{"id":35243,"date":"2021-07-19T11:26:21","date_gmt":"2021-07-19T11:26:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.skydivemag.com\/new\/?p=35243"},"modified":"2022-09-27T14:53:32","modified_gmt":"2022-09-27T14:53:32","slug":"the-future-of-wingsuits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.skydivemag.com\/new\/the-future-of-wingsuits\/","title":{"rendered":"The Future of Wingsuits"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The number of wingsuit flyers has more than tripled in the last decade \u2013 where is this branch of the sport going next?! <\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Matt Gerdes looks forward…<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Wingsuit formations – Project 50-50 at Skydive Perris
Photo by Dan Dupuis<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The history of wingsuit flying up to around 2010 is pretty well documented. Taya Weiss wrote an excellent article, \u201cIcarus in Nylon<\/a>,\u201d on the development of the discipline in Parachutist<\/em><\/a>. So I\u2019ll skip all of the \u201cman has been dreaming of flight since time immemorial\u201d stuff. Let\u2019s skip over DaVinci\u2019s sketches, the guy who jumped unsuccessfully from the Eiffel tower and even the legendary and most crucial player in the entire history of wingsuits, Patrick De Gayardon, who piloted his own suit designs in ways that turned a bizarre stunt into an actual sport. <\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Since the development of the sport in the last decade is largely the stuff of YouTube videos, let\u2019s talk about what\u2019s next. Where\u2019s wingsuiting going in the future?<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
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Of course, no one knows for sure what the future of our little corner of skydiving holds, and the Damoclean swords of Part 91 insurance troubles, fuel prices, carbon emissions and the unknown-unknowns all hang heavily overhead. But we can get a sense of what\u2019s coming in the near future by looking at the recent past. Wingsuit flying has come a long way in the past decade. By all accounts, this part of our sport has grown by 300-400% in terms of active jumpers. Demand, industry competition and the kinetics of social media have driven this growth. So, the future is looking rather bright.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Mathematical Modelling the vortices around a wingsuit pilot in flight
Image courtesy of Squirrel<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Actual Technology<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s a reason wingsuit flyers are excited, even bullish, about every aspect of wingsuit flying, because they see firsthand how much effort is going into developing it. One of the most unexpected and exciting areas of development is in applying modern technology\u2014specifically, the adaptation of heads-up displays and augmented reality\u2014to the relatively low-tech activity of wingsuit flights.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Imagine exiting a plane solo and flying a virtual 3D course through the air, with dives and flares and massive banking turns at high speeds through tunnels, donut-shaped gates and around \u201cobjects,\u201d and then being able to share that course and your score with jumpers from around the world who can load the same game into their headsets. This has been coming for awhile, but recent advances in latency reduction and hardware improvements are getting to the point where this will be a game-changing toy in the near future\u2014watch this space.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Suit Tech<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The development of a wingsuit is never done. With each model, at a certain point the manufacturer has  to stop the progress and call it finished in order to release something into the wild. The day after that version ships, the work continues on the next version of it. The result is a continuous incremental improvement of each design, with public product releases every two to three years simply being waypoints  during development.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Using suit technology to go up in a wingsuit
Composite image by Dan Dupuis<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

For wingsuit designers, the suit-design factors that we are continually working to improve are simultaneously at odds and complimentary\u2014for example, trying to reduce the stall speed of each design without reducing the top speed. In order to do this, we have to find ways to reduce drag (primarily the reduction of parasitic drag through the reduction of suit deformation and total reference area) but also increase lift (without increasing reference area!). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A low stall speed makes it easier to fly in formation with a diverse range of suits, fly XRW<\/a> (mixed wingsuit and canopy flight) and maintain comfort at higher angles of attack during parachute deployment. And, of course, a suit with a high top speed is loads of fun. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Advances in WS and parachute technology led to the growth of XRW
Photo by Ben Nelson<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Therefore, small performance improvements in just one area of suit design can make wingsuiting safer and more fun across a wide range of disciplines… and the list of design considerations is long.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over the next few years, wingsuit designers will continue to make improvements in every aspect of performance, from stall speed to top speed to the consistency of internal pressurization and even general comfort. In short, with each passing year, it becomes easier and more fun to fly a wingsuit while more possibilities for wingsuit flight materialize.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Soul Flyers took the discipline of Aircraft Wingsuit Formation to another level with their amazing project, ‘A Door in The Sky<\/a><\/em>‘
Image by Max Haim<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Industry competition has had a highly positive effect on these advances. Excitingly, but also frustratingly from a design perspective, the margins considered significant become smaller as time goes on. A 2% performance increase in a race suit doesn\u2019t sound like much, but nowadays it could mean the difference between being on the podium or not in an international-level competition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some other margin increases result in more dramatic practical evolution. To get an idea of what low-speed efficiency and high-speed handling performance increases can yield, watch the video below, \u201cWill Mitchell jumps the Y\u201d on YouTube. Trust me, it\u2019s worth it if you like to be impressed by human flight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Video \u2013 Will Mitchell jumps the Y<\/em><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
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