Recently, a large number of mesmerizing videos have appeared on the network of people gliding in the air in special suits. The spectacle of daredevils soaring at a bird's eye view cannot leave you indifferent, the heart shrinks after each of their turns.

This extreme sport is called wingsuiting. The idea of ​​flying in special suits was borrowed from flying squirrels. For a long time, attempts to design a flight suit ended tragically. It wasn't until about twenty years ago that the modern reliable form of the wingsuit was developed. The suit was equipped three wings(instead of two, as in earlier versions), equipped with two layers of fabric that can be filled with oncoming air flow.

One of the most difficult disciplines of skydiving

Not everyone has the opportunity to plan above the ground. In order to start flying in a wingsuit, you must first make at least two hundred parachute jumps.

Unlike skydiving, the movement is not down, but forward, reminiscent of the flight of a bird. Wingsuit control occurs by changing the angle of incidence or body position.

The picture that opens up to the eyes of a wingsuiter is worth hundreds of preliminary parachute jumps. During one jump, the pilot flies about 2.5 kilometers across the horizon for one kilometer of altitude. It's just hard to believe that in a couple of minutes a person flies up to five kilometers.

You can get several times more adrenaline if you make wingsuit jumps from a steep mountainside, flying just a couple of meters from the cliff. The structure of the suit and the implementation of the flight in the direction of the traverse of the slope allow the pilot to follow the mountainous terrain as much as possible, perform various maneuvers, adjusting the height above the slope and rather quickly move to a safe distance from the rock in order to open the parachute.

To carry out the jump, the pilot rises to a height of about four kilometers. The initial flight speed is about 180 kilometers per hour.

Despite the high cost of equipment (approx. 5 thousand dollars) and strict conditions for admission to flights, the number of fans of this aerial extravaganza is steadily growing every day.

As a result, having improved the flying suit, Patrick achieved the almost impossible - he made a jump from the plane, caught up with it a few kilometers below and climbed back! The total number of his parachute jumps exceeded 12,000. Eight years after the first test of the wingsuit, de Gairdon died tragically due to the failure of the main parachute during one of the jumps.

wingsuit records

Landing a wingsuit is almost impossible without a parachute. In order to reduce the falling speed and increase the lifting force, it is necessary to increase the area of ​​the wings, which in turn is impossible due to the limited capabilities of the human body. The only possible option is to use a rigid wing frame, but this will be far from being a wingsuit.

The only person in the world who landed without a parachute, in one suit - a stuntman Gary Connery. He jumped from a height of just over 700 meters and landed like an airplane on a runway made of cardboard boxes. A dubious pleasure, to be honest.

A breathtaking sight is a flight in a large group - in a flock. Remarkably, during the flights it is quite possible to talk to each other to coordinate joint actions. The jump takes the palm, in which 71 pilots took part at the same time. For greater entertainment, the participants lined up in the form of a bomber.

A suit equipped with a jet engine is at the testing stage. It is hard to imagine what opportunities will open up for wingsuiters with such equipment!

The greatest difficulty is the calculation of the flight route and compliance with it. At the end point of the pilot, an accompanying group is always waiting, which, in case of emergency, will be able to provide medical assistance. But, despite the huge risk and high cost of training, flying in a flying squirrel costume is worth it.

Photos of flights with a wingsuit

Athletes flying in wingsuit look like supermen from Hollywood movies. But these are quite real people who, using special suits and having appropriate physical training, have mastered flying in the sky, albeit not over long distances, but without special flying mechanisms.

Wingsuit (from the English wingsuit - “wing suit”), this special jumpsuit is used in the latest and extreme discipline of parachuting, which finally took shape in the 1990s, when the mass parachuting passion led to the emergence of various directions within it and to the creation unique costume. The creator of this miracle was the Frenchman Patrick de Gaillardon, and the ideological inspirers were flying squirrels.

The flight characteristics of a wingsuit are mainly determined by the area of ​​\u200b\u200bthe "wings". The shape and dimensions of the wings depend on the model of the suit, but the general principles of their operation are identical. There are models in which the wings are attached to the arms and body and connect the legs. They have a relatively small area and create the silhouette of a bird. And there are those that connect the arms and legs, as well as the legs to each other - they form a quadrangle and have the largest area. The larger the "wings", the more professional the wingsuit is considered, and the more expensive it will cost.

Wingsuit allows the athlete to control the flight. The special two-layer material is inflated by upward airflows through the air intakes, which creates lift for movement. High pressure in the wings creates a lack of rigidity, due to which they are easily held by hands. All three fabric wings have ribs inside (an element of the transverse power set of the wing frame, plumage and other parts of the aircraft or vessel, designed to give them a profile shape), inflated by the oncoming flow through the air intakes. When the athlete is flying forward, they create lift. All wingsuit models are equipped with a special quick-release mechanism that gives the athlete the opportunity to choose an arbitrary flight mode. The membranes located between the legs are also detachable, which ensures the freedom of movement of the athlete at the time of landing and movement directly on the ground.

Thanks to the wingsuit, you can reduce the vertical speed to 35-40 km / h and increase the horizontal flight speed relative to the ground to 350 km / h (and even more). In this case, the range of horizontal flight can exceed 10-15 km. And the world record for flight range, listed in the Guinness Book of Records, is 30 kilometers 400 meters.


In the past few years, proxy flights have gained particular popularity, when a skydiver flies a few meters along the side of the mountains. Usually the flight is carried out in the direction of the traverse of the slope, as if "going around" the mountain. This helps the skydiver to follow the terrain of the mountain, easily control the height above the slope by turning left or right, and quickly move to a safe distance from the mountain to deploy the parachute. All this allows you to achieve almost complete resemblance to the flight of a bird and get an unforgettable experience!

Despite the apparent simplicity and ease of flight, the wingsuit is intended only for very experienced skydivers who have at least 200 parachute jumps under their belts and thorough training for flights. But it's so exciting that more and more people around the world are joining this amazing skydiving sport. After all, such a flight is very reminiscent of the flight of birds, which mankind has been striving for so long.

A few years ago, fascinating videos began to appear on the Internet in which people were planning from a great height in special suits, most of all similar to huge webs between the limbs of a flying squirrel. This suit is called wingsuit, and the extreme sport itself is called wingsuiting. In terms of word formation, everything is extremely simple here. Wing - wing, suit - suit.

A wingsuit is a special wingsuit that allows you to fill the “webs” between the legs, arms and torso of the pilot with an oncoming air flow, as a result of which it becomes possible to carry out gliding flights. Such wings, of course, are not suitable for landing. For this reason, the pilot has an ordinary parachute behind his back, in connection with which wingsuit is considered a type of parachuting.

The emergence and development of wingsuiting

When describing the history of the wingsuit, the Austrian tailor Franz Reichelt is usually remembered first, who in 1912 invented his own. Reichelt tried to create a suit that allows the aviator to escape if necessary to jump out of the plane. His experiments with dummies seemed to be successful, although he could not get a stable result.

Franz believed that the low height was to blame - he threw dolls in costumes from the fifth floor. The inventor asked the authorities to allow him to conduct an experiment on the Eiffel Tower, and after repeated refusals, he 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, falling from a height of 60 meters. A significant indentation was left in the frozen ground from a blow to the head.

The pilots did not need raincoats, because by the time Reichelt jumped, Gleb Kotelnikov had already invented a parachute-pack, and successful tests of canopy parachutes were underway in the USA.

Development returned in 1930, when 19-year-old Rex Finney from Los Angeles decided to use a wing to increase horizontal movement and maneuverability when parachuting. Wood, steel, whalebone, silk and canvas were used to make this device. The wings were not reliable, although some aeronauts told that the suits allowed them to cover several miles.

Mortality among paratroopers who wanted to expand their capabilities with the help of a wingsuit was extremely high. For this reason, in the 1950s, the United States Parachuting Federation (USPA) banned any testing of such equipment. The ban lasted 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 they became three;
  • wings began to be made of a two-layer material that is inflated by an oncoming flow (ram-air).

Patrick died in 1998 in Hawaii due to the failure of the main parachute, which he, like a real inventor, tried to improve through his own modifications. By that time, the skysurfer had more than 12,000 parachute jumps.

The case of de Gaillardon was continued to develop by other enthusiasts, and in 2015 the International Aviation Federation supplemented its list of air sports with two positions:

  • wingsuit piloting (pilots compete for time, range and flight speed);
  • wingsuit acrobatics.

In 2017, the same disciplines, at the initiative of the Parachuting Federation of the Russian Federation, appeared in the All-Russian Register of Sports.

Wingsuit Rules

Due to the special riskiness, only experienced skydivers are allowed to jump with a wingsuit. The main formal requirement here is at least 200 parachute jumps. Wingsuit manufacturers have their own training programs for those who want to practice this discipline as an instructor or a simple skydiver.

Flying in a wingsuit is most similar to the flight of birds. Wingsuit allows the skydiver to fly forward rather than down. The best pilots are capable of flying 1 kilometer of altitude using a tailwind horizontally of 3.5 kilometers. 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. The Bosphorus and the Strait of Gibraltar wingsuit fans have already flown.

The modern wingsuit allows the skydiver to control the flight in a predictable manner. Two membranes stretch when he spreads his arms to the sides, the third - when he spreads his legs.

Proximity flights

Extremals managed to connect wingsuiting with base jumping, as a result of which a separate discipline called “proximity flights” (from the English proximity - proximity) appeared. It involves jumping off cliffs while flying along a slope a few meters away. For "proximity" the pilot needs to have a well-honed wingsuit control technique.

There is always fear and risk in wingsuiting. Regular jumping is the best way to overcome both. Professionals recommend jumping a little and constantly, and not a lot and drinking binges, since the psyche should not wean.

Wingsuiting continues to develop actively, and extreme sportsmen who practice it take new incredible heights every year. For example, there are already at least two successful landing attempts with a wingsuit without a parachute. Both belong to British stuntman Gary Connery, who first landed safely on a huge pile of stacked cardboard boxes, and then on the water of Italy's Lake Garda.

In August 2017, an extreme in a wingsuit flew through a waterfall in the mountains of Norway. At the end of November 2017, two wingsuiters from France jumped from a mountain, after which they were able to fly into an overflying plane. They dedicated this trick to Patrick de Gaillardon.

Flying in a wing suit is currently one of the most popular disciplines of all spectacular activities. More and more athletes are taking up skydiving with the sole purpose of flying in a wingsuit and jumping in the mountains like internet stars.

If that's your goal, do me a favor and slow down a bit. Seriously! After all, after successfully completing an AFF, a minimum of 200 jumps must be made before simply putting on a wingsuit for the first time (and this is an event to celebrate, not grumble about). Here are a few common myths that will be encountered along the way of mastering the wingsuit.

Myth No. 1: If you want to fly well in a wingsuit, only a track will help you and nothing else!

Reality: No, no, and again no!

On tracking, the world did not converge like a wedge. It's a great separate discipline. She will give what she can give - the first sensations of horizontal movement in skydiving. Trekking will teach you to maintain the correct body position and distance in large formations. It is also an opportunity to learn how to properly understand the impact of strong overhead winds during free fall.

For experienced skydivers, trekking provides an opportunity to gain experience that can be used in wingsuit flights. During track formations, athletes acquire the skill to determine and maintain the overall horizon of the figure, to perform controlled relative movements. Skydivers learn to appreciate the distance between themselves, the balance of closeness and safety. In addition, tracking jumps will help you understand how to act during openings with additional turns.

However, while tracking is essential, this particular and exceptional discipline is often mistaken for a critical step on the path to success in wingsuit flying. Even if you buy yourself a great and expensive treksuit, track skills cannot predict the success of wingsuit flights. Tracking won't teach you the finer points of separation, whether you're jumping from an airplane or from objects. And also the track will not help to correct the situation during the loss of control, for example, a flat corkscrew in a wingsuit.

Myth #2: You can learn to fly in a wingsuit on your own.

Reality: Find friends. They will help you progress in the sky.

When doing solo wingsuit jumps, the only thing you can do well is learn how to hum like an airplane engine. Even the newest speed and trajectory devices are no substitute for working together - this is the best way to understand how a wingsuit flies. Team up with other pilots and don't forget to find good wingsuit masters to train with. The more often, the better.

Myth #3: Wingsuit flying is the essence of skydiving. The rest is nonsense.

Reality: Be versatile. Skills in different disciplines are great helpers.

If you can't wait to put on a wingsuit so that you can only fly and skip all the other "boring" disciplines, you should calm down and think carefully. Over the past ten years, skydiving has evolved from a sport of several subtypes to a sport with a huge number of unique disciplines. It's very easy to get caught up in one particular discipline these days, especially if you buy expensive equipment specifically for it. Try to hold back, keep your mind open. This will make you more proficient.

Jumping in RW - formations will help in mastering various skills: separation in large groups, approach during free fall, control of arms and legs. Freefly is no less important. It will teach you how to fly in various body positions, which may save your life in a dangerous situation during unstable flight. In addition to free-falling, learning how to pilot well under a canopy in groups will help you feel confident in the sky (and keep you from bad habits like uncontrolled entry into a formation).

Myth #4: It's a great sport, you don't need to train in the gym.

Reality: Put down your hamburger and prepare to cry.

While several skydiving disciplines are less physically demanding than, say, triathlon, wingsuit piloting is not for those who are out of shape. The arms, especially the shoulders, are very tense during a good flight. Strong muscles are the key to success, including when moving to larger area wingsuits. Strength and agility in the body will help you understand the essence of a really good flight. More strength - better reaction and accuracy of movements. However, don't assume that height and weight are directly related to flight quality. Take a look at experienced wingsuit pilots: Taya Wace and Helen Branan, who can fly much better than men twice their size.

Remember also what you become when you put on a wingsuit. You are practically an aircraft. And if at the same time the belly hangs down, then it will create an obstacle to the air flow. Flying in groups will not be easy if the weight is greater than that of other members of the formation. This does not mean that there are no big people among good wingsuit pilots. They certainly are, but if you want to dedicate yourself to flying in a wingsuit, then it is better to stay in shape. This will make the path to piloting prowess much easier.

Myth #5: "PROXY" is a topic!

Reality: This is a word to avoid.

Every time you use the word "proxy" to describe flying close to the ground, master wingsuit pilot (and co-founder of the Squirrel wingsuits brand) Mike Steen streaks with rage. "That word is complete nonsense," explains Mike. 'Proxy' came about when someone tried to shorten the word 'proximity' to make it sound cooler, but it was ridiculous.

Idiocy is unlikely to come across as a compliment, so take Mike's advice. Don't get hung up on "super incredible ground flying" and embrace the discipline of the wingsuit wholeheartedly. What does it mean? Live in the present. If you're a beginner, save your dreams of proximity flying for later. Complete the required 200 jumps with pleasure. Then start flight training in the wing suit. Feel comfortable in the wingsuit, don't rush the process. If you treat discipline with a thirst for knowledge and respect, you can enjoy wingsuit flying for many years to come.

Source parachutistonline.com Translated by Valery Boluchevsky.

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Since the time of Icarus, people have dreamed of enjoying free flight. Soaring like a bird, freely and easily, allowed the wingsuit - or wingsuit. In nature, flying squirrels plan this way with the help of a membrane stretched along the body.

How the flying squirrel costume works

Wingsuit in the form in which we know it now appeared in the late 90s. Although the first such costume 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.

The design of the wingsuit continues 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 move. 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 you to change the aerodynamic characteristics, these are a kind of “ribs” that give the wings a shape. Such a suit was developed by the French inventor and paratrooper Patrick de Gaillardon.

Before its creation, the history of wingsuits knows the names of more than 70 inventors who tried to create an even more perfect flight suit. Almost all of them died during the tests of their constructions.

Modern variations of wingsuits are more advanced. And some athletes risk jumping in a wingsuit even without a parachute. Here is the best video of a wingsuit jump with a 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 YouTube wingsuit flying and would like to repeat the success of the masters, the first principle that beginners should know is that you need preparation and more preparation. Before you make your first flight in a wingsuit, you should have a decent amount of experience jumping with a regular wing parachute.

You need to do this at least two hundred times. Only if you have the appropriate skills after jumping out of the plane will you fly in a horizontal plane, and then take the correct body position and open the parachute in time during landing.

The higher you rise into the air, the longer and further you can fly in a horizontal plane. Some fly along the slopes of the mountains. To master the proximity jumps, the athlete must flawlessly control the wingsuit. Sufficient for horizontal flights speed - up to 90 km per hour.

Proximity flights along steep cliffs are the brightest and most spectacular, and at the same time, the most risky. In principle, the speed that extreme athletes develop during the flight can reach 225 km per hour. Here are selected moments of such jumps.

The recognized master of proximity jumps is still considered to be Alexander Polley. He became the first extreme sportsman in the world who conquered the "Perforated Rock" in Catalonia, flying in a wingsuit through the natural arch of Montserrat. The extreme sportsman 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 craftsmanship did their job - the dangerous flight was a success.

Here is one of the most memorable videos of an athlete.

And do not repeat the fatal mistakes

But beginners should remember that height does not spare anyone, even first-class extreme sportsmen. In the spring of 2015, Dean Potter, one of the most recognizable figures among representatives of extreme sports, crashed. Dean and his partner Graham Hunt jumped in wingsuits from Taft Point, a height of 2.3 km. A BASE jump (a 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 famous for flying in a wingsuit with his dog Whisper. On his last flight, Dean left without him.

After a thousand parachute jumps and seven hundred wingsuit jumps, in the fall of 2013, an extreme athlete from Hungary, Viktor Kovats, crashed. He made his last jump from Mount Tianmen in the Chinese province of Hunan during the second world wingsuit jumping championship.

What can you strive for

In terms of risk, ordinary skydiving from an airplane and in a wingsuit are about the same. Statistics show that one per 100,000 jumps leads to death. But with BASE jumps, that is, from mountains and high-rise buildings, death occurs in one case out of two thousand. However, extreme people are not stopped by either height or increased risk.

The first wingsuit jump into the crater of the active volcano Mutnovsky in Kamchatka was made by Valery Rozov, two-time world champion in parachuting, multiple champion of Russia in parachuting, champion of X-Games in skysurfing.

He was the first to cross the Tatar Strait, which separates Sakhalin from the mainland. Rozov is rightfully considered one of the best extreme athletes in the world - he has the most conquered peaks. In 2013, the athlete set a world record for the height of the BASE jump - 7220 meters from Mount Changze 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 wingsuit jumped off Mount Eiger and flew 7.5 km before opening his parachute. Japanese Shin Ito holds the record for the fastest flight - 363 km per hour.

And finally - the best shots of wingsuit flights. In August 2014, Mike Swanson, Vincent Reffet and Julian Buhl created a video of a flight over the Alps. Enjoy the skill of professionals and stunning landscapes!

P.S. Both beginners and professionals who have made many wingsuit jumps say the same thing - it is impossible to get used to flying in a wingsuit. It's just that with experience comes the understanding that even fear has its own gradations. The skill of controlling a wingsuit grows over time in one way or another. It is important not to take long breaks between workouts. It is better to jump fewer times, but regularly. By the way, wingsuit flights are recognized as a sport by the International Aeronautics Federation.