Finally, a more popular and many will probably be an interesting topic in . And then everyone was, it seems to me, for a rather narrow circle of readers, which is also sometimes necessary, but one must know the measure in everything. Today we listen to what interests my "old" friend trudnopisaka :

Please write about wingsuit. Why it takes a long time to learn this business, how wingsuiters prepare for a jump-flight. Do they work out the route in advance or fly at random? Is there any statistics of accidents with them somewhere?

Since ancient times, man has dreamed of flying. The appearance of airplanes did not diminish the relevance of the ancient desire. But the world is constantly improving, and today the human dream has practically become a reality. To feel like a bird, it is enough to put on a special costume outfit. Wingsuit and rush, spreading your wings, in free flight.

Wingsuit is a fabric suit that imitates wings. To date, flights in such a suit are classified as a special type of parachute jumping. The wingsuit forms 3 forms of wings in the air (in the area of ​​​​the arms and between the legs), allowing the athlete to control his flight. The two-layer material is inflated by upward airflows through the air intakes, which creates lift for movement. The high pressure in the wings creates the missing rigidity, due to which the wings are easily held by the hands. All this allows you to achieve almost complete resemblance to the flight of a bird!

Before the jump, the athlete is taken to a height of 4 km, from where he, full of adrenaline, rushes down at a speed of about 180 km / h. Flying a wingsuit requires good training, so it is recommended to start with at least 200 normal parachute jumps. Nevertheless, today there are already quite a few fans of this air extravaganza who are not deterred by the high cost of the kit ($5000).

In total, at least 75 people died trying to invent the optimal batwing design. The high mortality was the reason for the US Parachuting Federation (USPA) ban on any testing of this type of wings. This ban lasted until the end of the 80s, and in the mid-90s, the current wingsuit scheme was first formulated. After some time, the wingsuit took shape in one of the varieties skydiving bringing together the very best of skysurfing and base jumping.

As far as we all know from the time of history lessons at school, many people have long tried to invent all possible devices and devices to conquer the only non-criminal fortress - the sky! I think everyone knows the myth of Icarus and Daedalus, which once again indicates the antiquity of such desires. I will not go into detail about all the various examples of how in ancient times they tried to invent and test devices for flying (especially since all the testers basically died), but let's move on to modern, relatively recent moments. Even despite the fact that a huge number of years and winters have passed between antiquity and modernity, testing when trying to invent wings still led to the death of test subjects, in connection with which in the 1950s the USPA Parachuting Federation even banned any testing of wings. type "bat", up to the 80s. And only in the mid-90s the brilliant genius Patrick de Gaillardon invented the costume that became the prototype of the modern wingsuit. The changes introduced by him were of the following nature: 1) three wings instead of two; 2) two-layer wings, inflated by the oncoming flow (ram-air system, as well as the type of kite - parafoil).


In 1996, Patrick de Gaillardon made the first flights in a wingsuit of his own invention. The suit, which was then called "wing flight", had a design similar to modern wingsuits. The suit consisted of three two-layer wings between the arms and legs, inflated by the oncoming air flow through the air intakes. The creation of this suit was preceded by a long study of flying squirrel flight techniques. Already the first samples of this suit allowed him to fly the same distance along the horizon as vertically. For some time, de Gaillardon improved his flying technique. He left the plane, and a minute later, a few kilometers below, caught up with him and climbed back. Gradually, he increased the area of ​​the wings of his suit, and in 1997, jumping from a cliff in Arco, he was able to fly 27 seconds.

Unfortunately, this outstanding inventor died on April 13, 1998 as a result of an accident in Hawaii, having a statistics of 12,000 parachute jumps. The cause of death was the failure of the main parachute after de Gaillardon made changes to the container of his parachute system in order to improve the opening of this same parachute in a wingsuit.

The final formation of the modern costume, laid down by Patrick de Gaillardon, was completed in 1998 by the inventors Jari Kuosma and Robert Peknik. At the moment there is 3 types of wingsuit:

  • Classic - designed for beginners;
  • GTI - medium level;
  • Skyflyer is a suit designed for advanced and experienced athletes.

As is generally known, wingsuit is a fabric suit that imitates wings. 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, and when the athlete is flying forward, creating lift. In addition, the pressure inside the wing creates the necessary rigidity, without which the wing would be difficult to hold by hand. 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 provides freedom for the movement of the athlete at the time of landing and movement directly on the ground.

To date, there are several varieties of wingsuit suits:

  • Classic, which is designed for beginners;
  • GTI - intermediate level;
  • Skyflyer, which is aimed at advanced athletes.

All models are equipped with a special quick release mechanism that allows you to select any flight mode. The membranes between the legs are also detachable, which provides freedom of movement at the time of landing. To catch the wind and create thrust, the base jumper needs to manipulate his body. The main goal: to minimize the speed of falling and prolong the contemplation of the surrounding fantastic views. Wingsuit control is carried out by changing the position of the body or increasing (decreasing) the angle of incidence.

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Wingsuit flying has many things in common with track diving. The formal minimum for flying in a wingsuit is 200 parachute jumps. All leading wingsuit manufacturers promote their training programs for wingsuit instructors and students.

Flying in a wingsuit is closest to the flight of birds. A skydiver in a wingsuit flies forward, not down. The vertical component of the speed of 80-100 km / h allows you to extend the flight until the parachute opens up to two minutes. The best pilots can fly with a quality of 2.5 (with a tailwind - up to 3), that is, per kilometer of altitude, fly 2.5 km along the horizon.

With the active development of base jumping in the past few years, proxy flights have gained particular popularity, when a skydiver flies a few meters along a mountain slope. For proxy flights, a rock with a slope greater than the flight quality of the wingsuit is selected. Usually the flight is carried out in the direction of the traverse of the slope, as if "going around" the mountain. This allows 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 open the parachute.

To be honest, it is difficult to give an exact definition of what is flying in a wingsuit - in fact, a full-fledged flight, or just smooth long-distance gliding, since the line between these two concepts is rather blurred. The flight is because it is possible to perform various maneuvers, turns, and all this while moving to a greater extent not vertically, but horizontally in terms of the ratio of speed and distance traveled. And planning is because the movement is nevertheless directed downward, towards the earth, and having descended a certain distance it is impossible to soar upward again. Well, okay, these are all philosophical questions and you can argue for a long time, it's better to move on to a more detailed description of how to fly in this suit.

Like any flying object, a wingsuit athlete flies due to the ratio of lift and drag, which in turn varies with speed. Therefore, the better the ratio between lift and drag, the better the flight itself.

The speed of level flight, at which the best ratio of lift and drag, is usually 30-40% higher than the vertical speed. It is known from the laws of physics that any flying body has its own minimum speed, upon reaching which a sufficient lift force is created for flight. Speeds below this minimum contribute to the fall of an airborne object. Accordingly, in order to fly, the speed of an object, in this case an athlete, must be higher than its minimum. But the question of what is the best speed for good planning is quite interesting. This speed is difficult to determine because the wingsuit is not a rigid profile; the athlete flies using various positions of the arms, legs and body. And this means that each athlete has his own, different from the other, profile.

It should also be mentioned that people differ in height, weight, span of arms and legs - and these are additional difficulties in calculating the optimal minimum flight speed. But still there is one general rule for everyone - the ratio between the effective wing area and the weight of the flying object (athlete), called the wing loading. Most skydivers are familiar with this term applied to parachutes. The loading of the wing is a characteristic adjusted by the pilot himself. This term refers to the ratio of the weight of the system to the area of ​​the parachute, and it is, in fact, the single most important factor influencing how modern canopies fly. Wing loading is calculated as follows - it is expressed in pounds per square foot. As for those same pounds, this includes your weight and the weight of the entire system. Square feet are specified by the parachute manufacturer. Divide the weight by square feet to calculate the load. As a rule, the larger the load, the better the flight performance of a parachute or wingsuit.

With a very small load, the canopy is rather sluggish and poorly responsive to maneuvers. Increasing the load increases the horizontal speed and sink speed, which in turn gives you high maneuverability and cornering speed, control becomes more sensitive and tangible. But since at high speed everything happens quickly, then you have practically no room for error, so you need to be careful and not lose concentration. Today, wing type parachutes have wing loadings between 0.5 and 3.0 pounds per square foot. Hang glider loading is approximately 1.2 and 1.5 pounds per square foot. The average pilot's wingsuit has an area of ​​15-16 square feet, with a pilot weighing 170-190 pounds, and therefore the loading of the wingsuit is on the order of 10.5-12.5 pounds per square foot, which is ten times higher than that of a parachute. And since at 10 times loading the minimum speed of a wingsuit will be 3 times higher than that of a parachute, then the best planning is achieved at a speed of about 120-130 km / h. In this case, the vertical speed of the fall, in turn, is about 40-50 km / h. But a decrease in the rate of descent (i.e., vertical speed) will lead to a decrease in the horizontal speed of planning, and to a deterioration in the glide path.

“A glide path is the flight path of an aircraft (or a person in a wingsuit, on a parachute, etc.), along which it descends immediately before landing. In paragliding, the basic glide path is the direct trajectory immediately before landing..

As for trying to land in a wingsuit without using a parachute, there is a small nuance - this will require a much larger area of ​​\u200b\u200bthe wings to create more lift and reduce the speed of fall. And this is impossible to do due to the structural features of the human body, which is absolutely not adapted for free flight in a natural way, hence the conclusion follows that the potential of the wingsuit itself is limited by the abilities and capabilities of this very body, which means it makes it impossible to land in a wingsuit without an additional parachute. The only way to achieve this is to use a rigid wing frame, but this will not be a wingsuit at all.

For those who still think that such a landing without a parachute is real, there is one experiment that cannot be performed Not recommended- perform a normal parachute jump, but after opening it, try to take a horizontal position, and then try to land in this position on a small elliptical canopy. So, besides the pain you get, you will achieve little, and to compare this with the same landing in a wingsuit, consider the following data - speed is 3 times higher = impact force is 9 times = 9 times more serious consequences. So see if it makes sense to try such landings? I'm sure not!

Interesting Facts

Flying in wingsuits in a group is called a flock.
When flying in a flock, you can talk to each other and hear each other.
The world record for flights in a flock is 71 people gathered in the form of a bomber.
Disputes on the topic "Is it possible to land a wingsuit without a parachute?" been going on for years, the question remains open.
The smallest parachutes fly at the speed of the largest wingsuits, and are comparable to them in area.
In 2004, an intercontinental flight was made through the Bosphorus, and in 2008 - through the Strait of Gibraltar.

Modern suit designs are constantly being refined to combine wingsuit jumping with skysurfing or to adapt the suit for base jumping from different points. A jet engine that is connected to a wingsuit is all the rage. However, this innovation has not yet received mass distribution and is at the testing stage.

Do they prepare their itinerary in advance?

Is it difficult for you to thread a needle? ... And with a run??? I am sure that this is not a complicated, at first glance, procedure, you, due to lack of experience, simply will not work. And it won't work the hundredth time either. The result will be only through long and hard training. And yet this lyric is a figurative example.

This is approximately the kind of filigree accuracy that skydivers-basers involved in the most difficult and dangerous sport Wingsuit proximity flying should have in order to get the most accurate flight route. It takes years of training and hundreds ... thousands of training jumps. In order to start learning this type of jump, you need to have a minimum of 500 free fall jumps; or at least 200 free-fall jumps completed within the last 18 months and receive personal instruction from an experienced wingsuit skydiver; be able to perform separation and be in free fall in position for deployment

First, ordinary jumps from aircraft of various types (at least two hundred), then base jumping from objects of various heights and complexity, then wingsuit - training jumps and not difficult routes, and only then, as experience gained, proximity.

Route calculation is a difficult task and at point B, at the end of the route, there is an escort group with cars and specialists ready to provide first aid, if anything. A complex, multi-day, expensive preparation process, a mortal risk, for the sake of a couple of minutes of flight, but it's worth it.

Here is what one of the amateur athletes writes:

If from the plane, then first the free-flyers come out (they fall quickly), then the group-flyers are the puzo-flyers, then the students, then the tandems. Wings (wings) go for another 10-15-20 seconds and leave the board. Usually at a distance of 4-5 km from the point. And then we bring down in the direction of the airfield, usually in an arc, so as not to irritate the already opened tandems and students. If an incident happens, and the leader of the flock leads away “in the wrong direction”, or the tupanesh himself)), you stomp on foot or good people will come for you by car.

> Question: is there a specific system for preparing for base jumps and wingsuit jumps?

Yes, you need to prepare for the BASE, but I don't know if there is a standard program. I can say for sure that more cardio training will be needed, because. dropping from a helicopter is not cheap and you will have to climb the exits on foot. Wing-suite programs are available at all major drop zones near Moscow.

> What standards must be met, on which parachutes, are there discharges, etc.?

AFF, RW will have to pass anyway. AFF - wing jump training itself, after which you need to go through RW, i.e. basic group acrobatics so that you are not dangerous to others. There will already be approvals for certain systems, i.e. not less than such and such a wing area, permission for group jumps, etc. There are other categories, but these are mainly for foreign dropzones to be allowed to jump.

> What is required from a person in the process of professional growth, roughly speaking, from the first jump to wingsuit?

Oil rig and lots of free time.

> And not a little important point is the price of the issue: if you do everything for your money, how much will it cost?

Very expensive. At first you will pay about 50 thousand for AFF training if you do everything without mistakes (how lucky with the instructor, everyone has different approaches. I was allowed to jump on my own after 7, but I myself asked to jump with me another 8th level). Further, equipment rental, housing rental in the drop zone, food. Next come helmets, altimeters, overalls, a lot of jumps, their own system. It's still a lot of money. Plus training in the tube, which is about 20 thousand per hour (an hour in the tube is sooo much, in fact).

This sport is certainly one of the most dangerous. Just found statistics. HERE IN THIS FORM, if someone competently translates it to us at least the main parameters, we will only be happy with everything.

,

And here is the prototype of the costume: a flying squirrel

Gary Connery became the first person on the planet who, using a wingsuit, landed without using a parachute. He jumped from a helicopter from a height of 730 meters and made, like an airplane, landing on a runway built from 18,000 cardboard boxes. The flight lasted 35 seconds. After landing, the stuntman climbed out of the boxes himself. Gary Connery, who turned 42, became known to the whole world on May 23, 2012, when he made this crazy jump. Before that, he said, "... no one has done this before me, but I am sure that I can land on the boxes. Everyone will know about this trick and it will be written in the history of aviation. I am more than sure that people think that I'm crazy, but I don't care. Mail it for a compliment. So the green light is on and I can't wait to get it done."

a source

http://www.x-ter.ru http://www.fpsrussia.ru http://www.x-sport.info

And we remember, of course, The original article is on the website InfoGlaz.rf Link to the article from which this copy is made -

Different sports require special equipment. For jumping from a height and gliding through the air, a suit called a wingsuit is used. It has important details on which the price of such overalls depends.

What is a wingsuit?

A modern special jumpsuit used in extreme sports, which involves jumping from a height, is called a wingsuit. It has unusual elements to reduce the acceleration due to the creation of a small lifting force. Between the legs and under the arms, special membranes are attached to the suit, similar to those that bats have. Wingsuiting originated in the 90s, when parachuting became a mass hobby and there was a desire to get something more extreme.

Wingsuit - speed

A special suit helps to reduce the acceleration of free fall, so that a person can get incredible pleasure. Wingsuit jumps are made from different surfaces, and the vertical flight speed is reduced to 100 km / h, but the duration of free fall reaches 2 minutes. It is worth noting that some masters can fly horizontally up to 3 minutes. As a result of the calculation, it can be concluded that when descending by 1 km, a person flies 2-2.5 km along the horizon.

Wingsuit - where can you jump?

There are two options for how to jump while wearing a wingsuit suit. Like ordinary skydivers, you can jump from an airplane and a helicopter, just first the athlete “flies”, and then he opens the parachute and lands. Wingsuit flying can also be done by jumping off a cliff or other high structure. In this case, a good run and open territory is important.

Wingsuit suit

Among athletes and people familiar with this trend, the wingsuit is called the suit of a squirrel or a bird-man. There is a version that the Frenchman who developed the prototype of the modern wingsuit used the principle of flying squirrels, but few people believe in it. Wingsuit without a parachute has good flight characteristics due to the area and features of the "wings".

Numerous models have different shapes and sizes. There are options that are attached to the arms and body, and also connect the legs. They have a small area and repeat the silhouette of a bird. There are overalls with wings that are connected to each other, forming a quadrangle. In most cases, athletes try to fly in different models, and then choose the most convenient option for themselves.

How much does a wingsuit cost?

Several companies are engaged in sewing suits, which offer different models of a wide price category. If you are wondering how much you can buy a wingsuit suit, then you should know that the cost of good overalls ranges from $750 to $1750. There are cheaper options and they will cost $400 and such sportswear is presented by the French manufacturer Fly Your Body. People who play this sport professionally can purchase a suit for BASE-style jumps from the mountains for $3,000.

Wingsuit - training

Wingsuit cannot be called a safe direction in sports, therefore, in order to practice, it is necessary to undergo training, which includes studying at a parachute school and joining a parachute club. The wingsuit instructor will issue a certified book of flight records, and if there is no current clearance, then a check jump must be made. You will need to buy a wingsuit, an insurance policy and undergo a medical examination.

For your own safety, it is recommended to take a basic jumping course and have freefly practice behind you to gain body control skills while in any position, such as upside down or on your back. Besides the fact that you need to buy a special jumpsuit, you should also buy a parachute system, a helmet, gloves and shoes. If you don't want to buy equipment, you can rent it.

How to fly a wingsuit?

Experts recommend starting this type of parachuting no earlier than after making 200 jumps with a conventional parachute. Wingsuit is a sport that requires a person to have excellent control over his body. The miracle suit is controlled by changing the angle of incidence and body position. All wingsuit models have a special quick-release mechanism, which allows you to choose a free flight mode rather than glide. On some models, the membrane between the legs is disconnected so as not to hinder movement during landing.


Wingsuit - how to land?

Since wingsuit jumping is a type of parachuting, the landing rules are identical:

  1. Wingsuit landing starts from a height of up to 150 m, at which point the athlete must be facing the wind.
  2. At an altitude of 100 to 150 m, you need to prepare by connecting your legs at the knees and feet, and taking into account the speed of the wind, bring them forward. If the weather is calm, then they should be almost upright, half-bent at the knees. Keep your feet parallel to the ground.
  3. Both legs should touch the ground at the same time with full feet. Note that to reduce the impact force, you should slightly bend your knees and keep them tense. No need to try to stand on your feet and it is better to fall forward or on your side.
  4. To extinguish the parachute canopy, you need to take a few lower lines and pull them towards you, intercepting them with your hands. This should be done until the result is achieved.

Wingsuit - mortality statistics

To understand the risks associated with a wingsuit, you need to consider that there are two options:

  1. Airplane jump. A person can be injured or even die due to improper landing, non-opening of the parachute, opening of the reserve at low altitude, malfunction of the parachute system and wingsuit. Mortality ranges from 0.001% to 0.03% of all aircraft emissions.
  2. BASE jumping. Increasingly, you can hear reports that a wingsuit athlete has crashed while jumping off a cliff. It is a very risky sport and the main hazards are: unpredictable terrain, miscalculated flight path, bad jump start, suit malfunction and flight instability. According to statistics, approximately 30% of athletes crash after hitting a mountainside. Wingsuit is a sport in which mortality is from 0.1% to 0.2% of all BASE.

Recently, a large number of mesmerizing videos of people gliding in the air in special suits have appeared on the network. 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

Wingsuit (wingsuit) - a wingsuit made of fabric. Flights in it are closest to the flight of birds, and despite the fact that they are a kind of parachuting, this extreme and very exciting way of spending leisure time is more like base jumping.

Perhaps, acquaintance with wingsuiters (let's call people in wingsuits so) should immediately begin with this video, it is unlikely that it will leave anyone indifferent:

Wingsuit Basejumping
The Need 4 Speed: The Art of Flight

Man's attempts to fly have been known since the ancient world, when the mythical Daedalus fled from Cretan captivity with his son Icarus, having made wings of feathers and wax for both.

People made wings like those of 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 all testing of batwings in the 1950s, a ban that lasted until the late 1980s. The ban was lifted when there were no more Batmans left, and videographers everywhere began to use membranes between the body and hands - small wings - for the convenience of aerial filming.



In the mid-1990s, the Frenchman Patrick de Gaillardon invented the modern wingsuit ("wingsuit" - "wing suit"): three two-layer wings (instead of two), inflated by the oncoming flow (ram-air). All of them have ribs inside, are inflated by the oncoming flow through the air intakes, and when the paratrooper flies forward, they create lift. In addition, the pressure inside the wing creates the necessary rigidity, which significantly reduces the load on the hand.

Unfortunately, Gaillardon died in 1998 while testing a new model of his invention. The flight suit was later developed by Jari Kuosma and Robert Peknik, who later founded their own company, "BirdMan, Inc.", initiating the popularization of wingsuits. After them, the Italian Loic Jean-Albert founded another large company whose task was to promote single-wing wingsuits - "Fly Your Body".


Today there are several varieties of wingsuits: Classic for beginners, GTI for intermediate level, and Skyflyer for advanced skydivers. Each suit is equipped with a quick release system for safe landing at any stage of the flight.


However, you should not assume that a wingsuit is enough to make a jump: an athlete needs a parachute to land.
According to the method of implementation, wingsuit jumps are very similar to base jumping, which is also performed from stationary high-altitude objects. However, in wingsuit, the skydiver flies forward, not down - he seems to be floating.


The vertical speed is reduced 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 along the horizon up to 3 minutes): that is, decreasing by 1 kilometer, the athlete flies 2-2.5 km along horizon.
Wingsuit jumps can be done both alone and in a team (in a "flock"). The world record for a group jump in wingsuit is 71 people who, in free soar, built a complex formation in the form of a bomber.
In 2004, an intercontinental flight was made in a wingsuit through the Bosphorus, and in 2008 - through the Strait of Gibraltar.










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.