Wingsuit design progression.

[MB38 0]

My question, simply stated, is this: how much faster/slower/flatter do you think that wingsuits can/will become in the future? My [admittedly uninformed] observation of the market has led me to wonder what the future holds from a performance perspective.

Now, it's a given that there will be advances in designs, materials and construction methods in the future. I have no doubt that new wingsuits will continue to be designed and released. My curiosity comes from the apparent stagnation of the market, particularly in the high-end sector.

What I mean by that is simple. It almost seems as though the "space race" for the biggest, best wingsuit is over. BM released the S3S, PF released the V1... and that seemed to be all she wrote. Now, given, I haven't been following the market closely for more than about 2-3 years. I'm completely unaware of the way that things were before I started paying attention. I may just need a history lesson.

But it just seems that the envelope has been pushed and the pressure is off. Consider the recent updates of the two company's flagship wingsuits. The S6 has fairly minor upgrades over the S3S: a few apparently minor performance boosts [though I have not seen actual figures to support my assessment] and some comfort changes. The same seems true for the V2: a few performance updates through wing profile and size changes [once again, no data to support my guess that these are fairly "minor"] and some comfort/ease of use upgrades. Both seems to be fantastic wingsuits, but neither are revolutionary.

Now, this may be the norm. I just haven't been around enough to assess whether these updates are generational or revolutionary. But from my [effectively whuffo] perspective, they feel minor.

Consider the V2 from a design perspective. It has a very wide [the widest?] stance and a downright huge leg-wing. The profile has been cleaned up significantly, giving it a smoother profile in the air. The arm-wings are similarly huge, extending a full 27cm beyond the natural profile created by the arm. These seem [once again, I don't know much] like solid upgrades over the suit's predecessor that will undoubtedly allow for noticeably greater performance. But how much larger can wings get? How much more wing-like can the profile become before the limits of the shape of the human body have been reached? Will the future add 30 seconds to freefall time, or will it put us floating on thermals?

Good pilots can get their fall-rates down into the 30s. I've read that 0mph fall-rates have been recorded - if only for an instant - by GPS. I'm sure that more is possible, there's no way that we've reached the "limit" of human performance in freefall. I just wonder where that limit is.

So, is there market stagnation? The force driving the companies to strive for the best performance possible seems to have dissipated slightly... at least to me. Are we doomed to a series of generational changes, or will we see the same rush of innovation and performance increases that we saw - as an example - during BM's infancy? Beyond that, is the answer merely an enlargement of existing wing design... or is it something else?

I don't get paid to design wingsuits, I'll leave that to the professionals. I just wonder, is all. What do you guys think? Am I spouting nonsense, flying way off base as usual?

[edit: I'm effectively ignoring the acrobatic wingsuit sector... I'm mostly talking about balls-out 10/10ths flying, for argument's sake]

I really don't know what I'm talking about.

[dmkellett 0]

MB38,

I have thought about the same issues somewhat.

I believe that the reason the high end suits have not been surpassed are because of a few simple things :

1. Cost.

In order to increase performance significantly over the V series of suits, a far more radical approach to the aerodynamics of the suit would be required. In particular, the design of the leading and trailing edges of the wings (arm wing mostly) would be needed.

The arm is particularly poor at forming a leading edge, due to its thickness..... This leads to "separation" of the airflow from the top surface of the wing and lift is lost. I believe more realistically that no lift is produced from the arm wings of most wingsuits during flight, as most pilots think that the high force or "hanging feeling" they experience during a stall is the ideal position to fly in, as this makes the suit act like a very small parachute or "air- brake" and so they get their sacred "3 MINUTES FLIGHT DUDE!!!"
They are deriving the forward speed of the flight not through lift but through air deflection, but they get high times and so think they have the ideal position.

The lower times but more distance flights are the only ones that should be called "flights" as these are the only flights that are derived from the production of some form of lift. So increasing the performance of the suit must come from refinement of the wing design in order to increase lift and give more drive. More drive = greater glide ratio = better performance.

Getting back to cost, in order to refine the arm wing significantly, a true aerofoil leading edge must be introduced. This means that a custom made wing individual to each pilot must be measured and produced. This is because the only effective way to produce a leading edge is to have a foam formed aerofoil section supported by several mylar sections (ribs, as current V series, but mylar in every rib) with the arm inside the mylar sections or ribs. This would most likely mean that the arms could not be unzippped as in most current designs. Safety issues would be raised now.... It would be necessary to cut away the wings on every flight, as the only method of releasing the arms after deployment.

Custom measuring, custom rib designs, production time and materials costs would all increase significantly.



With respect to the trailing edge, ( the second most important part of the wing) stiffeners would be needed as trailing edge "flap" occurs on most suits now and is another cause of airflow "separation" Again, when stiffeners are incorporated into the trailing edge, deployment issues will increase as performance increases. I foresee eventually having to alter deployment methods and possibly return to spring loaded PC's activated by ripcord! This seems to be the safest way to have large, awkward relatively stiff arm wings for maximum performance and still be able to deploy a canopy.... The hand deploy throw-out is not particularly suitable for any more surface area or further stiffening of the arm wing than the V series of suits IMHO. So again expensive, time consuming alterations to rigs etc will be required to facilitate anything more than slight improvements over current high end suits.

All these issues are relevant to the leg wing as well. Stability issues will occur when the leg wing becomes much larger than current designs, and product durability problems will occur. If the leg wing protrudes much further than V series of suits, moving around on a rocky exit point / walking to aircraft repeatedly will soon cause material destruction of the suit. Nobody wants to fork out several thousand dollars on a custom suit to have it fall to pieces after a few months..... Also the more stiffening that is incorporated into the leg wing the more skilled the pilot will have to be to control a large powerful wing and not be "flown by the suit".

Wingsuits should be thought of as "lifting body suits" as most of the lift produced when flying 10/10ths as you say is derived from the pilots body IN CONJUNCTION with the three wings. A major part of the surface area of the body is covered by the rig, and the addition of ever larger "bum" deflectors on recent suits is an attempt again to prevent "separation" of the airflow and corresponding loss of lift. A logical solution is to combine the two items of rig and deflector into one, as this will give greatest lift and therefore maximum performance increase. All these new features will lead to what engineers refer to as "attachment" of the airflow to the entire surface of the top of the wing from leading to trailing edge, thereby finally allowing LIFT to be produced as in an aircraft.

But again, COST will be astronomical for all these new features. I am sure that the skydiving market is nowhere near ready for this yet (if it ever will be?) and maybe only a few BASE jumpers would be willing to shell out for a new toy costing thousands of dollars, in the hope of MAYBE doubling average glide ratio from 2.5 to nearly 5.0

2 : The idiot in the funky suit

There is no way we are going to "soar in thermals" as you put it, no matter how many dollars we throw at it, simply because we are bipedal land monkeys and not birds!!!! Evolution has left us in no fit state to fly even with a funky wingsuit. As the performance of the most recent suits to hit the market has increased, so has the physical demands on the pilot. I have found that after training with weights non specific to wingsuit flight since age 16 and now even with a WS specific workout designed with the help of friends who are PT instructors and physiotherapists, after following it for almost two years solid it is still almost impossible to fly at maximum efficiency for longer than 70 -90 seconds, depending on the day, and how close the ground is.....
I feel more realistically that maximum performance is available for about 45 seconds then about 80 percent is available for the next 45 seconds. After that forget it. This is due to the fact that the rotator cuff muscle in and around the shoulder is the major player in WS flight, and it is only designed for rotation of the arm! So even with hardcore training it can never grow anywhere near as large as our major skeletal muscle groups like quads, glutes and calfs, therefore trying to support most of our body weight on it is not going to be pleasant after more than about one minute! Do a high altitude jump, get into a perfect body position, hold it and just wait for the burn........
I have found it to be quite dangerous as after 160 seconds my arms were so tired my pull was so lazy it was scary. Canopy mals with knackered arms are not high on my list either....

So even with a WS specific workout, being as most pilots are far too lazy to stick with it for long enough for it to make a significant difference, wings cannot increase much larger than currently on the V series.

Big wings with fancy custom moulded aerofoils are useless flown by a weedy skinny pilot....
I have been on a flock as a dual base with a new V1 owner who looked like they had never seen a gym in their life and although the pace at the start of the jump was OK after 20 seconds the arms came further and further back until we were almost doing a flat jump. A vanity purchase of a modern high end suit is fine, but you better understand some basic principles of flight and for gods sake hit the gym!

So to answer your question, it isnt because it CANT be done, its because WE cant afford it, most of us are so thin and weak it isnt WORTH doing, the DANGER levels would skyrocket, and the MARKET doesnt exist yet. It simply does not make business sense to attempt the next generation of wingsuit.

If you want it, go build it yourself ......


D

[SkymonkeyONE 4]

Well thought out, Darren. Meet me in the camper.

Chuck

[Buried 0]

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Well thought out, Darren. Meet me in the camper.

looking for some loving?

Where is my fizzy-lifting drink?

[SkymonkeyONE 4]

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Well thought out, Darren. Meet me in the camper.

looking for some loving?

I guess you had to be there. Wait, you were there; you just missed out.

[KrisFlyZ 0]

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This is due to the fact that the rotator cuff muscle in and around the shoulder is the major player in WS flight, and it is only designed for rotation of the arm! So even with hardcore training it can never grow anywhere near as large as our major skeletal muscle groups like quads, glutes and calfs, therefore trying to support most of our body weight on it is not going to be pleasant after more than about one minute!

Where did you get that information (the emphasized bit ) from? Why are you saying the most of the weight is supported by these muscles?

Kris

[lurch 0]

Second that question.
YMMV of course, but past the pursuit of simple time I found that the less effort I put into any given muscle group and the less strain I put into flying, the longer the flights became. As I was told by senior pilots, when I stopped going for time, tilted over forwards a bit more and went for distance, the times came back of their own accord, granting me ever-larger helpings of both distance AND time with less and less effort... It takes me far more effort to fly SHORT range and slow, semistalled than it does to fly long and slow and let the suit have all the forward speed it wants.
Personally my thought is, the future of WS design will be ever-finer tuning of lift, profile and balance so that greater and greater performance is more easily obtained with less and less work on the part of the pilot, well-balanced pressurization and WS structure taking up the workload originally handled by brute force on the part of the pilot.
That said, I'm looking forward to having my ass handed to me by my new S-6 when it is done... If I'm not totally in error here, I think I'll find the "3 minutes dude!!!" is most easily accomplished in the S-6 by pursuit of the relaxed "lying down on an air mattress" flight mode that delivered the best performance with my lowly little GTI...
You know what part takes the most strain for me when I fly that way? My neck! Its the only part not gently supported by the wings or extracting any lift out of the deal, and man do I feel it after a day of flying... I used to be pencil-necked, I'm rapidly becoming bullnecked instead.
This is all very subjective, though, and I may find when I learn a bigger suit things change dramatically, but thats what I fly for, to learn how to fly, better. I can't wait to discover if these techniques cross suit architectures and work as well with bigger wings or are simply artifacts of the way a GTI performs.
My .02$...
-Lurch

Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

[larsrulz 0]

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Where did you get that information (the emphasized bit ) from? Why are you saying the most of the weight is supported by these muscles?

Wasn't asked to me, but I'll help anyway. If you want to think about the best lifting body out there, it is going to be a single wing aircraft, not a flying wing or a helicopter or anything else, but a rigid wing aircraft with a lifting point slightly ahead of the center of gravity (not trying to get too technical, but this is important for this question but moreso for the original question).

So now, think about what part of the wingsuit creates the most lift (not air deflection but actual lifting force). Unfortunately the center of a wing doesn't create as much lift as the leading edge (per length of wing), so the arm wings will produce considerably more lift than the leg wings (not to mention they will also produce more air deflection (2 wings vs. 1) which increases force on the arms more). Just like an airplane, think about the load applied up at the tip of the wing (since we are flying forward and down, then it is actually up and back, but the up is the important part). The best way to simulate this is to lay on a bench and put half your weight in each hand holding your arms straight out. This puts all that weight right on your rotator cuff. The one thing we do in wingsuits is to drive your elbows forward (not sure hot to put this well, but hopefully you know what I mean), which puts some of the load onto the pectoral muscles, which is a much better thing for our body, but that will deform the wing (if you are interested in maximizing lift this is critical not to do).

Obviously we don't currently hold 100% of our weight on our wingsuits, or we wouldn't lose altitude, but as we increase the efficiency/size/skill/whatever more and more weight will go onto our arms, which will end up being the limiting factor in the long run.

I have no doubt that there is plenty of improvement left in the wingsuit world (just watching videos of awesome fliers in flight shows a lot lacking in the design), but there are probably only 3 people in the world who actually need (and could make use of) the increases that an honest-to-god aerodynamic design of a wingsuit would give, and unless one of those three is fabulously wealthy and willing to throw money at it, then we'll just have to continue at the current pace of slow, emperical improvements of wingsuit design.

Now if one of those three is willing to throw money at it, then let me know, cause I'd love to put my aerodynamic background to use.

I got a strong urge to fly, but I got no where to fly to. -PF

[Costyn 1]

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That said, I'm looking forward to having my ass handed to me by my new S-6 when it is done... If I'm not totally in error here, I think I'll find the "3 minutes dude!!!" is most easily accomplished in the S-6 by pursuit of the relaxed "lying down on an air mattress" flight mode that delivered the best performance with my lowly little GTI...

Yeah, I can second that. I was getting 120+ second flights; 50 mph vertical speed (dunno about forward speed) in my Classic II after some 70 jumps, and then when I started jumping the S6/S3S I had to learn to fly that all over again. I was back to minimum vertical speeds of 65mph and 95 second flights. And I discovered pains in muscles I didn't know existed.

Actually, the best flight times in the S6 are not with stall-flying (as I call it), but by actually letting the suit fly and get lift from forward speed. You do not really need to tilt forward any (head low), just flying the suit flat will get me the best glide ratios.

Costyn van Dongen - http://www.flylikebrick.com/ - World Wide Wingsuit News

[Professor 0]

Really interesting question, and something I think about quite a bit myself.

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What I mean by that is simple. It almost seems as though the "space race" for the biggest, best wingsuit is over. BM released the S3S, PF released the V1... and that seemed to be all she wrote. Now, given, I haven't been following the market closely for more than about 2-3 years. I'm completely unaware of the way that things were before I started paying attention. I may just need a history lesson.

I don't see this at all like you do. I don't think there ever really was a "space race". Only recently has there really been an explosion of suits onto the market, and only recently has there really been a number of different high performance suits available. The only person who has really been driving constant improvement since the beginning has been Robi, and his pace hasn't really changed. Look at the progression: Classic -> GTi -> S1 -> S3 -> V1 -> V2. The smallest difference between any two succesive suits is the Classic -> GTi jump. Everything else is really about the same, including the V2. I think you're percieving the V2 as a minor upgrade to the V1, but it's really not, it's about the same increase as the others.

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But it just seems that the envelope has been pushed and the pressure is off. Consider the recent updates of the two company's flagship wingsuits. The S6 has fairly minor upgrades over the S3S: a few apparently minor performance boosts [though I have not seen actual figures to support my assessment] and some comfort changes. The same seems true for the V2: a few performance updates through wing profile and size changes [once again, no data to support my guess that these are fairly "minor"] and some comfort/ease of use upgrades. Both seems to be fantastic wingsuits, but neither are revolutionary.

No commercial suit has really been revolutionary. Patrick dG's 1st suit was revolutionary, no one had seen anything like it before, but the suits we have been flying since have really just been extensions of that idea. Every suit manufactured now can be traced directly back to either the classic or the crossbow, which were both inspire by Patrick's designs.

Next point: I think you're underestimating the changes to the V2. The suit has a whole bunch of refinements that are not immediately appearant. Which makes me think: This is the first HP suit which has not been primarily a "look Ma, bigger wings!!" improvement. It's relying on better aerodynamics to gain ground, and I'm curious to see whether this is an indication that designers are starting to get more experience manipulating the subtler points of aircraft design, or whether it's an indication that they're running out of easy, low hanging fruit and having to work harder to get the same types of gains.

I'll let someone else comment on the S3 -> S3s -> S6 succession, I'm not too familiar with any of those.

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Consider the V2 from a design perspective. It has a very wide [the widest?] stance and a downright huge leg-wing.

Side note:
The V1 has the narrowest stance of the PF suits, and the V2 didn't seem any wider than the Acro, Phantom or Prod.

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So, is there market stagnation? The force driving the companies to strive for the best performance possible seems to have dissipated slightly... at least to me.

Personally, I see more and more people flying wingsuits all the time. The market is anything but stagnating.

Ted
Like a giddy school girl.

[dmkellett 0]

Kris,

With respect to how I came across the information as to which muscles are effected by WS flight, I started by thinking which were effected on the ground and then concentrating on the different feelings I got during flight. I then asked two close friends if they would help and they both agreed that by seeing me in the suit they would be able to determine which groups were recruited in varying body positions (mostly varying arm positions..) I showed them the direction of flight, position and direction of the force / pain felt in my body and the nature of the airflow over the surfaces of the suit. I also demonstrated the three main body positions I use during flight and asked what they thought for each one…:

1 . Wing stalled / head high / high angle of attack (AOT) : main groups recruited are pectorals and arms (biceps / forearms ) with limited shoulder (rotator cuff / deltoid involvement ). See fig 1 (poor position)

2 . Wing stalled / head low / high AOT : Again , main muscles used are pectorals and arms with slightly more shoulder involvement.

3 : Wing UNSTALLED / head low / LOW AOT : muscles recruited now change with emphasis on rotator cuff in shoulder, deltoid and to a lesser extent pectorals. See fig 2 (perfect position)


When flying with a high AOT on the arm wing the major strain is on the pectorals (think about doing a PEC DECK fly movement.) As we roll our shoulders more and use our forearms to lower the angle of attack (as we have discussed together earlier to line up the wing tip with the angle made by the main closing flaps of the container), we change the emphasis from pectorals to shoulders. Here, the force created by the arm wings differs from the stalled modes of flight in that because we roll our shoulders “forwards and down” the angle created by the relative wind changes from a directly vertical “braking” force to a lifting force created by the wing’s aerofoil. This acts (as larsrulz said “up and back”) and in order to oppose this force we must contract our rotator cuff/deltoid/pecs/arms in that order of significance.

Using my input from the pilots perspective, a physiotherapists input for the structure / function relationships of our bodies and exactly which muscles are used for each position of flight and a PT instructors knowledge on how to train each muscle we came up with a specific workout for wingsuit flight, which I have found to be producing noticeable gains in performance , although changes happen really slowly..

Again, as Larsrulz said we are not really putting all our weight on the rotator cuff, but in reality it is the only muscle that will tire considerably quicker than we can fall from exit to pull altitudes. Therefore it is the one we should be concentrating considerable efforts into training if we want to perform better at max glide when flying. Of course it is critical to train the entire body for increased performance too, I have learnt a considerable amount sat up getting “hammered” with non jumping friends after long nights out talking about anatomy / structure / function in relation to WS flight and how best to eek out every last bit of performance from a really badly designed flying machine!

Lurch ;


I wonder how this statement could ever be true?

“ever-finer tuning of lift, profile and balance so that greater and greater performance is more easily obtained with less and less work on the part of the pilot, well-balanced pressurization and WS structure taking up the workload originally handled by brute force on the part of the pilot.”

This statement seems to imply that less effort may be required in higher performance suits of the future. How do you perceive that to be possible? If we consider the forces acting upon us during flight, and SPECIFICALLY how we OPPOSE these forces, we can see that the only way your statement could ever be realised is of we move away from the “traditional” WS design. By that I mean WS’s without solid support structures internally. If we were to start shoving metal rods etc across our shoulder blades then as much of the pressure as you want could be reduced on our bodies, but surely we are then a man-shagged-a-hang- glider type of craft ? If we intend to not follow this path, (I think we shouldn’t) then we are left with a model that can be compared to a fixed wing aircraft :

Think of the wings of the aircraft , the surfaces produce the lift (same as our wing surfaces) the ribs between the surfaces maintain the aerofoil shape (same again) and the spar braces the force of the lifting surface (wing ) against the body of the aircraft. This is where we differ. OUR suits do not have spars. We are the spars, in particular our skeletal structure. So think of our bone structure being the spars, and the control surface hydraulics systems being our muscles. It is our muscles that provide the FORCE to brace the lift produced by the wings against our skeletal structure. It is ONLY our muscles that are doing this, if we relaxed our wings would fold!

You say that you don’t feel any real pressure when flying the GTI on your shoulders. Neither do I. But for performance increases, surely by performance we mean lift? If lift is to increase then the force opposing it must also increase and this means higher muscle fatigue on the pertinent groups involved. Think of the design of the GTI, It has most of its surface area from directly under the armpit out to just under the elbow. Beyond the elbow the surface area is almost reduced to nothing. So the lever applied to the shoulder joint is small. Now think of the V1, In order to allow a jumper to have a clean unrestricted (most of the time !!!!!! ) pull, but still dramatically increase performance, the surface area of the wing has been moved from under the armpit – elbow to out PAST the wrist! So the lever is far larger on this suit. This is not a bad thing, as of course it’s the only real way to increase performance. But there is no way we can have larger wings / higher speeds / greater lift / higher performance without corresponding higher forces acting upon our bodies. Not without RIGID structures APART from our bones. In order to get higher performance we are going to have to get stronger, or accept really short maximum performance flight times.

Darren

[voodew1 0]

To Darren and Ted:


What I know is, when I max out it hurts because I am a pussy and i refuse to work out because it is uumm............ WORK!!

When I flock with friends it doesn't hurt, therefore flocking is fun!

I just wish i could put as much thought into how the human body works as you guys -- I still haven't figured out how my dick gets hard, but is does and until it stops getting hard I am not going to concern myself about it

As for the whole wingsuit progression thing, I let Robi take care of that

The pimp hand is powdered up ... say something stupid

[dmkellett 0]

Voodew you are a pussy! But I agree the most fun jumps are the flocking ones.... But max flight jumps are fun too. They do hurt loads though. I am just thinking about the theoretical side to how we can get better. Maybe its not what everybody wants to do and maybe the majority are happy to flock, but max flight jumps are just where I see the future in certain aspects of the sport. If I lived in sunny Texas I would probably spend more time jumping and less in the gym. unfortunatly I live in a rain soaked piss hole so the gym it is. Hope you and Ted are well, wish I was in Texas!

D

[lurch 0]

Well, keep in mind that statement is coming from a guy who has spent 99% of his flight time flying a GTI... I've only flown a BIG suit 3 times and two of those were flocks where I was flying any which way but maxed. The one maxed-out flight I did have on an S3 I was way too busy just experiencing it and trying a zillion little changes to get technical with it beyond noticing how much different it felt.
The way I see it is when I put max effort into my GTI, I get increasing performance up to a certain point of diminishing returns, past that point further effort causes my performance to drop off radically instead...
When I backed off and let wing pressurization do its thing to shape the wing combined with that relaxed lying-flat effect, my overall performance went through the roof.
With a Classic or GTI anyway, a portion of the force is taken by the skeleton/muscles, and a portion is taken by the suit I'm lying down in.
I'd noticed when flying the S3 that the legwing pressurization was so much more effective than the GTI it took a real squeeze between the knees to collapse it prior to opening, as if the thing had airlocks, felt like deflating a tightly filled air mattress between my knees. I have to HOLD my GTI's wing open, the S3 felt more like it held ITSELF open and (felt as if) it would largely retain its shape even if I let my legs go partially limp.
I got the impression the wing was taking far more of the load than my GTI's legwing does and my comment was an extrapolation of that impression. My impression was the perfect (or maybe excessively perfect) armwing design would be the same, staying drum-tight on its own more or less, and kind of like a cantilever effect, would support most of the added load of bigger size by itself, taking its semirigid structure and load capacity from internal air pressure and taut fabric leveraged against itself rather than muscular/skeletal rigidity by pilot effort.

Taking that to an extreme, imagine a -totally- sealed set of wingsuit wings, inflated drum-tight and capped like normal groundbound inflatable toys, rafts or what have you. It would require NO effort to keep such a suit maxed out because ALL of its structural rigidity and shape are its own, the pilot is just along for the ride, steering it and guiding its flight rather than exerting effort to "make" it stay open and fly... The thing would fly efficiently even if the pilot went totally limp. But the tradeoff would be a suit with a very narrow range of flight modes, eventually requiring pilot effort to DEform the wing to change or increase fallrate.
Does this make any sense to anyone?

Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

[The111 1]

It is true that on a big suit like an S3 the legwing pressurizes differently than on a GTi. You are the first person I've ever heard say the same thing I did after my first S3 jump - I felt like I had to exert a lot of effort to close down that "airbag between my knees" when pulling. Now, of course I'm used to it and if I jump a smaller suit my legs feel too loose.

As far as the rest of your logic, there is one critical thing missing.

Sure, the legwing will naturally want to inflate, but it does not naturally keep your legs straight at the knees - you do that with your quads, one of the strongest muscles in your body. Big arm wings do inflate easily and without effort, but keeping them pushed down on the air is what requires effort, and using muscles that are not nearly as strong as quads.

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Taking that to an extreme, imagine a -totally- sealed set of wingsuit wings, inflated drum-tight and capped like normal groundbound inflatable toys, rafts or what have you. It would require NO effort to keep such a suit maxed out because ALL of its structural rigidity and shape are its own

If this were true airplanes would need no structural reinforcement to resist bending along the span of the wings. Your thinking is flawed, sorry.

www.WingsuitPhotos.com

[Ozzie 0]

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Does this make any sense to anyone?

Your right Lurch. Just a matter of technical creativity like any other of the great inventions that now seem obvious to us all but were once considered impossible and insane that seemed to upset naysayers just as it does today (like boats made of steel that can actually float and not wood).

What you are ultimately talking about is a suit that will inflate into a monolithic wing that bridges across our body width and perhaps one day even the length of the body as well and gains structure from the pressurization (increasing as we go faster). The wing would still be flexible and we would in essence be flying “inside” of the wing instead of the current modality of simply “hanging on hinges” (joints and muscles) between three separate wings we poorly attempt to made rigid with our own strength. Unless the plan is that we are going to flap like birds and fly away, this is clearly inefficient, archaic and unnecessary but part our flight evolution and improvement process. The current design has the pilot both make the wing (muscle forded rigidity) and steer/adjust it as well (more subtle muscle input). This new design would create its own rigidity (monolithic and not hinged at all our joints) and let you focus on simply bending and reshaping the body (changing the shape of the wing in doing so) for control and not exerting strength in forming it. Though we would be able to go limp and the shape will fly itself, we would ultimately be able to press, pull, push, contract and make changes from “inside” the wing and still feel like we are flying it and not simply riding along on a hanglider (that is why it is called hang gliding) or sitting in a plane, since they have external control systems / wings that are far removed from your body and that take away from the “I am the one flying” experience.

This will all be done one day without all the structural steel and heavy reinforcements mentioned earlier and somehow base on available pressurization and strong but pliable material / fabric.

Oz

Motion = Emotion

[riggerrob 643]

In theory, a pressurized structure (i.e. rubber tire) can eliminate compression members (i.e. bones) if there is enough internal pressure. When it is over-pressurized the skin only has to hold tensile loads, while compressed air carries all the compression loads.
Too bad this requires pressures far greater than can be generated by ram-air.
An over-pressure wing suit would require perfect sealing and some form of compressed air bottle.

Nice theory, but obscenely expensive in practice.

[Ozzie 0]

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Nice theory, but obscenely expensive in practice.

Actually, to get to a point of having theory that one thinks will work but then to have to “worry” about price is what in the engineering field (or any other creative field) we would call a “Quality problem” to have (much like paying “too much” taxes and only making 2 million afterwards)! This is still far above and beyond the original premise that said we can never get pass the limitation of this or any other joint muscle/joint group.

My dads first calculator cost 120..00 bux (in 30+ year ago dollars) and only did addition, subtraction and multiplication and division. Eight years later you could get them on watches for next to nothing. Suffice it to say, the computer was not designed because we needed a calculator on a watch but it was a side benefit that resulted from a greater need. All it takes is for some larger related industry (aerospace, etc) to come up with a like need and then it comes into the realm of possibility

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Too bad this requires pressures far greater than can be generated by ram-air. An over-pressure wing suit would require perfect sealing and some form of compressed air bottle. .

HYBRID DESIGN:
In actuality, I think such a design would have smaller cells that were already highly pressurized in strategic and opposing locations (in the form of ribs, cubes, etc) and the ram air cell (separate from the high pressure ones) would just serve as to lock these opposing cells into each other to form the more rigid overall wing. A kind of hybrid design somewhere between ram-air and the pre-filled innertube that most people automatically will want to associate with the idea. Seriously though, if as much creativity and energy was spent on thinking of the ideas as opposed to thinking about how something cannot work, many new things would come around much faster. There is much historic proof to support this but yet we still do so. First we go from “it cant be done” to “it can be done but...” to “hey look at what they did I bet we could do the same thing for our own purposes” and finally afford to prototype it.

The privatization of space flight is the perfect example.

Actually, now that this discussion is forcing me to think about it. I think the next logical step is pressurization only around and between the joints (arms primarily) and not into the extremities just yet. The full blown delta wing can wait. This could just about be done now and be a great “proof of concept.” of the idea. I suspect the military will be the one that bites first or perhaps the transportation industry in trying to prevent injuries from crashes.

Oz
(Just thinking out loud and in the context of the thread premise)

Motion = Emotion

[LukeH 0]

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I think the next logical step is pressurization only around and between the joints (arms primarily)

interesting idea. however using a pressurised gas brings it's own problems because the air pressure we travel through varies from say 100 kPa to 50kPa. but perhaps some sort of mechanical arm support would help take the pressure off the shoulders....

[VectorBoy 0]

An over-pressure wing suit would require perfect sealing and some form of compressed air bottle.

[lurch 0]

Matt...
I kept restraining myself from putting in further to this thread mostly because both you and Darren kinda stomped my idea and both of you have either superior experience or better physiological data available to you, and I would have been defending the ideas for the sake of defending them. Not the right way to do it. I needed to put more thought into it, to figure out how to articulate what the intuitive understanding voice in the back of my head kept trying to tell me. I had a hunch there was more to it, and hunches are usually half-formed ideas based on unarticulated understanding.
It took me till now to figure out HOW to defend them. I don't have the expertise you guys do, but consider this:
It isn't an answer I have for you, its another question based on the observation that we are not airplanes: If my thinking is flawed...

Why do raft dives work?

If my thinking is flawed, they should not work, at all. They should collapse and fold in half like an overloaded airframe the second they hit the air and load up. But they don't.
Rafts inflated tightly enough hold up just fine with people in them, at least for awhile.
They aren't dynamically adjusting, so their structure fails halfway through the dive as they deflate, creating the usual comical clusterfuck we've all seen on raft dive videos as the raft gets squished by increasing air pressure, but WE are and we don't. The S3 legwing is just as tough to close at the bottom as the top. Build a raft like an S3 legwing only with real ram-air airlocks and funnel-shaped inlets and you could ride it till pull altitude.
Rafts taken out of aircraft aren't really rafts...they are poorly designed wingsuits.
Build one shaped like an S3 instead, theres your wingsuit of the future.
Just a thought. I've been wrong before...

Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

[mccordia 74]

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Rafts taken out of aircraft aren't really rafts...they are poorly designed wingsuits.
Build one shaped like an S3 instead, theres your wingsuit of the future.

Something like this?

http://www.qualityinflatables.com/images/st3950large.jpg

JC
FlyLikeBrick
I'm an Athlete?

[LouDiamond 1]

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Something like this?

http://www.qualityinflatables.com/images/st3950large.jpg

BWWAAAHHHH, thats fantastic. I Googled it and found this press release on it:

Berlin, 15 May 2006

ESG Elektroniksystem- und Logistik-GmbH and Dräger (both part of the SPELCO Consortium) have designed a parachute system for the special operations units of the German Bundeswehr. The system has already been in use since 2003 but in the future it will be complemented with a special subsystem that is currently being developed in the form of a modular wing that is connected to the parachute. The wing is designed to enable parachutists to cover a distance of up to 200 kilometres (in the development stage).

As it is now, the system allows operation units to jump from a height of about ten kilo-metres and to cover a distance of up to 40 kilometres carrying up to 100 kilogrammes of equipment. Parachutists can thus penetrate into areas that are difficult to reach without their transport planes having to fly into a danger zone. At the same time, tracing this almost 100% silent parachute system using air or ground-based radar systems is extremely difficult. Night operations or operations under adverse weather conditions are possible.

With the newly developed wing, the radius of operation for the parachute is increased considerably. The parachutists can reach their target at a greater speed and are even less detectable than before. Also, the new wing allows them to operate unaffected, to a large extent, by wind conditions. The wing will be equipped with a guiding and stabilisation system. The integration of small turbo jet drives for UAVs in the second development stage will make it possible to carry persons over long distances without the need to jump from an extreme height.

Visitors at the ILA 2006 can view the parachute system with the wing and a range of subsystems (such as a navigation or an oxygen supply system) at the ESG booth in Hall 7.

"It's just skydiving..additional drama is not required"
Some people dream about flying, I live my dream
SKYMONKEY PUBLISHING

[AveE 0]

i believe, that the future looks like this :)

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/160791/he_can_fly/

[notsane 0]

Imagine taking something like this http://www.skymall.com/webapp/skystore?process=prodDisplay&action=&pid=102135333&catId=10800 out the door and actually getting it to fly. THis one seems to be a little more stable than the Manta. If any of these things could be coaxed to fly instead of fall slowly you'd really have something. Openings might be a little dicey with the huge burble, but with a wing loading like this ... maybe you could land it. I will personally buy a beer for the first person to do it (I'll bring it to you in the hospital too if needed).

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