Wingsuit landing = vaporware?

Pi1otguy

Pi1otguy

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Has anyone heard anything about landing a wingsuit without a parachute? I know a few people were working on it several years ago but I haven't been able to find any recent news on it.

Assuming a contacting terrain at >40 mph is bad for the body I still have no viable solution. Best I got is a rapid dive to high speed level flight a few feet off the ground. Then attempt to hydroplane at high speeds on a smooth body of water until the drag stops you.
 
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Won't work. You can't "level-off" in a wing suit. You're still falling. The very best you can do is decrease your vertical speed to about 30 mph with a forward speed of over 70 mph. That is one hell of an impact for the body to take. Dead.

They'd need to build something that could generate a considerable amount more of lift at a much slower speed which would require fairly large wings.
 
I believe the plan was to "land" on something shaped like a ski ramp to decelerate the nutcase in a survivable manner.
 
Actually Sac, just because you were going 75mph when ejected doesn't mean you impacted at 75mph. When skiing, I lose a good deal of momentum when I am airborne and that is a fairly straight trajectory. I'd imagine you had more of an arc which would decelerate you even more than just being airborne. Glad you are OK though.
 
Sac Arrow said:
I'm proof that one can contact terrain at 75 mph and live.
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That's because you didn't encounter a sudden stop. 30 mph sudden stop vertically with a 70 mph forward speed CANNOT be survived. You need something to bleed off your energy at a more reasonable rate (not sudden).
 
Try and land on an AMASS system? (or whatever the energy absorbing stuff they're installing on the ends of runways is called)
 
jesse said:
That's because you didn't encounter a sudden stop. 30 mph sudden stop vertically with a 70 mph forward speed CANNOT be survived. You need something to bleed off your energy at a more reasonable rate (not sudden).
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I find it really hard to believe one couldn't dive then convert that into enough forward speed to stop the descent. Of course then there is excess forward speed (90+ mph?) to deal with, hence the somewhat dangerous hydroplaning idea to brake.

TMetzinger said:
Try and land on an AMASS system? (or whatever the energy absorbing stuff they're installing on the ends of runways is called)
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Or take a page from NASA and inflate airbags from 50 ft up and bounce.
 
Pi1otguy said:
I find it really hard to believe one couldn't dive then convert that into enough forward speed to stop the descent. Of course then there is excess forward speed (90+ mph?) to deal with, hence the somewhat dangerous hydroplaning idea to brake.
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You'd likely kill yourself trying to get fast enough to generate enough lift to maintain altitude. If you did manage to do it you'd be traveling at a very high speed and would easily be killed trying to "land" on water. Water is not soft when you're 100+ mph. I'm not sure you could get fast enough to generate enough lift to maintain altitude.

If something goes wrong at those speeds the forces on the body are incredible and death is likely. Think in-flight breakup---but on your body.
 
Water does not compress on any impact and at those speeds water will not get out of the way in time to prevent injury, A water landing is implausible without some craft below the jumper.
 
jesse said:
That's because you didn't encounter a sudden stop. 30 mph sudden stop vertically with a 70 mph forward speed CANNOT be survived. You need something to bleed off your energy at a more reasonable rate (not sudden).
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A 30mph sudden stop vertically = 2640fpm descent... not survivable
 
The very best you can do is decrease your vertical speed to about 30 mph with a forward speed of over 70 mph.
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So how about you fly your wingsuit into a 70mph headwind? You could generate one over a big stuntman-style air mattress, although the zone might need to be pretty long..
 
I'm thinkin' that folks attempting the stunt would be good for the gene pool!
1) Trying new things = good
2) Trying new things that are obviously going to kill you = not so good
3) Eliminating genes which result in 2) = good
4) Propagating genes that actually figure out how to survive 2) = good
 
In my mental moodeling of the problem....would a frame be allowed?

Somewhere between what is a wingsuit and what is a hang glider is just enough wing area for the pilot to flare and land slowly enough to survive.
 
What if he was wearing rollerblades and came in low, like way on the backside of the curve and then just skated out to the end of the runway. Isn't the world record for rollerblade speed something insanely fast like nearly 200 mph? Wing suit landing on the blades - easy peazy...
 
Mtns2Skies said:
A 30mph sudden stop vertically = 2640fpm descent... not survivable
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As a kid, I jumped off the roof without a problem landing on my feet to dissipate energy and rolling onto the ground. It's the wing suit belly buster into the swimming pool routine onto a hard surface that makes any vertical drop very dangerous to unsurvivable.
The vertical speed has to be eliminated or matched with an angled landing surface.

Crazy idea? Probably. So was flight at one point not so long ago. It's all relative. The socially defined crackpots that are set on succeeding at whatever they set out to do are often the ones that make changes in the world. The sit home take no risks do nothing untoward types, not so much.
 
It will be done. Maybe not by the first to try.
 
fgcason said:
The vertical speed has to be eliminated or matched with an angled landing surface.
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And if they over/undershoot? It took me more then a few landings to be able to touchdown on a specific spot on speed softly. Go around or landout aren't viable options in a wing suit.
 
Pi1otguy said:
Has anyone heard anything about landing a wingsuit without a parachute? I know a few people were working on it several years ago but I haven't been able to find any recent news on it.

Assuming a contacting terrain at >40 mph is bad for the body I still have no viable solution. Best I got is a rapid dive to high speed level flight a few feet off the ground. Then attempt to hydroplane at high speeds on a smooth body of water until the drag stops you.
Click to expand...

Strap a street luge (long skateboard) to your belly, you'll be fine. I've been well over 40mph on one and sometimes didn't get hurt at all.
 
PittsDriver said:
What if he was wearing rollerblades and came in low, like way on the backside of the curve and then just skated out to the end of the runway. Isn't the world record for rollerblade speed something insanely fast like nearly 200 mph? Wing suit landing on the blades - easy peazy...
Click to expand...

They had one guy on Top Gear who rides roller skates with two mini jet engines on his backpack. The car beat him (barely). As I recall he gets to well over 100MPH.
 
PittsDriver said:
What if he was wearing rollerblades and came in low, like way on the backside of the curve and then just skated out to the end of the runway. Isn't the world record for rollerblade speed something insanely fast like nearly 200 mph? Wing suit landing on the blades - easy peazy...
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Only if you landed on the treadmill.....
 
PittsDriver said:
What if he was wearing rollerblades and came in low, like way on the backside of the curve and then just skated out to the end of the runway. Isn't the world record for rollerblade speed something insanely fast like nearly 200 mph? Wing suit landing on the blades - easy peazy...
Click to expand...

They had one guy on Top Gear who rides roller skates with two mini jet engines on his backpack. The car beat him (barely). As I recall he gets to well over 100MPH.
 
Henning said:
Strap a street luge (long skateboard) to your belly, you'll be fine. I've been well over 40mph on one and sometimes didn't get hurt at all.
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That would be 40 mph VERTICAL speed. Not really handed that well by a street luge unless you had one hell of a ramp and a LOT of luck. You're also going to be running a forward speed of about 80mph at that vertical.
 
man jesse you're getting old. 5 years ago you would've been building a ramp to try it out.
 
mikea said:
They had one guy on Top Gear who rides roller skates with two mini jet engines on his backpack. The car beat him (barely). As I recall he gets to well over 100MPH.
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Top Gear: BBC: Aston Martin V8 Vantage vs Man on Jet Powered Rollerskates!

Start at about 3:00.

Three jet engines making 300HP! to 120 MPH. :hairraise:

I want to know what airport it is they use as test track and how they go about closing it to use the runways.
 
ApacheBob said:
+1 (what he said!)
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No way. I generally learn by failure. You only get one shot with a wing-suit landing. There are lots of insane folks out there that don't value their life..I'll let them be the first ones to splat into the ground before someone figures out a safe way.
 
Mtns2Skies said:
A 30mph sudden stop vertically = 2640fpm descent... not survivable
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fgcason said:
As a kid, I jumped off the roof without a problem landing on my feet to dissipate energy and rolling onto the ground. It's the wing suit belly buster into the swimming pool routine onto a hard surface that makes any vertical drop very dangerous to unsurvivable.
The vertical speed has to be eliminated or matched with an angled landing surface.
Click to expand...

At a sudden, undissipated stop that is lethal. Probably quite survivable... injured probably, feet first, But like you said its the coming in on your stomach which I believe you have to do that would create the sudden stop.
 
Good thing the Wright brothers didn't value their lives.
jesse said:
No way. I generally learn by failure. You only get one shot with a wing-suit landing. There are lots of insane folks out there that don't value their life..I'll let them be the first ones to splat into the ground before someone figures out a safe way.
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Well, let's blue sky a few solutions...
Rocket pack you fire at the critical moment so you can pitch up and come to zero airspeed 6 inches off the ground JUST as the rockets sputter out...
Or how about the Cirrus solution, a rocket propelled chute that you pop when you are at tree height - like that Russian pilot did when his ship augured in at that airshow......
Or how about a reverse of the rubber band rig where a plane snatches a guy off the ground - here you snag the bands like a banner tow and they bring you to a halt - but I don't as yet have a solution for the snap back, bungee jump, effect unless you pull the release handle on your harness at the instant the forward speed hits zero...
Big nylon backstop (like in baseball) and you just glide into it - actually might work (I'll watch)...
An array of high power fans on the ground blowing 120 mph air straight up, glide into the chimney of air and come to a controlled halt (until they turn the fans off)
A big plastic funnel held up by 300 foot towers that you fly into the funnel and gradually slide down the bore until you come to a stop...

Your turn...

denny-o
 
ClimbnSink said:
Good thing the Wright brothers didn't value their lives.
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I consider what the Wright brothers did considerably less risky then trying to land anything that currently resembles a wing-suit. You'd have to redesign the suit to be more like a hang glider and at that point...I'm not sure what you accomplished.
 
if ya'll have seen any of my PPG landings (in training), it's not even fun landing WITH a canopy if you're not doing it right. :rofl:
 
Is it possible to build up enough speed to do a vertical climb in one of these, That would let you fly upwards and grab onto a bridge or other raised structure just as your velocity reached zero.

No, I don't want to go first.
 
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