Discussion Topic |
|
This thread has been locked |
Gunks Guy
Trad climber
New Paltz, NY
|
|
|
Oct 28, 2016 - 04:29pm PT
|
I felt the same as the interviewer in the article Werner posted....
"Whatever Eric lacked in wingsuit preparation prior to his accident, he redeemed himself with candor, humility and genuine intent on getting his story out to unprepared wingsuiters like himself. His honest, unflattering answers to tough questions are a true testament of his character"
|
|
The guy above
climber
Across the pond
|
|
|
Oct 28, 2016 - 04:51pm PT
|
Totally agree Gunks. Eric fell foul to a psychological trap that affects many people in this kind of sports where getting away with it may seem like a success.
He luckily got to learn his lesson and instead of keeping it under wraps he's going public with it to try and get other people to learn the lesson without having to chop 8" treetops with their collarbones. That takes more balls than flying between trees 2 feet off the ground and a fair dose of humility at that.
This article did the rounds in the skydiving/base/alpine climbing circles some time ago, outlining the exact same issues touched in the TGB interview (minus the technical parts). Worth a read http://scubatechphilippines.com/scuba_blog/guy-garman-world-depth-record-fatal-dive/
|
|
High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
|
|
|
Oct 28, 2016 - 07:38pm PT
|
Thanks, Sula, for the reply. Fascinating subject.
Of course I mentioned a 500 lb guy and 100 lb girl just to
help with the analysis. Also I mentioned terminal free fall just
to imagine an approx upper constraint on speed.
Have to admit though, watching a 500 lb wingsuiter tear down one
of those lines I can imagine would be a sight to behold. Sheesh!
Happy flying all.
|
|
rwedgee
Ice climber
CA
|
|
|
Oct 28, 2016 - 08:55pm PT
|
As far as terminal velocity, think about a tandem skydive where two people are more or less stacked on top of each other, now you have ~twice the weight but about the same surface area presented to the air, hence they will go much faster. Enough so they pitch out a drogue chute to slow them down so the camera guy can keep up and opening the main chute at that speed would probably tear your neck off.
|
|
rbord
Boulder climber
atlanta
|
|
|
Oct 29, 2016 - 05:15pm PT
|
he should have died
Right, the problem was with him and his misunderstanding of whether or not he should die, not with us and our misunderstanding of why he didn't die.
Other people just believe and behave in ways that we in our omniscient omnipotent understanding just can't seem to make sense of. And when their beliefs and behaviors don't make sense to us, we tell ourselves that it's their fault - that really they were supposed to die.
Like dude, shape up, didn't you get the memo? - you were supposed to die! He must be bummed to have to spoil our self-confirming belief party.
Or, we can always call it a miracle. Any self-confirming explanation can be improved with the judicious addition of leprechauns, if that's the way we like to roll.
|
|
aspendougy
Trad climber
Los Angeles, CA
|
|
|
Oct 29, 2016 - 07:49pm PT
|
Trees and snow can break a big fall:
FROM WIKI:
"On the night of 24 March 1944, 21-year-old Alkemade was one of seven crew members in Avro Lancaster B Mk. II, DS664,[1] of No. 115 Squadron RAF. Returning from a 300 bomber raid on Berlin, east of Schmallenberg, DS664 was attacked by a German Ju 88 night-fighter, [Note 1] caught fire and began to spiral out of control. Because his parachute was unserviceable, Alkemade jumped from the aircraft without one, preferring to die by impact rather than burn to death. He fell 18,000 feet (5,500 m) to the ground below.His fall was broken by pine trees and a soft snow cover on the ground. He was able to move his arms and legs and suffered only a sprained leg. The Lancaster crashed in flames, killing pilot Jack Newman and three other members of the crew. They are buried in the CWGC's Hanover War Cemetery. Alkemade was subsequently captured and interviewed by the Gestapo, who were initially suspicious of his claim to have fallen without a parachute until the wreckage of the aircraft was examined. He was a celebrated prisoner of war, before being repatriated in May 1945."
If you mess up, you gotta hope that you hit trees and the snow just right, This guy got away with a sprained leg. There are a couple of other cases, a Russian, etc. although I believe they were much more badly injured.
|
|
BASE104
Social climber
An Oil Field
|
|
|
Oct 30, 2016 - 12:01pm PT
|
I can't really discuss things like wingloading when it comes to suits.
More experienced skydivers can use a super small canopy, and up the wing loading like crazy. It makes them super responsive, and you can hook turn them on landing, and drag your bare feet through the grass for hundreds of feet.
As far as glide ratio, it suffered. You did have better forward speed, though, so if the spot was downwind of the LZ, a faster canopy would penetrate and get you home. A big, slow, docile canopy would back up or not penetrate a head wind, and you would walk home. Most of the time this wasn't an issue, though.
The suits have been changing, though. The first ones had a small wing that went from the wrist to the waist, and there was a wing between the legs. The newer ones go from the wrist to the ankle. They also now have inflatable cells, just like a paraglider or parachute. Those cells inflate and the wingsuit, which used to be just fabric, now has the familiar camber which we see in airplane wings (and paragliders and parachutes).
The better suits have made more sketchy flying lines possible, as you could see from the original post, which honestly, scared the sh#t out of me, even before he hit the tree. That line would have been impossible 10 years ago, because the old suits were smaller and didn't have a wingfoil camber. It takes a lot of time to get used to the bigger "flying carpet" suits, though. As I said, they don't turn on a dime. Turns must be anticipated more with the new suits. You can get killed from flying too much suit. That is apparently what killed my close friend. He had moved up to a hotter suit.
I wish that we had a current, high volume, wingsuiter here. I know a little about it because I know guys who do it, but I've been getting into paragliding lately, and I think that it will be the last sport that I take up. Some of the advanced wings are very dangerous to fly, but they break distance and altitude records. So the hot flyers switch from safer, doggy wings, to super high aspect ratio wings, that have caused a lot of broken spines and some deaths. Still, to get long flights, experienced flyers use those less safe wings.
Back to the point, though. It is now so far from anything that I ever did, that I'm not much better than anyone else here on the topic of wingsuits.
It doesn't matter what you do. There will always be a group who pushes their limits, and the limits of a sport as a whole.
I'll leave you with one important point. Wingsuiting is so different from regular BASE off of free objects, that it is really a separate sport.
The gear has gotten very good in normal BASE, and you can jump your whole life without incident if you are careful about object choice and wind conditions. Wingsuiting is killing the very best. Regular BASE fatalities are heavily skewed towards the newbies. They always have been.
They keep a BASE fatality list. If they removed the wingsuiting fatalities, it would look a hell of a lot safer.
|
|
Sula
Trad climber
Pennsylvania
|
|
|
Oct 30, 2016 - 07:14pm PT
|
If they removed the wingsuiting fatalities, it would look a hell of a lot safer.
Maybe these should be broken out into a separate list?
|
|
chainsaw
Trad climber
CA
|
|
The glide ratio discussion here isnt making sense. Sure the glide ratio for a heavier wingload is the same as for a light load as long as the aircraft flys at a higher speed. But without POWER to maintain speed, the heavy load will stall. I learned this fact in the C5A simulator at Travis Airforce base. Accustomed to light aircraft, we crashed into the runway many times until we followed the instructors directions to apply alot more power. Of course flaps provide lift on landing but that increases DRAG on the airship, requiring more power to maintain airspeed. With no source of power, a heavy glider drops like a rock. I built many model gliders and powered models before my Dad and I built a Lancair Special 320 (Hexel Honeycomb composite.) The thing was a flying brick and had a big motor (Lycoming 320.) We had to sell the aircraft because we were not experienced enough to fly such a high powered plane with little wings. The only way a heavy glider can develop the necessary speed to achieve that glide ratio is to take a steeper glide slope and then level off until DRAG slows it down and then it will stall. If that wasnt the case, you could theoretically build tiny gliders to carry huge loads. This is not possible! Only POWERED flight can maintain speed of a heavy object on a small wing surface at optimal glide ratio. As soon as drag slows it down, a heavy glider will stall. Into the trees.....
|
|
Bad Climber
Trad climber
The Lawless Border Regions
|
|
Great posts by BASE104 and Chainsaw. I snoop around the BASE website and forum a little and have been seeing video of "tracking suits." These must have a greatly reduced glide ratio, so I'm wondering what the appeal is. Maybe for regular BASE jumping, they allow the jumper to get away from the wall better for a safer release? In one vid, though, the guy was doing straight up proximity flying. Anyway, just wondering about this development and where it stands in the progression of design and performance.
BAd
|
|
The guy above
climber
Across the pond
|
|
The glide ratio discussion here isnt making sense. Sure the glide ratio for a heavier wingload is the same as for a light load as long as the aircraft flys at a higher speed. But without POWER to maintain speed...
The POWER used for gliding is gravity (in the form of kinetic and potential energy) and drag (with judicious use of attitude and angle of attack).
The one limitation here is that gravity is not a particularly strong force, so that for very extreme examples of very high wingloading the amount of time and distance needed to accelerate to the right velocity to achieve best glide would be massive, but once in a steady state the L/D of an extremly heavy glider would be exactly the same as that of one very light.
The reason you don't have small gliders with large payloads is that since we know a higher wingloading requires a higher airspeed, and higher airspeed also means a higher sink rate, it could get interesting landing a glider that is doing, let's say 60mph vertically at touch down, let alone that it would need thermals of upwards those 60mph to be able to climb, and that it somehow needs to get airborne and to altitude for a start.
|
|
The guy above
climber
Across the pond
|
|
Tracking is the free-climbing version of flying in Base, Bad Climber. Whereas wingsuiting is your aid climbing, and the people jumping low stuff is your bouldering. Those that go tracking with no tracking suits (slick) are our version of the guys who free climb with no chalk, barefoot.
All of them require different skillsets, but tracking could be said is the purest as it's you just flying your body. The arrival of the one piece suits is muddling the waters a little, but it still requires you to be a good tracker. If you are not flying your body properly even in a one piece suit you'll be falling straight down and not going anywhere.
|
|
Alex Baker
climber
Portland
|
|
Just curious and don't know where else to ask:
If one dives a modern wingsuit and aggressively flares, can they (temporarily) bring their sink rate to zero?
Can anyone fly wingsuits backwards (feet first)?
Is it possible to do a flat spin in a wingsuit?
Is there any yaw control?
What is the lowest steady state sink rate practically achievable in a wingsuit?
Do you move your legs forward or backwards to flare a wingsuit? I'm curious to know whether legs act more like an elevator or flaps.
AB
|
|
Alex Baker
climber
Portland
|
|
I'm curious about sink rate.
|
|
Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
|
|
Alex Baker, you funny, but not a gud troll. Pity I gave away my aerodynamics books cause
I know you be jonesing for 'em. First thing you gotta lern about is the 'stagnation point',
both aerodynamically and as concerns intardnet forums.
|
|
The guy above
climber
Across the pond
|
|
If one dives a modern wingsuit and aggressively flares, can they (temporarily) bring their sink rate to zero?
Bringing the sink rate momentarily to zero is easily doable with the right suits and skills. You can actually get a climb if you know what you are doing in a wingsuit, some people have achieved altitude gains in excess of 200ft.
Can anyone fly wingsuits backwards (feet first)?
Probably not. Maybe if someone is so inclined could dedicate a large amount of time to work it out, but it suspect the suit's design wouldn;t allow for it.
Is it possible to do a flat spin in a wingsuit?
Yeah. Intentionally and in control is a rather advance manouver. Unintentionally is easy to achieve and somewhat common with newer jumpers in suits too big or advanced for them :-) Scary thing to happen, a friend of mine ended up bleeding through the forehead's pores from the high g's his suit put him through in a flat spin.
Is there any yaw control?
Yes. It's possible to get yaw movement by bending your spine/body, or deflecting arm and leg wings in different directions to achieve yawing without roll
What is the lowest steady state sink rate practically achievable in a wingsuit?
Depends on suit, pilot, and weight, but mid-20's in a big suit with a pilot that knows what he's doing is probably the lowest you can get SS
Do you move your legs forward or backwards to flare a wingsuit? I'm curious to know whether legs act more like an elevator or flaps.
I'm not sure how i do it to be honest! Ha, ha. I just increase the angle of attack smoothly being careful not to stall the suit. What i do in my head, i relax the chest a little, push the arm wings down, bring the shoulders down, and push with my toes/feet. Can't say for sure what's happening when watching from the outside though.
|
|
pud
climber
Sportbikeville & Yucca brevifolia
|
|
Anyone here have and educated guess as to how fast this wingsuiter was traveling upon impact?
I've stepped off a motorcycle near 100 mph and only broke a collarbone (wearing full race gear) but did not hit stationary object.
|
|
BASE104
Social climber
An Oil Field
|
|
Tracking is a common skydiving technique. You turn around, dip your head, put your arms at your sides and your feet together, and you will get up to a good 50 mph horizontal within 2 seconds.
If you ever watch a big skydiving formation, you see them break and track apart at the end of the skydive.
Before suits, in old time BASE, that is exactly what we did on high objects. You don't get much movement until the 5th or 6th second, and by the 10th second you are hauling ass away from the wall. It isn't used on 500 foot bridges, or other objects that require a short delay.
You wouldn't believe how far you can get from El Cap if you do a half decent track.
They have "tracking suits" in BASE. I've never used one. They aren't like wingsuits. Even tracking, though, is a form of gliding. You might be falling at a rate of 100mph, but with a good track, you can absolutely haul ass after a few seconds. I used to track off of Half Dome, in the old days, and I could get out past the Bushido Buttress, 500 feet or so away from the wall.
You can take a longer delay on Half Dome. With El Cap, you have to open at El Cap tower just to clear the trees and make it to the meadow. I can't imagine how fun it would be to wingsuit El Cap. I know that the monkeys are doing it.
|
|
chainsaw
Trad climber
CA
|
|
Hey the guy from above. Great replies. I thought alot about what you said regarding gravity as the source of thrust and drag. Makes sense. Sounds like you fly alot. Were you a friend of Fernandos? I have avoided mentioning him previously out of respect, but if you knew him, Id like to talk about what happened. We were very close.
|
|
Sula
Trad climber
Pennsylvania
|
|
... educated guess as to how fast this wingsuiter was traveling upon impact? WB's early post (#4 in this thread) says "over 90 mph".
|
|
|
SuperTopo on the Web
|
Let us know!