yuri_base

Since 65mph fallrate is typical for flocking, the forward speed is not stellar either (~70mph), and pitch angle is around 0 or even slightly head-high, that makes the angle of attack about 40-45 degrees. Flocking = stalling in formations. Android+Wear/iOS/Windows apps: L/D Vario, Smart Altimeter, Rockdrop Pro, Wingsuit FAP iOS only: L/D Magic Windows only: WS Studio

With a strong tailwind, it's pretty much like diving under the tail of a slow airplane, right? So, "flat & stable" exit won't work, it will cause extreme potato chipping and frantic attempts to regain the control. One should intentionally dive headdown... or do a gainer. What do you think? Android+Wear/iOS/Windows apps: L/D Vario, Smart Altimeter, Rockdrop Pro, Wingsuit FAP iOS only: L/D Magic Windows only: WS Studio

Watching the steel whizzing a few inches from your face while knowing you can't possibly hit it... is a priceless way of showing a finger to mother Nature! I'm curious, from your observations during climb and jump, what was the distribution of windspeed over the altitude? Was it linear from 15mph on the ground to 50 at 400ft, or there was a sharp shear layer? (if yes, at what altitude?) If you're flying upwind and go through a shear layer with ~15-20mph or more gradient, could the canopy collapse without warning, as its airspeed is suddenly dropped to zero or even negative value? Android+Wear/iOS/Windows apps: L/D Vario, Smart Altimeter, Rockdrop Pro, Wingsuit FAP iOS only: L/D Magic Windows only: WS Studio

Did you meet Maggot yet? He can do 7! Android+Wear/iOS/Windows apps: L/D Vario, Smart Altimeter, Rockdrop Pro, Wingsuit FAP iOS only: L/D Magic Windows only: WS Studio

Last weekend I also experimented with positioning of the skipped tab on the bottom of the armwing (where main lift web goes through the wing). Skipping the 3rd tab (counting from shoulder) created huge wrinkles all over the wing. Skipped 4th tab and the shape was much smoother. However, the bottom surface in flight was still rough, with a big "rib" going from the skipped tab to the hand. There's a lot of flexibility in choosing the skipped tab. The main reason, however, is the poor fit of the suit, and lack of inflation in the arm wing. No problems like this in my Phantom. I'll experiment more! Also, will experiment with sewing a piece of thicker, heavier material on the bottom of the armwing, to make it very smooth. Or maybe I'll cover it with hair and experiment with different shaves. Android+Wear/iOS/Windows apps: L/D Vario, Smart Altimeter, Rockdrop Pro, Wingsuit FAP iOS only: L/D Magic Windows only: WS Studio

Chuck, that was a flight with a total of 15-18lbs. on my legs (Hanwags + 2 ankle weights 5lbs each). Total exit weight was ~275lbs. This flight was stally, unstable, and with poor glide ratio. I then started reducing weights and that's how I found the sweet spot for my particular suit and body type: Hanwags + 2.5lbs per leg. In this configuration I was able to fly at a glide ratio that visually eclipsed anything that I've ever had before, including planeouts with Phantom at 2.9. Changing the leading edge with tubes eliminated the need for weights. You should have jumped with me on one of those optimized flights! Android+Wear/iOS/Windows apps: L/D Vario, Smart Altimeter, Rockdrop Pro, Wingsuit FAP iOS only: L/D Magic Windows only: WS Studio

I think tilted windtunnels for wingsuits won't happen, because a boring hovering in place is about the only thing you can do in it. Once you make any maneuver - transition to back, barrel roll, max out - the windspeed will need to be instantly changed and the tunnel be tilted to new angle. Unrealistic! Most of the time you'll be pinned flat to the mesh like a dead butterfly in the box. What I can see happening in 2007 is someone will try slope soaring somewhere in the mountains in high winds. Kinda natural windtunnel with no walls.

Yo! Made a few more flights today with my ghetto V-2. I mean, look at this shit!!! (***pics Not Safe For Work!***) Used a piece of a bicycle inner tube taped inside the wing to form a better leading edge. The performance is noticeably better. The balance is just about perfect, no weights needed anymore. The jury is still out on whether the wing is inflated properly, the flights with Gatorade Inlets™® and without them felt about the same, wing looked about the same. They were positioned poorly though. Further experiments with better designed inlets will show. To answer some questions... - Scott: 15lbs weight is total, for both legs. Having 7-8lbs on each leg makes legs pretty numb on landing. - Fabien: animal balloons proved to be impractical, they blow up too easily. Inner tube is much better. So I posted pictures of better balloons. - Pendragon: chest strap is tight, the vents are well outside the harness. In fact, too much outside, so tension creates wrinkles in the vent area; this poor fit is probably the reason they don't work properly. - Robi: weights are only a research tool. They are the cleanest way to change the pitch angle without changing the shape of the suit or body position. Once the sweet spot is found and its pitch angle and horizontal and vertical speeds are "memorized", the next step is to try to achieve the same balance aerodynamically, by adjusting the lift from arm and leg wings. One way to do it is to degrade one of the wings (e.g., reduce the pressure and partially collapse the leg wing in order to increase the pitch to more head-high). The overall result in this case depends on whether the improvement from the better AoA outweighs the decreased quality of the wing. The better way is to achieve better balance by improving the quality of the affected wing. Just like the better leading edge did. It would be awesome to see inflatable pouches in arm and leg wings to morph the wing profile and even size&shape in the future versions of your high-performance suits! So that the flyers can fine-tune their balance with a little pump (included).

Somebody has got to jump from a big church in Moscow during Orthodox Christmas Eve procession, dressed as a devil... it'll be fucking hillarious!!! You've got 40 hours to mull over.

Yet Another New GPS Datalogger Android+Wear/iOS/Windows apps: L/D Vario, Smart Altimeter, Rockdrop Pro, Wingsuit FAP iOS only: L/D Magic Windows only: WS Studio

Yo Fuckerz! Happy New Revolutionary 2007 Year, all!!! Made a bunch of experiments with V-2 at Z-Hills, it was a lot of fun! 1. Experimented with ankle weights from 0 to ~15lbs. The best glide seemed to be with Hanwags and 5lbs. weight. The glide (flying relative to clouds) seemed to be INSANE, visually similar to Spectre with rear risers maxed out. ~3.0??? The damn thing just wants to fly! It just wants to fly forward FAST while it is barely moving down. It felt scary, as if something was wrong... "It's like cocaine"!!! It's unbelievably fast and perfect flying machine! It flies almost as good as Maggot tracks! 2. Unfortunately, V-2 has [at least, the way my suit fits me] an arm wing inflation problem. That's why the ankle weights are required to compensate for the loss of lift/balance from the arm wing. By looking at the arm wing on several flights, I noticed that it looked like it was not inflated properly. It looked lacking the internal pressure and the same wrinkles that I observed while lightly stretching the wing on the ground were observed in the air as if there was no internal pressure to smooth them out. The trailing edge of the wing was flapping like crazy unless there was a very specific amount of stretch applied to it. In comparison, Phantom wing looks nicely inflated and "puffy" in the air, with a lot of range in lift. The V-2's wing, in comparison, seemed to be "dead", static. 3. I noticed that the arm inlets are wide open, but they seem to be pushed back by the wind so much that they are blocking the opening itself. Inserted the halves of Gatorade bottle cut lengthwise to insure the openings are forced open, and the inflation returned, with much more lift from the arm wings. Now, the balance was thrown the other way around, I was much more flat with the horizon and the glide (relative to clouds) noticeably suffered. After ~40 flights on misbalanced suit, I had to relearn it again! I was also very tired by then and could not achieve any decent glide. The glide seemed to be similar to that of Prodigy pants alone. 4. Experimented with making the leading edge sharper by inserting the long "animal" balloons into arm wing. The lift was so insane that I couldn't hold my arms level. They were swept back. The glide was terrible. Total misbalance and stall of the suit. With this better profiled arm wing, it needs larger (longer?) leg wing to restore the balance and best AoA. The sharper leading edge is definitely something to be looked at to improve L/D. 5. By using VISO and its instant speed vs. time replay feature, I noticed that the vertical speed for the best glide was ~50mph, vs. ~42mph for the longest freefall times (my exit weight is 260lbs.; the speed is proportional to the square root of wingloading). So if you're trying to perfect your glide, don't try to minimize the fallrate: add ~20% to your minimum possible sustained fallrate, match that and achieve maximum horizontal speed you can achieve, and this will give you the best glide. No hard data yet, but it'll be there when PFM System is out! Yuri Android+Wear/iOS/Windows apps: L/D Vario, Smart Altimeter, Rockdrop Pro, Wingsuit FAP iOS only: L/D Magic Windows only: WS Studio

Thank you for the update, I thought Maggot was going to Nipples. I'm sending a chartered plane to Fort Myers with a christmas present to the legendary ninja. (see picture) Android+Wear/iOS/Windows apps: L/D Vario, Smart Altimeter, Rockdrop Pro, Wingsuit FAP iOS only: L/D Magic Windows only: WS Studio

Thanks for the pointers! I tried SnoopyPro, I can see packets when dashboard is connected and the desktop software is in live mode, but these packets don't seem to have real data. Will try further. Re: Kalman filter. Found a couple of great articles: http://epubl.ltu.se/1402-1617/2000/081/LTU-EX-00081-SE.pdf http://www.casde.iitb.ac.in/Publications/pdfdoc-2004/vikas-ddp.pdf Totally sweet stuff!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yo! I have a little "black box" which measures some data (if interested, see wingsuit forum). You can connect it to computer via USB and monitor data live using manufacturer's proprietary software. I want to write some custom code to massage the data (smooth it out, calculate some parameters, etc.) How can I stream the data from USB? Any pointers and any sample code in C, C++, C#, or VB.Net are much appreciated! Yuri Android+Wear/iOS/Windows apps: L/D Vario, Smart Altimeter, Rockdrop Pro, Wingsuit FAP iOS only: L/D Magic Windows only: WS Studio

Looking for help from computer geniuses! The recorder is a "black box" with USB output. You can connect it to computer and monitor data live using proprietary software. Now, if you want to "massage" the data in realtime (e.g. apply Kalman filter, calculate the glide ratio, etc.), your code needs to talk to this USB device. Are there any free libraries to do this? How can I stream the data from USB? Any help is much appreciated!

Found this picture on top of the Empire State Building. Apparently, his shoot failed to open. Android+Wear/iOS/Windows apps: L/D Vario, Smart Altimeter, Rockdrop Pro, Wingsuit FAP iOS only: L/D Magic Windows only: WS Studio

This one? 39 second flight Android+Wear/iOS/Windows apps: L/D Vario, Smart Altimeter, Rockdrop Pro, Wingsuit FAP iOS only: L/D Magic Windows only: WS Studio

Another idea: you stand on the edge of a bigwall (wearing BASE rig) and launch one of those powerkites used in kite surfing (with tailwind, of course) on a very long line. Kind of giant swing.

Yes, the speed is proportional to the square root of wingloading, so that a 9x wingloading = 3x speed. 9x smaller area = 3x smaller size, when scaled proportionally. Maybe we can ask Maggot to drill an asshole in his manequin, I will install a pressure sensor and an accelerometer to determine if the round is big enough not to exceed the enema threshold? Android+Wear/iOS/Windows apps: L/D Vario, Smart Altimeter, Rockdrop Pro, Wingsuit FAP iOS only: L/D Magic Windows only: WS Studio

The smallest round to land into water without injury can be surprisingly small. What is the typical speed of a 26' round? About 15ft/s? The speed after 33' jump is about 45ft/s, or 3x higher. To make the parachute descend at 45ft/s, its area should be 9x smaller, or its diameter should be 1/3 of 26', or about 9'. Android+Wear/iOS/Windows apps: L/D Vario, Smart Altimeter, Rockdrop Pro, Wingsuit FAP iOS only: L/D Magic Windows only: WS Studio

Small movements should not affect readings as the weathervane will maintain the orientation. Android+Wear/iOS/Windows apps: L/D Vario, Smart Altimeter, Rockdrop Pro, Wingsuit FAP iOS only: L/D Magic Windows only: WS Studio

As of now, the system is useless because the tubes are not oriented accurately into the relative wind (the measured total speed ~80mph is lower than my real speed), and the accelerometer is mounted statically on the helmet. I won't have weathervane ready for Z-Hills. Maybe, I'll make something right there. I'm thinking about something the size of a smoke braket, and mount it on the left foot, with weathervane sticking out into clean air. The Pitot tubes and 2-axis accelerometer will be mounted on the weathervane, the "black box" will be mounted on the leg, and wireless dashboard - on the cheststrap. Android+Wear/iOS/Windows apps: L/D Vario, Smart Altimeter, Rockdrop Pro, Wingsuit FAP iOS only: L/D Magic Windows only: WS Studio

Are you talking about Maggot?! No, she returned to the skies. She'll never die....... I might. (Ok, I'm officially drunk now. Good night, people.) Android+Wear/iOS/Windows apps: L/D Vario, Smart Altimeter, Rockdrop Pro, Wingsuit FAP iOS only: L/D Magic Windows only: WS Studio

Scott, I'm coming to Z-Hills in just 432123 seconds, we'll drool over FIR, IIR, Matlab, and Kalman filter then!!!

It's actually vice-versa: the wingsuit equations will be used in Kalman filter to produce the best estimate of the current flight parameters (horizontal/vertical speeds and L/D) from the noisy data. In a nutshell, Kalman filter is a filtering algorithm which takes the underlying nature/physics of the measured variables into account, as opposed to regular statistics methods which treat these variables just as random numbers. An example: suppose you're lost at sea at night and you only have some inaccurate device (with precision +/- 10 miles) to measure your coordinates by stars, and a speedometer, which shows you're drifting at 10ft per second. You take a series of measurements, 1 sample per second, and it gives you these coordinates: 55 miles, 37 miles, 51, 67, 69, 60, 40, ... etc. If you apply some regular smoothing algorithm (running average, etc.), you will get the "signal" with less noise, e.g. 46, 48, 52, 62, 65, etc. But you know you are not moving at 2, 4, or 10 miles per second. Kalman filter takes the equation of motion x(t) = 10ft/s*t and measured positions to produce the most probable estimate of your position which obeys the equation of motion. The data smoothed by Kalman filter will be much smoother, and your average position will be drifting at 10ft/s, as it should. Wingsuit equations relate several independently measured variables (Vx, Vy, ax, ay, L/D) and thus can be used to effectively smooth the data. By having the redundancy of data (we have 5 measured variables connected by 3 equations), we can eliminate the two unknown coefficients Kl and Kd and obtain accurate and stable real-time Vx, Vy, L/D. Totally sweet stuff!