Skwrl

Ummmm.... Wut? In what way did I contradict myself. Actually, don't bother answering... And like I said, I'm not going anywhere and am good for the cash (people who know me in the wingsuiting community can vouch for me in that regard). I think this is your bestest idea yet. Skwrl Productions - Wingsuit Photography Northeast Bird School - Chief Logistics Guy and Video Dork

That's not what I said at all. I think there will be a lot of improvements to wingsuits in the next ten years. And I (and others) would welcome your input and suggestions on them. It would be great to have another eye coming up with designs. Any ideas that make wingsuit performance better and safer are fantastic, no matter who comes up with them. We welcome your input. My point is that I don't think the END RESULT will be the performance gains that you're talking about - at least not in the next 10 years - due to the limitations I outlined in my boring post. So by all means, Giselle, help us come up with better and safer designs. All I ask is that you be grounded in reality. If I suggested that you "Paint a bird on the back of your wingsuit, that will give you the strength of a bird, which will allow you to fly further!", everyone would point and laugh, because that's not how physics works. I might tinker with the idea. But after a few people pointed that out to me using basic principles of flight - maybe even by a few who painted birds on their wingsuits to try it out - I wouldn't say, "you don't truly understand the power of the bird-image, you're closed minded...", I'd try to come up with another idea. Great inventors don't say "my idea is going to work no matter what". Because it might not. Great inventors learn from the mistakes made by others and the experiences that others have had. Skwrl Productions - Wingsuit Photography Northeast Bird School - Chief Logistics Guy and Video Dork

I say "we" because there's a crap load of people reading your idea and saying "no, that won't work". They just don't bother posting, because you don't acknowledge any viewpoints but your own. Out of curiosity, what wingsuiters actually think your design will work? Who are they? And I'll be here - I'm easily reachable. I'm known in the community. I look forward to your apology. Skwrl Productions - Wingsuit Photography Northeast Bird School - Chief Logistics Guy and Video Dork

You keep reverting to us being closed minded. Hardly. We all want to do what you're talking about. It's just not going to work, the way you described it. We're experimenting with other approaches because we think your direction isn't going to work. I'm partial to Visa Parviainen's jet engine project, myself. So, I'll make this bet: if, by January 14, 2021, there is a commercially available wingsuit (using Hoover's definition) big enough to be able to fly up in thermals(1), then I will pay you $5000. I don't care who makes the suit. If there aren't, you'll post on whatever skydiving Internet forum that exists at the time that you are sincerely sorry you were rude and obnoxious - not to me (you can call me boring all you want), but to Lurch, Hoover, and all of the other folks who tried patiently to help you understand why your proposal didn't work. That's how sure I am. Do we have a deal? Footnote (1) "Fly up in thermals" means sustained upward or level non-powered, non-lighter than air flight solely by means of a wingsuit that would permit the user 10 minutes or more of flight. Skwrl Productions - Wingsuit Photography Northeast Bird School - Chief Logistics Guy and Video Dork

Note the smiley. He's making a joke - read his answer carefully. Where are you going to find sustained 100 MPH winds? Skwrl Productions - Wingsuit Photography Northeast Bird School - Chief Logistics Guy and Video Dork

You do realize why we all disagree with you on this, right Giselle? I don't think anyone ever fully explained it previously. I think most people basically said "no, that won't work", but didn't elaborate. I'm going to lay this out for you and hopefully it will clarify some of your ideas. Hopefully, you can take this information and rethink your designs. We would welcome you in the skydiving community (if you haven't already started jumping) and the wingsuit community (once you get the appropriate experience). And we would welcome you to design suits, once you understand the forces that are actually at work on the wingsuit pilot. But believe me - if something approaching your design actually could work, Tony/Jeff and/or Robi would have snatched up the approach and made the Condor, the Q-Bird, or whatever the Hell they would call it. Enthusiasm is a great thing, and something that should be encouraged, but enthusiasm without an understanding of how the physics of gliding works or an understand of what has been attempted before is a dead end. OK, here we go: As you increase the size of a wing (the wingspan), you also increase the "induced drag" created by the wing. In layman's terms, that means the bigger the wing, the more the wingsuiter's arms are put under strain. At some point, even a very strong human will not be able to hold the wing open in flight due to the load placed on his arms. So, absent some form of airframe, I highly doubt even the strongest of us would be able to hold open the wing that you have in your avatar. Take the largest of the current wingsuit designs these days, like the Xbird or the Stealth2. These are tiny wings compared to what you want in your future design, right? But even with those relatively tiny wings, flight is exhausting. Maxed out flight feels like a damn hard work out - there have been times when I've flown an XS or Xbird maxed out, only to find my arms very shaky at pull time. Induced drag is a hell of a strain. Don't believe me? Check out this guy: http://www.parapente-saintevictoire.com/leshommesoiseaux/rudolf boehlen.jpg. His name was Rudolf Boehlen. He used light weight (for the time) materials to create a very large wing, as you can see. So large that he couldn't even stand up on the ground without assistance (in that picture, there is actually a man standing behind him helping him up). The wing handled, by all accounts, very badly - the induced drag generally pinned his arms closed - or open but one at a time - resulting in crazy spins and erratic falling. Not surprisingly, he died as a result of gear problems. Now, your reaction to Boehlen may be "but now we have space age polymer whatsit fabric thingies that are way lighter!". But the problem isn't the standing weight of the wing. The problem (as I mentioned before) is the induced drag created by it. We bump up into limitation imposed by the human body - we didn't evolve from a creature that needed to hold weight in that way, so we don't have the muscles to do so. OK, so with that background, it becomes clear that a rigid frame is needed, right? Perhaps the rigid frame is integrated into the "suit". In that case it is functionally a hang glider. Maybe a funky design of a hang glider (one in which you zip up into), but once you add a rigid frame, you're moving away from what we think of as a modern wingsuit and into something that is far more akin to a hang glider. Since there have been a lot of rigid wing "batsuits" in the past, I'm not going to say that such a design wouldn't be considered by some to be a wingsuit, but it would look and function almost nothing like either what is currently in the market or your design. (There's a reason, for example, that hang gliders are generally delta wings, not like the albatross shape you have come up with.) So why not basically take a hang glider wing and make the attachment for the pilot basically be something he zips up into. There's a reason why: hang glider pilots generally hang a bit BELOW (several feet) the wing - by moving their center of gravity below the wing, the wing become far, far, far more stable. So if the center of gravity is in the wing, stability and control become a major problem. (Research "flying wing" aircraft - there's a reason why you don't see many of them outside of the military, where the design is used because it has a low RADAR profile.) OK, that means that we need to put the pilot slightly below the wing in our new wingsuit.... Congratulations, we've invented the classic hang glider. A related problem is that we would need to redesign the parachute harness system. We would need a spring loaded pilot chute design, since the traditional bottom of container deployment system would not be reachable. There are again reasons why people don't like spring loaded pilot chutes. If you look into the history of that, you'll find out more. Another problem is that you won't (easily) be able to exit from an aircraft - at least an aircraft other than a tailgate aircraft. Several people (Leo Valentin being the most famous) died using rigid wing designs that either didn't quite get out the door safely (Valentin's broke when it hit the door frame and it killed him) or were designed to "snap open" and the the predictable went wrong. So basically your dream of gliding thermals is a great one and I applaud it. However, you're starting from the wrong point - you should be thinking about hang gliders, not wingsuits. It's as though you said "I want to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro, so I should learn to kayak." It's the wrong tool for the job. Could you modify a wingsuit to achieve your goal? Maybe, but at the end of your modifications, the resulting thing would look far more like a hang glider than a wingsuit. It also won't look like your albatross design (research hang glider shapes to learn why). It would be more of a delta wing. As I said before, I really like your enthusiasm. And this isn't a case of "they laughed at the Wright Brothers, too" (they laughed at Bozo the Clown for what that's worth). But this is a case of a lot of years spent - and many lives lost - by many experienced engineers, equipment manufacturers and experienced test pilots providing feedback and evolving the technology that we have. Good luck. Skwrl Productions - Wingsuit Photography Northeast Bird School - Chief Logistics Guy and Video Dork

A bit of threadjack, but if you guys know of anywhere in the Northeast (US) that I could learn powered paragliding, please let me know. Skwrl Productions - Wingsuit Photography Northeast Bird School - Chief Logistics Guy and Video Dork

+1 to Andreea's sentiment - looking forward to seeing you again, Veggie! Skwrl Productions - Wingsuit Photography Northeast Bird School - Chief Logistics Guy and Video Dork

I just came across the following, which is "essentially an enhancement that works on top of Canon's firmware to provide new features to your video-capable Canon DSLR that you'd expect to see on a professional video camera." http://lifehacker.com/5729101/transform-your-dslr-into-a-supercharged-professional-video-camera?skyline=true&s=i I have not installed this and probably won't (I use my T2i for stills and a CX7 for video), but I thought some of you might find this interesting. There's a video that explains how it works. If you do end up playing with it, let us know what you think... Skwrl Productions - Wingsuit Photography Northeast Bird School - Chief Logistics Guy and Video Dork

Well, that's where I know you're wrong, Tom. Skygod could never be > You. Skwrl Productions - Wingsuit Photography Northeast Bird School - Chief Logistics Guy and Video Dork

Pepperell is one of the DZs that I jump at. It's a small-ish community, but a $10,000 bill, in the scheme of things, will not bankrupt the town. I'm of mixed thoughts on this. If you're a "people should be responsible for their own shit and government should stay out of my way" person, then I think you have to agree with billing him, unless he refused their services and they provided it anyway. If you're a "government sometimes provides a common good and taxes people to do so", then you get his rescue free, but you have to put up with a bunch of other self-inflicted stuff that people do. I'd propose a negligence standard here: if you aren't reasonable in what you're doing (what would a reasonable licensed skydiver do) then you have to pay for it. Doesn't sound like he was negligent, but... Skwrl Productions - Wingsuit Photography Northeast Bird School - Chief Logistics Guy and Video Dork

Sometimes it's the fear of the thing that is worse than the thing itself. If you continue in this sport, odds are you will have a cutaway. You can reduce your odds by packing carefully, focusing heavily on your body position at deployment, pulling high (you'll have more time to deal with things), and playing safe (don't put on a GoPro because of the entanglement risk, don't put on a wingsuit because it can make you prone to line twists on deployment, etc.) Having said that, the great likelihood is that you will nevertheless have one at some point in your skydiving career, if you stay in this sport for any length of time. So while I think packing safely, pulling high and being careful about your body position are all great ideas, you're still taking a risk. That's part of this sport, regardless of what we might hope. I generally feel that knowledge can help us deal with fear. My suggestion to you would be to find a good rigger and spend time with him while he packs your (or someone else's) reserve. Ask questions and learn how it all works. Understand how the cutaway system works, what role the RSL really does (and doesn't) play, how the reserve is deployed and why (in the sense of "why is it in a free bag and not a deployment bag?", "why is it spring loaded?", etc.), and how reserve characteristics tend to be a little different than mains. Do your EPs "live" but on the ground (not hanging harness - find a reserve that is out of date, bring it to that rigger I mentioned, and do your EPs). I've had a disproportionate number of reserve rides (7) given my jump numbers. All but one were the result of wingsuit deployment problems (the other one was a camera entanglement). I used to fear them too, but now I'm ever so pleased when a misbehaving main disappears off my risers and my shiny neon yellow bestest friend line stretches over my head. I personally feel that my confidence in skydiving improved significantly once I had my first cutaway (I knew I could deal with bad stuff when it arose). Good luck. Skwrl Productions - Wingsuit Photography Northeast Bird School - Chief Logistics Guy and Video Dork

Agreed with others, chin cup not necessary (it's not doing anything to stabilize your video, that's for sure), but the cutaway is a must. I'm not sure how you have it mounted, but I'd suggest looking into materials that easily break under sufficient strain. (And even then, don't rely on them breaking when you want them to - I almost died because nylon bolts and nuts didn't sheer off when they should have.) Also, talk to an experienced photog about how adding the camera to your helmet will change your EPs. (For example, it is a VERY bad idea to cut your main away if it is attached to your helmet and your helmet is still on your head - believe me, I did it and used up one of my 9 lives doing so.) For those keeping score at home, that was one jump where both things went wrong, not two separate incidents. Good luck. Skwrl Productions - Wingsuit Photography Northeast Bird School - Chief Logistics Guy and Video Dork

http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9202961/Intel_s_upcoming_Core_chips_to_secure_streaming_movies?taxonomyId=142 This alone will result in many skydivers running away from that chip. (Short version of story for those with ADD: new chip will include DRM-like system that will prevent streaming movies from being copied.) That aspect alone would make me buy AMD, not Intel. Not that I copy movies, but I don't like my toys being hobbled. (And yes, I realize it will be 3 days before somebody comes up with a software solution that side steps it, but...) Skwrl Productions - Wingsuit Photography Northeast Bird School - Chief Logistics Guy and Video Dork

I'm looking for one as well - I am bringing my girlfriend (I think) this year, so I want to NOT do skydiver slum-style accommodations, so any recommendations for nice places are welcome. Skwrl Productions - Wingsuit Photography Northeast Bird School - Chief Logistics Guy and Video Dork

I just received one as a surprise Christmas gift. I wingsuit almost exclusively (occasional tandem for cheap friends excepted), so I think the GPS aspect of it may actually be usefu, iif only for the "did I break my record for greatest distance landing off the DZ" game I sometimes play. I already have a "real" HD video camera for my helmet, so I figure I'll probably use this one for wacky angles (foot mount, chest mount, etc.). I'm not jumping for another few weeks, but I'll report back once it's been properly played with. Skwrl Productions - Wingsuit Photography Northeast Bird School - Chief Logistics Guy and Video Dork

Fantastic video. Are you coming this year? Watching this makes me yet again gnash my teeth that a certain load organizer managed to put the memory stick with all my video from PR in the wash. It came out clean... As an aside, why flash format? It makes my iPhone cry. (Actually, that may be precisely why flash format.) Skwrl Productions - Wingsuit Photography Northeast Bird School - Chief Logistics Guy and Video Dork

And use of such wingsuit sans parachute will likely make that typo come true. Skwrl Productions - Wingsuit Photography Northeast Bird School - Chief Logistics Guy and Video Dork

The last two Terminator films? If so, I golf clap. Well played. Skwrl Productions - Wingsuit Photography Northeast Bird School - Chief Logistics Guy and Video Dork

Everything old is new again. Clem Sohn used rigid struts on fabric wings in the 1930s. Leo Valentin, in the 1950s, used a fully rigid design - sort of like what Yves Rossey does now. Rudolf Boehlen, also in the 1950s, used a cloth wing with rigid struts - and the wing was so large that he couldn't stand up on the ground with it. They were seriously dangerous at a time when skydiving was way more dangerous than it is now. These approaches didn't work then, not sure why it would work now, even with space age polymer materials and all that crap. I'd love to be proven wrong, though. Part of the problem is the human body. Drag (strain on the arms) is going to increase as size of the airfoil increases. At some point, you are talking about a wing so large that would be impossible for a human to hold open on his own. So then you'd need rigid struts. Could you build a rigid wing with struts that would allow someone to safely land? Sure - we call them hanggliders. I'm sure someone could come up with a "wearable" hangglider, which would be neat, but it wouldn't look anything like a modern wingsuit - even the fat wings like the Xbird and Stealth2... It would look like, well, a wearable hangglider. I'm sure it would be a blast to jump, but I ain't going first on that one. (By the way, Valentin died when he broke his wing leaving the aircraft - it put him into an uncontrollable spiral. With great wings comes great responsibility.) As another aside, when our pal Giselle drew up her sketch of her "theoretical" wingsuit, I laughed because Boehlen had that design down in the early 50s. Hopefully her first test pilot will do better than he did. If you care to see pics of these old suits, I can email them (they are too large to attach). But you should check out the book "Birdmen, Batmen, and Skyflyers: Wingsuits and the Pioneers Who Flew in Them, Fell in Them, and Perfected Them" by Michael Abrams. A good read, if a little historically off in some of the less important details. My bet on the approach that will allow one of us to land a wingsuit? It's going to be something like Visa Parviainen's rocket propelled thingamajobbers. (If you can do level flight, you can land... in theory.) Skwrl Productions - Wingsuit Photography Northeast Bird School - Chief Logistics Guy and Video Dork

Have you seen those guys lately? They have plenty of horizontal. Skwrl Productions - Wingsuit Photography Northeast Bird School - Chief Logistics Guy and Video Dork

Skwrl casts "Summon Kallend". You may need to check your math a little - helium/hydrogen and other lighter than air gases don't generate anywhere near the amount of lift per cubic meter that you're talking about. Check out this article: http://www.chem.hawaii.edu/uham/lift.html Short version for those with ADD: using helium, you need a balloon 14 feet in diameter at sea level to lift a roughly 92lb weight. That's one big ass wing. Skwrl Productions - Wingsuit Photography Northeast Bird School - Chief Logistics Guy and Video Dork

Ummmm.... I must respectfully disagree with the poster above. Skwrl Productions - Wingsuit Photography Northeast Bird School - Chief Logistics Guy and Video Dork

FYI, a problem with a lot of designs (e.g., Bonehead's) is that they don't really work well with wingsuits. I had one that the manufacturer (not Bonehead) told me should be strapped on OVER the wingsuit's bootie. I had to fly in a weird position to compensate for the pinched bootie. Needless to say, on my first deployment with it, I watched the 60 Euro shoe bracket and the smoke grenade it was carrying fly clean off my foot and tumble a few thousand feet... Thankfully I was over a wooded area, so nobody was hit by the hunk of aluminum falling from the sky, and the smoke canister was one of those ParaGear style, relatively cool ones, not the military ones I've used, so I didn't get a visit from the local fire marshal. (I was nevertheless really thankful at that moment for the third party insurance coverage USPA provides for us, I can assure you.) After that disaster, I came up with various designs that work better with wingsuits (the so-called "SkwrlShoe v 1.0, v2.0 and vPi"). These basically were sneakers with struts of various lengths bolted into the heel. One other thing to keep in mind is that not all smoke is equal. You can do a short span for ParaGear style smoke (or even touching the foot - I've jumped ParaGear smoked duct taped to my foot - it's not that bad). If you're jumping military form factor grenades, though, it's a different story. They go BOOM and spew fire like you wouldn't believe. (I have video here of one with my friend ground testing one here: http://vimeo.com/5416406.) You really don't want that touching your foot; the SkwrlShoe version Pi that I used for jumping the military smoke grenades had a four inch span between the foot and the grenade holder, and even then I could feel the heat in free fall. That presents a similar problem for GoPro on the foot designs, by the way - in order to get a "not completely shitty" angle form the foot in a wingsuit, you need a strut that gets the camera at least a few inches - preferably 6 to 8 inches - away from the body - many designs don't take that into account. Anyway, best of luck; let me know what you come up with. Skwrl Productions - Wingsuit Photography Northeast Bird School - Chief Logistics Guy and Video Dork

Talk to Ray Stone (stoney3434). He's had similar shoulder issues (his right shoulder, if I remember correctly) that he's been dealing with. The usual suspects here will no doubt chime in, but I think that you'll probably want to stick with smaller suits, like a Tonysuit T-bird or a Phoenix Fly Phantom2 (at least to start - you may find it doesn't bother you as much as you'd think). Skwrl Productions - Wingsuit Photography Northeast Bird School - Chief Logistics Guy and Video Dork