ThE FIRST WING SUIT?

[pecofly 0]

Hello folks.
Actually, I am a HG pilot , but have always been interested in skydiving and mostly these squirrel suits.
Tonite I was out for dinner at cafe and noticed on the wall there a pix of a skydiver, in 1937 who was using what I,m thinking must have been an early model wing suit.
You guys ever heard of Cecil Mackenzie?
Anyways , here he is in 1937.
The story reads that on the official opening day of the Oliver Airport, Cecil jumped for the spectators in his wingsuit, but was too high for anyone to see him,
plus he was unable to land in the vicinity of the airport, so could not be proved that his wingsuit indeed worked.
After he landed, he and his crew were promptly arrested.
Just in case youhaven,t heard of this guy, thought you might find this interesting.
PeteR

[diverdriver 5]

What's old is new again.

Chris Schindler
www.diverdriver.com
ATP/D-19012
FB #4125

[BillyVance 34]

1937?

I don't think that was the first wing suit.

There's an old scratchy video of a French man (possibly) attempting to jump from the Eiffel Tower, year unknown but looks like well before 1937. He promptly went splat.

"Mediocre people don't like high achievers, and high achievers don't like mediocre people." - SIX TIME National Champion coach Nick Saban

[upndownshop 0]

Where do the ole Bat Wings fit in this? Those look similar to wht i remember.
If I remember there were like 10 around and 7 of the users died from them. Again not sure how reliable the sourse is but thats what I heard...

[howardwhite 6]

If you're really interested, you might want to check out this book (cover pic attached.) Readily available from Amazon.com, etc.
Among other things, it has a lot of info from Garth Taggart about the wingsuit jumping in the movie "The Gypsy Moths.
A quick look at the index indicates no info about Cecil Mackenzie, but there's a lot about Clem Sohn jumping batwings in 1933 and 1934.

HW

[jgarango 0]

Here is one picture from 1935

Juan

[LloydDobbler 2]

Thanks for sharing that. Always cool to see a historical pic.

Michael Abrams' book (the on that Howard mentioned) is excellent, if you're interested in this sort of thing. Aside from the people jumping off of buildings and trying to flap their 'wings' (and inevitably plummeting to the ground), the book suggests that the first person to jump from an airplane in a wingsuit (or a 'bat-wing,' as it was then known) was Clem Sohn in the 1930's. After working on it for some time, the book states that the first time he made a public exhibition jump in the wings was February, 1935.

Afterwards, airshows began clamoring to get people flying bat-wings...and a number of daredevil-types took it upon themselves to chase the fame and glory associated with it.

Anyway, thanks for the pic. Good stuff.

Signatures are the new black.

[tbrown 26]

Quote

Here is one picture from 1935

Interesting to note that this guy's suit not only has wings under his arms, but between his legs. Remarkably similar, in some ways, to today's suits.

Also, next time you're in The Bombshelter at Perris, look up directly over the bar. There's a mannequin wearing the late Lyle Cameron's old batwing suit. Lyle was of course the guy who gave us young brats of the sixties the wonderful "Ripcord" adventure series on Friday nights. His son Lyle Jr donated the suit to The Bombshelter because it was just "lying in a closet at home".

Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

[lilchief 1]

I saw the same show, but the way I got it, was that he had invented a parachute-coat. His thoughts were that you could wear it every day, and if you somehow fell off a high point somewhere, or decided to do some fixed object jumping, you could simply spread you coat. It actually worked from approx 15ft when he tested it, but as we all saw, the Eiffel tower was just a little bit to high for his device.

He also had only been given a permit to throw a man sized doll wearing the coat from the eiffel tower, but in the last minute decided to do it him self.
Darwin rules!

Please correct me if I'm wrong here =)

"Once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been and there you long to return." - Da Vinci
www.lilchief.no

[skypuppy 1]

Quote

1937?

I don't think that was the first wing suit.

There's an old scratchy video of a French man (possibly) attempting to jump from the Eiffel Tower, year unknown but looks like well before 1937. He promptly went splat.

_____________________________________________

Actually, that was 1912, and he was an Austrian named Franz Reicholt. The same day he did that Frederick Law did a jump from the torch of the Statue of Liberty which was on the front page of the NY Times. (I believe it was Feb 13).

Incidently I'd seen a picture of Cecil Mackenzie in a Canadian Geographic magazine article. There was no other information about him, just the picture. Michael Abrams (author of Birdmen, Batwings etc.) did ask me about him, but I guess he didn't find any information or it would have gone into the book. (I wasn't that impressed with the book, but then I knew the story of at least one of the guys featured quite intimately and most of the other stories from other sources, so there wasn't much new for me).

If some old guy can do it then obviously it can't be very extreme. Otherwise he'd already be dead.
Bruce McConkey 'I thought we were gonna die, and I couldn't think of anyone