Posts Tagged ‘wingsuit flying’

CBS’ 60 Minutes calls wingsuit proximity flying “the world’s most dangerous sport” – so of course Red Bull have their finger on its pulse.

A brief reminder of some wingsujit facts and figures:

A typical skydiver’s terminal velocity: 110 to 140 mph or from 180 to 225 km/h.

A Wingsuit Flyer’s velocity: dramatically reduced speeds, a momentary speed of 25 mph or 40 km/h has been recorded, however 60 mph or 95 km/h is more typical.

Materials used in wingsuit: Rip-Stop nylon and or Parapack with thin plastic ribs

Can you do it? In the Skydivers Information ManualtThe United States Parachute Association (USPA) recommends that any jumper flying a wingsuit for the first time must have at least 200 jumps and be accompanied by an instructor or 500 jumps experience without instruction… Heed their advice.

For wannabe wingsuit flyers Red Bull have produced the ultimate movie, due to be released this summer. It’s called the Human Flight 3D Movie (redbull)…

This is a partially fictionalised film, but it is inspired by the members of the elite Red Bull Airforce who are themselves appearing on camera – it would be pretty hard to find stuntmen for this kind of extreme-ness!

Human Flight 3D is an authentic look at the dangerous but thrilling culture of this elite aerial sport and being 3D it allows the audience the virtual experience of flying alongside the world’s top precision skydiving, BASEjumping and wingsuit flyers who make up the Red Bull Air Force.

Pundits say that the storyline might be weak but the flying will be awesome!

It’s impressive on YouTube but on the big screen and in 3D it’ll be like you’re there with a wingsuit on, a ‘chute on your back and part of the elite team. It will allow you to experience the thrill, the adrenaline rush and the pure primal dream of flying like a bird.

Keep your eyes open for the movie. If you want to know what it feels like to fly like a bird but don’t have quite enough courage, or perhaps money, to do it yourself, then this’ll be the next best thing.

I am so glad I write articles on extreme sport – the things people come up with… and to think I might have missed this!

Try this one on for size… a parachuter surfing on the back of a wingsuit flyer, and poised and accomplished enough (the both of them) to hold the position for 20 seconds – that’s like an hour when you’re doing a crazy stunt like this!

It’s Jonathan Tagle with the parachute and Jeff Nebelkopf in the wingsuit. Phil Peggs is the estimable photographer.

Make no mistake – this was a daring stunt and a first ever.

“It was a challenge to line up underneath him because I had to estimate where he’d be based on the last place I saw him as I was sliding in. He would then get his feet around my rig. It changed my centre of gravity when he hooked onto me – made me fly a little more head low, so I had to compensate a little bit,” said Nebelkopf.

After securing the position the pair held the pose for 20 seconds before breaking and heading off to make their own way back down to the earth.

Tagle said: “The weird thing about the break off was that I had the feeling I needed to pull, but I was already under a good canopy.”

Quite something… hats off, well done, congratulations, etc etc….

A bit of weekend entertainment on a grey and grizzly day… formation wingsuit flying at its best…

Incredible how manoeuvrable they are. When you think of the speed they are flying, the gradient that they are falling at, I think it is quite incredible…

Geoffrey Robson was a qualified mechanical engineer and mathematician who happened to love to wingsuit fly.

The fantastic video below (fmalan1) taken in early April, shows Robson opening a new route from the Groot Drakenstein mountains above Boschendal, near Stellenbosch, South Africa. It was recorded on his helmet-mounted video camera and shows graphically why this is such a seriously extreme sport:

Robson completed his Master’s degree at the University of Stellenbosch, and was a PhD student at the ETH in Switzerland, where he conducted research on wingsuit flying. He considered himself lucky enough to be able to combine his interests in one study: aerodynamics and wingsuit flying and aimed to combine maths and science to improve wingsuit flying.

He had been studying wingsuit flight to unprecedented accuracy by using a highly sensitive instrument which measured 3D location by GPS and inertial measurement, flyer attitude and heading, altitude, and air pressure during many wingsuit Base jumps.

Robson was said to be the only person in the world who combined the scientific capacity for this kind of research with the ability to test it himself in the air.

Thank you to zurichminds for this fascinating video.

Today Geoffrey Robson is dead.

Early in the morning of Monday, 12th April, he tried the same route, but this time he wanted to cross the ridge between Devil’s Tooth (the peak to the front, right) and the mountain. His calculations were wrong, and he failed to clear the ridge, resulting in his death at the age of 31.

“If he were two metres higher, he would have survived” said his jumping companions, and that is the name of the game with wingsuit flying. It is an inherently dangerous sport, but a sport participated in by people with huge skydiving experience and a deep love of adventure, of setting themselves new challenges and of taking on the ultimate challenge – wingsuit flying or ‘proximity flying’ as it is also known.

All extreme sports are dangerous, some more than others, and wingsuit flying and BASEjumping probably the most dangerous of all.  We found this little list of statistics on fatalities in extreme sports over the past 5 years per 1,000 participants. Anyone with an ambition to climb K2 might take note of these figures too!

Skydiving:                                3.3
Base Jumping:                      44
Hang Gliding/Paragliding:  3.8
Summiting K2:                    104
ATV Riding:                              0.5
Scuba Diving:                              .06
Snowboarding:                           .05

Although wingsuit flying is not on the list (there is probably not enough data to work with yet) it is probably somewhere between skydiving and BASEjumping. It is an interesting aside, though, that fatality rates were very high during the developmental period for this extreme sport. Between 1930 and 1961, 71 out of 75 people died trying to perfect a wingsuit.

But it is immensely popular with a small handful of hardcore adventurists. ‘To fly like a bird’ has always been man’s ambition, and with wingsuit flying you are nearly there…

“Wingsuit flying was his life” said his friend and jump companion Leander Lacey. Robson’s father, Bill, described his eldest son as a “brilliant mathematician” who was most comfortable in the outdoors. “He came here for a Base-jumping holiday. There is an element of danger, but this is just so tragic,” he said.

Our commiserations go to Geoffrey Robson’s family and friends.

We have shown many videos on BASEjumping and wingsuit flying, but this one (BASE885) really takes the biscuit. The photography by Edgar Kraus is magnificent:

The footage was shot on Super 16mm film.

There is a fine line between these two extreme sports – BASEjumping and wingsuit flying and the one frequently leads into the other. Remember that BASE is an  acronym that stands for the four categories of objects from which one can jump; building, antenna, span, and earth.

When BASEjumping progressed to wingsuit flying, the aim was to jump as far off the cliff as possible and keep as far away from the rocks as possible. But the guys who do this sport are no ordinary sportsmen – they seek the thrill of danger, and it was not long before they were virtually trailing their fingers along mountain edges.

They are under no illusions though. The official site www.basejumper.com warns that

“BASE jumping is a highly dangerous sport that can easily injure and kill participants. Think long and hard before making a BASE jump. We do not recommend BASE jumping to anybody. You, and you alone, are responsible for your safety.

Always seek proper training and mentoring before attempting any sort of BASE jumping. Wherever you jump; take only pictures, leave only footprints.”

There’s no such thing as “too old” – or not in Poul Rasmussen’s case. At 85 years old his passion is kitesurfing (AdvanceCopenhagen).

There are many much better and much longer videos, but unfortunately all with a lot of interviews included – and the language is Danish. Now, I have nothing against the Danish language, but I’m not sure how many of our readers are fluent in it! So I apologise to Poul, but the quick snip I’ve shown of a man to emanate will, I hope, whet your appetite to keep reading!

So that’s kitesurfing out the way, what about some of our other favourite sports?

Donna Vano is the oldest pro-snowboarder in the world. At 56 she is a legend in the snowboard and skateboard industry- an action sports veteran in every sense of the word. For 16 years she  has competed in Superpipe, Slopestyle, Boardercross, Slalom and Giant Slalom. She currently holds three Guinness World Records as the Oldest Inline Vert Skater in the World, the Most Gold Medals in the USASA in all 5 disciplines, and the Oldest Female Amateur Snowboarder Competing in Pro Tours in the Superpipe. She also runs the South Tahoe Snowboard Series USASA Nationals, which was the top for 8 years in a row and has been top in the series for 12 years. “I’m not getting older, I’m getting better,” she says.

The oldest person to have climbed Mount Everest is a Nepalese Sherpa called Min Bahadur Sherchan. He was 76 years and 340 days old. The second oldest is 75-year-old Japanese Yuichiro Miura, who reached the top two days after him, and the third is another Japanese, 71 year old  Katsusuke Yanagisawa, a teacher by profession.

In 2009,  Amanda Richmond, 54, a PE teacher from Ipswich, England, battled electrical storms, giant snow plumes and freezing temperatures to scale the 8,850m mountain, the highest on earth and so became the oldest woman to have climbed Everest.  She said: “It was incredible. I feel privileged to have been in that situation – to stand on top of the world.”

I’m trying to find the oldest wingsuit flyer, but in the meantime I have come across the oldest skydiver. Frank Moody, aged 101, made a tandem jump in 2004. Now that’s quite something isn’t – anybody who ‘doesn’t dare’ should be ashamed of themselves!!!

Still struggling to find the oldest wingsuit flyer, I have to allude to Yves Rossy – or ‘jet’ or ‘fusion’ man as he is also known. At 50, he has to be the oldest and most successful person to have achieved sustained human flight with the aid of a jet-powered fixed wing strapped to his back. His next project is to fly across the Grand Canyon. Rossy is both a highly experienced skydiver and a veteran aircraft pilot.

“My biggest concern is what happens when I get bored with this (wingsuit flying),” says veteran BASEjumper Phil Smith on the risks of wingsuit jumping from buildings, bridges and cliffs, and that’s about the last word I have on the oldest wingsuit flyer. I know Dwain Weston was 30 when he died practicing the sport he loved, but as for the oldest wingsuit flyer?  Mum’s the word.

Since 2006, Russell Allen, an American cyclist has been the oldest living American Olympian Cyclist – he got his medal in 1932. But cycling has a venerable reputation for more aged participants. The oldest participant for the ‘Les 24 Heures Velo’ – a team-endurance cycle event to be held in August this year at the Le Mans Bugatti Circuit – will be 82 years old. Whereas, In 2007 in Ladysmith, South Africa, Mkhulu Mkhize, was given a brand new set of wheels at the venerable age of 112. Ok, fair enough, he’s not about to be competing at that age – but to still be cycling yourself around the countryside is quite something.

And as for the Olympics, it seems like our sportsmen are going on for ever and ever. The 2008 event was a real eye-opener. Japanese horseman Hiroshi Hoketsu lead the pack at Beijing, returning to the Games after a 44-year break, aged 67. Laurie Lever turned 60 in October 2007, the last thing on his mind was retirement with the Australian show jumper focused on riding in his first Olympics. The title of oldest Olympian is held by Swedish shooter Oscar Swahn, who collected his sixth medal at the 1920 Antwerp Games aged 72 years and 280 days. “We are a fitter generation,” said Lever, whose appearance on Ashleigh Drossel Dan in the show jumping in Hong Kong is believed to make him the oldest debutant at the 2008 Games.

Laurence J. Brophy of Wales at 77 years old took part in last years’ RacingThePlanet Atacama Crossing – surely one of the most testing of the ultramarathon/endurance races. He didn’t complete all stages, but he did most of it. An extraodinary undertaking for any human being let alone one on the other side of 70 and at 74, Jack Denness of the UK, took part in  the Sahara Race. He said: “It is fantastic to be here. I love it. It is great for my ego as even the front runners give me lots of respect because of my age.”

Sports academics are not surprised by the ability of athletes to remain competitive longer and expect increasing numbers of over 40s to stay competing at top level sport as training techniques and technology continue to improve.

“Ageing is inevitable for humans. But if you have goals in life, you should go through the physical and mental training, forget about age and embark on the challenges,” said Yuichiro Miura.

Something to think about, isn’t it…