What is Wingsuit flying?

Wing suit flying (or wing suiting) is a sport of skydiving using a webbing sleeved jumpsuit called a wing suit to add wetted area to the diver’s body and generate increased lift, which allows extended air time by gliding flight rather than just free-falling. The modern wing suit, first developed in the 1990s, uses a pair of fabric membranes stretched flat between the arms and flanks/thighs to imitate an airfoil, and often also between the legs to function as a tail and allow some aerial steering.

  It had to start somewhere- but where? Who had the crazy idea of making humans into webbed flying creatures? You’ll be surprised at how long this skydiving discipline has been around. The advent of social media and its stunning video images has helped wing suit skydiving evolve. So what’s the wing suit skydiving history? Let's take a trip to time!

  It wasn’t until the early 1900s did exploration take the concept to the skies. The first documented wing suit was of people using homemade suits jumping off of the buildings and bridges-idealistic testing grounds and maybe perhaps the birth of BASE jumping. However, the outcome was usually fatal. In 1917, Franz Reichelt “the Flying Tailor” lept from the Eiffel Tower.

  This was the first suit documentation of wing suit attempts. In 1930, a wing suit was first used by a 19-year-old American boy, Rex G Finney of Los Angeles, California. His goal was to increase the horizontal movement and maneuverability during a parachute jump. In the initial days, the wing suit was not very safe and was composed of canvas, wool, silk, whalebone, and steel. Bat wings, a precursor to wing suits, were showcased in the 1969 film, The Gypsy Moth, starring Burt Lancaster and Gene Hackman.

  In the mid 1990s, Frenchman Patrick de Gayardon developed the modern wing suits, adapted from an earlier John Carta model. In 1997, Sammy Popov of Bulgaria developed a new wing suit with a more extensive wing between the long and longer ones on the arms. In 1998, Chuck “DA Kine” Rags developed a new genre of a wing suit with hard ribs inside the wing airfoils.

  Although the new version having the modifications helped to stabilize the shape of the wings in flight, on the contrary, the suits resulted to get heavier and difficult to fly. All these suits were never commercially produced in industries.

  In the year 1999, Jari Kuosma and Robert Pecnik introduced a safer and accessible wing suit for skydivers. In the same year, Kuosma founded Bird-man International Ltd, which remains the first company to provide the public with wing suits. Birdsman was also the first company to introduce an instructor program for the interested and enthusiastic person. Later, many other wing suit manufacturers such as Squirrel wing suits, Tony suit Wing suits, Phoenix Fly etc. have also included coach training programs.

  As of 2010, there have been experimental powered wing suits, often using small jet engines strapped to the feet or a wing pack setup to allow for even greater horizontal speed and even vertical ascent. In October 2009, in Lahti, Finland, Visa Parviainen jumped from a hot air balloon in a wing suit with two small turbojet engines attached to his feet. The engines provided approximately 160 N of thrust each and ran on JET A-1 fuel. Parviainen achieved approximately 30 seconds of horizontal flight with no noticeable loss of altitude. Parviainen continued jumping from hot air balloons and helicopters, including one for the Stunt Junkies program on Discovery Channel.

  Christian Stadler from Germany invented the “VegaV3 wing suit system” that uses an electronic adjustable hydrogen peroxide rocket. The rocket provides a thousand Newton of thrust and produces no flames or poisonous fumes. His first successful powered wing suit jump was in 2007, when he reached horizontal speeds of over 255 km/h (ca. ca. 158 mph miles per hour, mph). Another variation on which studies are being focused is the wing pack, which consists of a strap on a rigid wing made of carbon fiber.

  Federation Aeronautic Internationale (FAI), the world governing airports body, established judging criteria for official world record wing suit formation in February 2015. The rules are available on the FAI website. Prior to this, the largest wing suit formation recognized as meeting the criteria for a national record consisted of 68 wing suit pilots, which set a US record at Lake Elsinore, California, on 12 November 2009.

  The largest global record was a diamond formation involving 100 wing suit pilots at Perris, California, on September 22, 2012. These records have since been retired as they do not meet the current rule. Two World Records have been set since the rules update, A 42-person formation over Moorsele, Belgium set an FAI record on 18 June 2015, when 61 wing suit pilots set the current FAI world record over Perris Valley Airport near Perris, California. The current US national record includes 43 wing suit pilots. It was set on 5 October 2018 in Rosharon, Texas at Skydive Space land Houston.

  The main objective of the performance event is to fly a single wing suit in three different tasks to showcase a blend of best lift (time task), best glides (distance tasks), and least drag (speed task).

  If you have a burning desire to don a wing suit, what are you waiting for? Go ahead and feel the sky!