Wingsuit landing next month?

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Q: Can I land the wing suit?
A: Serious injury, death or crushed cardboard boxes may result after such a foolish attempt.

Here are some more angles:

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=d5f_1337818786

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As a Hanglider and paraglider pilot, I was amazed in how slow and straight the wingsuit managed to fly near the ground. Good skills + some ground effect for sure.

Definitly no ground effect. Ground effect greatly diminishes after 1/2 the wing length or 3/4 of a rotor length. I estimate the wingsuit length at 4-5 ft so no real ground effect until 2 ft about the GROUND. Not much pressure wound be created off the boxes. That just leaves the SKILLS part !

I think there should have been advertising down those boxes. Get paid for that Stunt. Good job.

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Landing in deep powder snow seems to be possible right now, if you ask me (though the depth might be hard to judge ==> paint?!).

This wingsuit landing was slower than ski jumping. He was able to flare to approximately 50mph gliding speed (just 15mph vertical); the best professional ski jumpers often take off faster than 60mph on average. And ski racing approaches about 100mph, the world record for ski racing is 156mph (251.4kph) -- three times the speed of this wingsuit landing!

I would not be surprised that within the next 10 years, there will be creative wingsuit landing attempts -- including landing on skiis on a ski slope. Look at the flare angle, it looks similar to an angle that a ski jumper would land.

Heck, you could safely land a little faster than this wingsuit landing -- if it was necessary to get the proper angles for ski landing. You'd obviously have to practice at altitude with some GPS tracks, to get the right stability while also wearing the extra weight and aerodynamics of ski equipment.

Obviously, flaring over a diagonal surface will present its different challenge, but I would imagine you would flare much more slowly, and gradually transfer your weight to the skiis barely touching a ski slope. That way, you can "feel" your flare -- at least theoretically -- balance flying your wingsuit AND ski at the same time. (much as a pro swooper can fly precisely while splashing through a pond, as he decelerates), gradually inreasing the % of weight on the slope, i.e. keeping flying your wingsuit even as you're taking several seconds to "land" on the ski slope.

Skiiers also take advantage of air resistance to slow down by standing up and spreading arms out (to bleed off initial speed before they brake with their skiis), i.e. such as after passing a finish line and you have plenty of straightway after. Instead, you're leaning into the wind with your wingsuit, as the means of slowing down.

You'd balance on your skiis simply by "flying" your wingsuit. You could practice doing this simply by doing a little speed skiing without ski poles and wearing your wingsuit -- not to go into the air, just skiing down the ski slopes fast while wearing a wingsuit, and using the wingsuit to practice balancing on your skiis & practice decelerating. Basically ski-race and then suddenly flare your wingsuit until your body has learned how to balance yourself slowing down with a wingsuit while going fast on skiis.

I imagine it would not be too difficult to learn for a pro-league ski jumper who's also a pro wingsuit jumper / BASE jumper. Practice would involve ski jumping with wingsuit, ski racing down extremely steep slopes with wingsuit sans ski poles (practice braking using wingsuit), as well as skydiving with wingsuit+skis at altitude using GPS tracks.

The problem is, very few people in the world has learned high-level skillz in all of these sports, and of those, which people has the steel balls to try combining the sports...! But it is just a matter of time that someone becomes interested enough, i.e. pro wingsuiter who has a little ski racing experience and will brush up, or pro ski jumper who just got the BASE bug, etc.

Again, this wingsuit was slower than ski jumping!
And less than HALF the speed of ski racing!
I actually suggested this in 2005 :-) (clicky)
...and suggested again in 2010! (clicky2, clicky3)

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This wingsuit landing was slower than ski jumping. He was able to flare to approximately 50mph gliding speed (just 15mph vertical); the best professional ski jumpers often take...............

you mean like this ?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZizIbSpI-g

Even though this guy was no where near terminal.

I am more convinced than ever that a water landing is possible.

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I would also be interested to see how quickly he was slowed down and finally ended in terms of horizontal and vertical distance into the box pile relative the first point of contact.

I'm intrigued by the little "alleyway" he uses to walk out of the box fortress. The fact that such alleyways exist would imply that the box fortress has some empty spots in it... which seems kind of sketch. Or maybe I am misunderstanding something.

If there were not 2ft gaps in between the banks of boxes to get ladders inbetween we would have had to start at one end and just work along, meaning only a max of 10 or so people could have built it at once. The gaps meant that many sections could be built concurrently. Like someone else has rightly said, a box is an empty gap anyway!

It's certainly not an exact science either. Look how neat the box rig is at the end furthest away from the approach, which is where we started. The other end is pretty shoddy as we decided just lobbing them up quick was the way ahead. Gary didn't seem to care. We even asked him if he wanted it extending with the extra boxes leftover and he said "nah, if I can't hit that then there's something wrong."

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This wingsuit landing was slower than ski jumping...............

you mean like this ?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZizIbSpI-g
Even though this guy was no where near terminal.

I believe I probably linked to this in one of my old clickies. :-)

Yes, this is one of the many potential practice techniques that can be done. You'd need to do other forms of training, too. High speed ski racing with wingsuit and then braking with wingsuit in straight line on steep slope (for practicing balancing/flaring/flying with skis at the same time), is another training technique that will need to be done.

Heck, I suspect one may even achieve brief lift-off when flaring suddenly after reaching over 100kph on a slope with wingsuit -- essentially ski jumping on a 'flat' diagonal without ramp. But many runs of practice would be needed and practice flares first, to get accustomed to the sensation of temporarily losing weight on skiis -- at first a little, then some, then most, then all of the weight, then liftoff attempt (for 1-2 seconds of flying before landing immediately and braking), and seamless transitions between skiing/flying. This could be another way of achieving wingsuit flight, now that even plain pro ski racing can significantly exceeds the speed of stable wingsuit 'flare'. And also one possible conduit of training before doing a wingsuit landing attempt from altitude. You would only need to speed-ski at less than half the world record speed, something already attainable with a slightly-less-than-pro ski racer using a long straight steep slope and standard racing skiis -- the skills bar should be low enough to increase the pool of willing people to try this vector into uncharted wingsuit territory. Note that there will be some drag with a collapsed wingsuit even as you crouch over, so it may take someone who's able to ski-race 130kph down a straight slope without wingsuit to ski 100kph with collapsed wingsuit bent down in ski racing posture, at this speed, a brief 1-2 second liftoff may now be possible just by standing up and immediately flying your wingsuit to temporarily pop up above the slope. Ski jumping without a ramp!

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"nah, if I can't hit that then there's something wrong."

Unreal, the confidence is what makes me sit here with my mouth open.

Not sure, if this has been posted already, but the second video in that link shows the flare very well:

http://www.itv.com/news/2012-05-24/head-cam-footage-shows-danger-of-stuntmans-jump/

Here's the news reel link.

Well he said 'just build a pile of boxes in a field and I'll land in them' .... and he did!!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riK2350eemM&list=UUcIgGcUE-nb1tYKya3Qtp0Q&index=0&feature=plcp

GO GARY!!!

Thanks to all for the links. Great work!

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Don't kid yourself. Of course it will. Will it become mainstream? Probably not, but you can bet your ass that once Gary (or someone else) successfully pulls this off, someone will follow very quickly.

Then please explain why chuteless jumps are not much more common?
They have been done, they have been done by a few people, they are repeatable.

Fact is only time will tell, but I don't see this being anything more than a stunt and I very much doubt it will become a "reliably repeatable activity" like the other poster mentioned BASE.

Time will only tell, but my money is on no.

Cardboard boxes (and Youtube) are free in the US. When do we see someone proxy fly with no rig and end into into boxes or a net or whatever? Soon I think.

So, here is the landing from the cameraflyers perspective... Original Footage.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEP8juRSBRo

Watch out Gary - he's heard that you flattened a few boxes and he is looking for you...

http://thisiscolossal.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/box01.jpg

http://thisiscolossal.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/box02.jpg

i

Is there any video from his POV yet ?

No, and there won't be as he wasn't wearing a camera.

Maybe on his next one...

Holly thread revival, watch the documentary about the landing here:

 

https://vimeo.com/891422371

 

thanks.

hadn't seen this for a LONG time