. It took enthusiasts six decades to improve the design, and then figure out how to successfully integrate a parachute into it, which could be used during landing and not think about it at all during the flight.
Wingsuit designs continue to be refined, although all flight suits have three wings. Two of them are pulled when the athlete spreads his arms to the sides, the third - when the legs are moved. The wings consist of two layers of durable fabric, air enters the space between them through special air intakes located in the front of the wingsuit.
A special rigid frame allows changing aerodynamic characteristics; these are a kind of "ribs" that shape the wings. Such a suit was developed by the French inventor and parachutist Patrick de Gaillardon.
Before its creation, more than 70 inventors were known in the history of wingsuits who tried to create an even more perfect flight suit. Almost all of them died during the tests of their structures.
Modern variations of wingsuits are more sophisticated. And some athletes risk jumping in wingsuit even without a parachute. Here best video wingsuit jump with landing in the water. The peculiarity of this jump is that the athletes made it without a parachute.
How to gain experience
If you've been inspired by the wingsuit flying on YouTube and would like to replicate the successes of the masters, the first principle that beginners should know about is preparation and more preparation. Before taking your first wingsuit flight, you should have a decent amount of experience jumping with a conventional wing parachute.
This must be done at least two hundred times. Only if you have the appropriate skills, after jumping out of the plane, you will fly in a horizontal plane, and after that you will take the correct body position and open your parachute in time during landing.
The higher you rise into the air, the longer and farther you can fly in the horizontal plane. Some fly along the slopes of the mountains. To be able to use Proximity Jumping, the athlete must flawlessly handle the wingsuit. The speed sufficient for horizontal flights is up to 90 km per hour.
Proximity flights along rocks with a steep slope are the brightest and most spectacular and at the same time the most risky. In principle, the speed that extreme athletes develop during a flight can reach 225 km per hour. Here are selected moments of such jumps.
Alexander Polly is still considered the recognized master of proximity jumping. He became the first extreme in the world to conquer the "Perforated Rock" in Catalonia, flying in a wingsuit through the natural arch of Montserrat. Extremal was raised to a height of 1.5 km above the rocks. Polly jumped in a wingsuit, the flight speed reached 266 km per hour. Accuracy and impeccable skill did their job - the dangerous flight was successful.
Here is one of the most memorable videos of the athlete.
And do not repeat the fatal mistakes
But beginners should remember that the height does not spare anyone, even the first-class extreme. In the spring of 2015, Dean Potter, one of the most recognizable figures among the representatives of extreme species sports. Dean and his teammate Graham Hunt jumped in wingsuits from Taft Point, 2.3 km high. The base jump (parachute jump from a fixed object) turned out to be fatal for both. For some unknown reason, both parachutes of the athletes did not open.
Dean Potter is known for flying wingsuit with his dog Whisper. Dean left on his last flight without him.
After a thousand parachute jumps and seven hundred jumps in a wingsuit in the fall of 2013, an extreme athlete from Hungary Viktor Kovats crashed. He made his last jump from Tianmen Mountain in China's Hunan province during the second world wingsuit jumping championship.
What you can strive for
In terms of risk, ordinary parachute jumps from an airplane and in a wingsuit are about the same. Statistics show that for 100 thousand jumps, one is fatal. But with base jumps, that is, from mountains and high-rise buildings, death occurs in one case out of two thousand. However, extreme lovers are not stopped by either the height or the increased risk.
First wingsuit jump into the crater active volcano Mutnovsky in Kamchatka was made by Valery Rozov, two-time champion world skydiving champion, multiple champion of Russia in skydiving, X-Games champion in skysurfing.
He was the first to fly over the Tatar Strait, which separates Sakhalin from the mainland. Rozov is rightfully considered one of the best extreme sportsmen in the world - he has the most conquered peaks on his account. In 2013, the athlete set the world record for the height of base jump - 7220 meters from Mount Changse near Everest.
Just as athletes flew over the Alps without a parachute in a wingsuit, Valery Rozov also made the only such jump.
By the way, the deceased Dean Potter holds the record for the longest flight during a base jump. Dean jumped in a wingsuit from Mount Eiger and flew 7.5 km before deploying his parachute. Japanese Shin Ito holds the record for flight speed - 363 km per hour.
And finally - the best footage of wingsuit flights. In August 2014, Mike Swanson, Vincent Refet and Julian Boole created a video of a flight over the Alps. Enjoy the skill of the professionals and the stunning scenery!
P.S. Both beginners and professionals who have made many jumps in a wingsuit say the same thing - it's impossible to get used to flying in a wingsuit. Just with experience comes the understanding that even fear has its own gradations. The mastery of wingsuit management grows in one way or another over time. It is only important not to take long breaks between workouts. It is better to jump fewer times, but regularly. By the way, wingsuit flights are recognized The International Federation aeronautics sport.
Wingsuit (wingsuit) - a wing suit made of fabric. Flying in it is closest to the flight of birds, and despite the fact that they are a type of parachute jumping, this extreme and very exciting way of spending your leisure time is more like base jumping.
Perhaps, acquaintance with wingsuits (let's call it people in wingsuits) should be started right away with this video, it is unlikely that it will leave anyone indifferent:
Wingsuit Basejumping
The Need 4 Speed: The Art of Flight
Attempts by man to fly have been known since the ancient world, when the mythical Daedalus fled with his son Icarus from the Cretan captivity, making both wings from feathers and wax.
People made wings like birds and bats and tried to jump with their inventions from a height: history has preserved the names of 75 inventors - almost all of them died. The extremely high mortality rate led the USPA to ban any testing of bat wings in the 1950s, a ban that lasted until the late 1980s. The ban was lifted when there were no more Batmen left, and videographers everywhere began to use membranes between the body and arms - small wings - for the convenience of aerial photography.
In the mid-1990s, Frenchman Patrick de Gaillardon invented the modern wingsuit ("wingsuit"): three double-layer wings (instead of two), inflated by a ram-air. All of them have ribs inside, are inflated by the oncoming flow through the air intakes, and when the parachutist is flying forward, they create a lifting force. In addition, the pressure inside the wing creates the necessary rigidity, which significantly reduces the stress on the arm.
Unfortunately, Gaillardon died in 1998 while testing a new model of his invention. Later, Jari Kuosma and Robert Peknik took over the development of the flight suit, who later founded their own company "BirdMan, Inc.", marking the beginning of the popularization of wingsuits. After them, the Italian Loic Jean-Albert founded another large company, whose task was to promote wingsuits with one wing - "Fly Your Body".
Today there are several varieties of wingsuits: Classic for beginners, GTI for intermediate, and Skyflyer for advanced skydivers. Each suit is equipped with a quick release system for safe landing at any stage of the flight.
However, one should not assume that a wingsuit is enough to make a jump: an athlete needs a parachute to land.
In terms of the way of implementation, jumps in a wingsuit are very similar to base jumping, which is also performed from fixed high-rise objects. However, in a wingsuit, the parachutist flies forward, not down - he seems to be hovering.
The vertical speed decreases to 100 km / h, and the duration of the flight in free fall reaches two minutes (but there are masters who are able to fly up to 3 minutes along the horizon): that is, descending by 1 kilometer, the athlete flies 2-2.5 km along the horizon.
Wingsuit jumps can be performed both alone and in a team (in a "flock"). The world record for group jumping in wingsuits is 71 people who, in free soaring, built a complex formation in the form of a bomber.
In 2004, in a wingsuit, an intercontinental flight across the Bosphorus was made, and in 2008 - through the Strait of Gibraltar.
People have always dreamed of flying like birds, and it is wingsuits that are closest to what we mean by flight. It was not for nothing that the first wing designers attached them to their arms and legs, hoping to get off the ground.
This is now possible thanks to people like Franz Reichelt, Clem Son, Leo Valentine and of course Patrick de Gaillardon, who changed the course of skydiving history. In 1996, Patrick de Gaillardon made the first flights in a wing suit of his own invention. The suit, which was then called "wing flight", had a design similar to modern wingsuits. The suit consisted of three double-layered wings between the arms and legs, inflated by the oncoming air flow through the air intakes. The earliest prototypes of the suit date back to 1994, the creation of the suit was preceded by a long study of flying squirrel flight techniques.
Disciplines
In a wingsuit, you can fly at range, time and speed, changing the quality of the flight. Pilots use a variety of GPS devices to record horizontal and vertical speeds, distance traveled, and altitude. Flight distance competitions are held all over the world. In such competitions, wingsuits are mainly used, of course, of the maximum size and area. To fly in such suits, you need to have good training and special parachute equipment that allows you to safely deploy the parachute.
In addition to such single jumps, group flights are popular.
Formations can be built both horizontal and vertical. An attempt was made to collect the largest formation in California in 2012. It was attended by 100 wingsuit pilots.
Vertical formations cannot boast of such a large number, since they require more time, and, accordingly, heights, to collect and take off. Also, the requirements for pilot experience are higher. At the moment, a record has been recorded - 36 participants.
There is also an artistic direction in this discipline - wingsuit acrobatics.
This type implies the execution of a complex of elements during a free flight in a wingsuit. The team consists of two pilots and one operator pilot. The main acrobatics competition is the International Artistic Wingsuit Competition. According to the rules of the competition, the team must complete 5 compulsory rounds and one free round. At the moment, the main elements of acrobatics included in the International Artistic Wingsuit Competition are: rebuilding, full circle, barrel, somersault, backstroke.
Requirements for wingsuit pilots on our DZ:
- The minimum number of jumps is 200;
- 30 minutes free fall
- Flight clearance stamped in the parachute book (or if there is no flight clearance in the jump book, you must perform a control jump with an instructor);
- Admission to a specific wingsuit model is carried out in accordance with the manufacturer's guidelines for pilot experience.
Admission to jumping in a wingsuit is issued by the instructors of the club.
Novice pilots:
In our club there are instructors who can always be contacted for any information or about the course of the first jump. These are Andrey Tesnitsky, Anton Gilev and Alexey Demin. There are also rental wingsuits for pilots with at different levels experience. To find the right wingsuit, you can contact the instructor.
Minimum requirements for the first flight course:
- 200 jumps with a wing;
- Completed the basic group jumping course (ISP category F, G, H), or any other basic RW course;
- For the first jumps, it is recommended to use a 7-section parachute, at least 135 sq. feet and with loading no more than 1.3.
If you want to fly in a wingsuit but don't have 200 jumps yet:
- You need to pay more attention to your parachute and piloting skills. This expands the understanding of its modes and allows you to more often sit on the main landing area;
- Skills of group acrobatics are required. Without them, you will not be able to fly in wingsuit formations, because general principles same;
- It is necessary to fly free-fly and tracking. These disciplines help to better feel the body in various positions other than "belly down".
A few years ago, mesmerizing videos began to appear on the Internet in which people planned with great height in special costumes, most of all similar to the huge membranes between the limbs of a flying squirrel. This suit is called wingsuit, and the super extreme sport itself is wingsuit. In terms of word formation, everything is extremely simple here. Wing - wing, suit - suit.
Wingsuit is a special wing suit that allows filling the "membranes" between the pilot's legs, arms and torso with an incoming air stream, as a result of which it becomes possible to carry out gliding flights. Of course, such wings are not suitable for landing. For this reason, the pilot has a regular parachute behind his back, and therefore wingsuit is considered a type of parachuting sport.
The emergence and development of wingsuit
When describing the history of the wing suit, the first to remember is the Austrian tailor Franz Reichelt, who in 1912 of his own invention. Reichelt tried to create a suit that would allow the aviator to escape if necessary to jump out of the plane. His experiments with mannequins seemed to be successful, although he could not get a stable result.
Franz believed that the low height was to blame - he dropped dolls in suits from the fifth floor. The inventor asked the authorities to allow him to conduct an experiment on the Eiffel Tower and, after repeated refusals, finally got his way. Reichelt told everyone that he would, as before, drop the dummy. However, he decided to jump himself, which shocked those present. After some hesitation, Franz jumped, but the parachute did not open, and he died after falling from a 60-meter height. A significant depression was left from the blow to the head in the frozen ground.
The pilots did not need parachute raincoats, because by the time of Reichelt's jump, Gleb Kotelnikov had already invented a parachute-knapsack, and in the USA there were successful tests of dome parachutes.
Development returned in 1930, when 19-year-old Rex Finney from Los Angeles decided to use a wing to achieve increased horizontal movement and maneuverability when skydiving. For the manufacture of this device, wood, steel, whalebone, silk and canvas were used. The wings were not very reliable, although some balloonists reported that the suits allowed them to cover several miles.
The death rate among paratroopers who wanted to expand their capabilities with a wing suit was extremely high. For this reason, in the 1950s, the United States Parachuting Federation (USPA) banned any testing of such equipment. The ban continued until the late 1980s.
In the mid-1990s, French skydiver Patrick de Gaillardon invented the modern wingsuit with the following features:
- instead of two wings there were three;
- the wings began to be made of a two-layer material, which is inflated by an incoming stream (ram-air).
Patrick died in 1998 in Hawaii due to the failure of the main parachute, which he, as a real inventor, tried to improve through his own modifications. By that time, the skysurfer had over 12,000 parachute jumps.
The case of de Gaillardon continued to be developed by other enthusiasts, and in 2015 the International Aviation Federation added two items to its list of air sports:
- wingsuit piloting (pilots compete for time, range and flight speed);
- wingsuit acrobatics.
In 2017, the same disciplines, at the initiative of the Russian Federation of Parachuting Sports, were included in the All-Russian Register of Sports.
Wingsuit rules
Due to the particular riskiness, only experienced skydivers are allowed to jump with wingsuit. The main formal requirement here is at least 200 parachute jumps. Wingsuit manufacturers have own programs training for those who want to practice this discipline as an instructor or a simple parachutist.
Flying in a wing suit is most similar to the flight of birds. The wingsuit allows the skydiver to fly forward rather than downward. The best pilots are capable of flying 1 kilometer of altitude using a tailwind of 3.5 kilometers horizontally. When putting on a wingsuit, the vertical fall speed decreases from 200-270 kilometers per hour to 35-70 kilometers per hour, and the horizontal flight speed increases from zero to 250 kilometers per hour. Wingsuit fans have already flown over the Bosphorus and the Strait of Gibraltar.
The modern wingsuit allows the skydiver to control the flight predictably. Two membranes are pulled when he spreads his arms to the sides, the third when he spreads his legs.
Proximity flights
Extremals managed to associate wingsuit with base jumping, which resulted in the emergence of a separate discipline called "proximity flying" (from the English proximity - proximity). It involves jumping off rocks with flying along the slope a few meters away. For "proximity", the pilot must have a perfect control technique of the wing suit.
There is always fear and risk in wingsuit. Regular jumping is the best way to overcome both. Professionals recommend jumping a little and constantly, and not a lot and binge, as the psyche should not wean.
Wingsuit continues to develop actively, and the extreme sportsmen who practice it take new incredible heights every year. For example, there have already been at least two successful landing attempts with a wingsuit without a parachute. Both of them belong to the British stuntman Gary Connery, who first landed safely on a huge pile of cardboard boxes stacked in several layers, and then on the water of the Italian Lake Garda.
In August 2017, an extreme in wingsuit flew through a waterfall in the mountains of Norway. At the end of November 2017, two wingsuits from France jumped from the mountain, after which they were able to fly into a flying plane. They dedicated this trick to Patrick de Gaillardon.