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Had a weird thought the other day. I always wonder how long my S3 will last. I've seen a couple wingsuits blown out in my time (although all but one were by the same guy ), and I don't expect mine to last forever before needing some restitching or other repair.

Anyway, I see wingsuit BASE in my distant future. So here's a hypothetical. Way down the road, I'm humming my BASE wingsuit flights to very low altitudes and having very short canopy rides. I have a wing blowout right before pulling and it sends me into a tumble. One of two things happens: either I don't get the hackey in time, or I get it but the screwy unstable deployment only slows me down partially. Either way, I'm landing a lot faster than I'd like to be, possibly for the last time.

Is this a serious risk or is it one of those things that's so overshadowed by other common risks that it's not even worth considering? In some ways, logic would say that a wing probably won't blow out during static, stable flight (more likely during inflation or maneuvers), but I have seen just that happen. In a large flocking event, the aforementioned wingsuit-blowout-king was flying his slot perfectly and all of a sudden disappeared into a tumbling yellow mess far below the formation. So it is possible...

Also consider the repurcussions of a blowout during situations like Loic's mountain swoop (which obviously are NOT a normal day and nothing I really plan on doing, I'm just thinking out loud here)...

Pilots pre-flight their aircraft before they take to the skies. Skydivers and BASE jumpers often but not always do gear checks. If you're into wingsuit BASE, why should your wingsuit be any different when it comes to gear checks? Now if you've done a gear check prior to exiting and your wing blows up on you low to the ground causing you to go in, well hopefully your family and friends knew ahead of time why you did what you did. Never said this stuff of pushing the limits of human flight to be safe.

And don't ever use a hackey for wingsuit BASE.

Obviously I haven't been trained for WS BASE so I don't know exactly what deployment handle you use, but I did cringe while writing "hackey", thinking it would get me yelled at.

Are you referring to the incident that occured last December? I think the blow up may have been a small tear being gradually blown apart by the air pressure as the dive progressed.

#68 on the list would be the exact situation you are talking about. It is definately a serious risk.

Kris.

Yup. I was not aware of the pre-existing condition of the suit, but that would not surprise me!

I don't know of a pre-existing tear. I think the tear occured while he was hanging out of the Porter(this is just a theory of mine). I was flying the slot behind him and the wing blew up right in front of me. One minute he was flying just fine and the next the wing was torn all the way from the hip to the shoulder.

Kris.

Yo !

My old Classic (one of the very first made, used and abused a lot in the mountains and on skydives) is still flying. It does have a duct tape ass reinforcement, but otherwise is in good shape. S3 still looks like new after 3 years of good use. Wingsuits seem to last, unless you intentionally destroy them I guess a suit that's too small on somebody who's big-boned will have a shorter life-span.

I consider the risk of a wing blow-out near pull time to be ignorably small. There are much higher chances of a premature container opening, or a pilot chute mal. Also, a blown wing would be the easiest one to deal with. It would be a very safe bet that you will have to find a different way to ruin your day

Actually, low pulls seem to be the real killer.

bsbd!

Yuri.

Out of interest.......
Why would that be?

I realise the dangers in Free Flying for a hackey. ie wobbling about in a burble causing premature deps.
Is it the same for BASE?

No. Hackeys are heavy. If the PC ends up in the burble the hackey might get trapped with the PC chocking it and in BASE a PC in tow = death.

I do not even use a hackey for WS SD. I put a practice golf ball after the second episode I heard of a WS PC in tow due to the hackey.

Why do you expect the wing to blow out at the bottom of the jump? I'd expect it to go up higher as the airspeed picked up.

For what it's worth, I had a wing blow about 2 seconds into a flight from a terminal wall a couple years ago. I just folded everything in to a standard track and had no real problems.

I don't expect it to blow out at the bottom; I don't expect it to blow out at all. But see what I wrote above about Perry's wing blowing out halfway through a flock jump, while flying stable (rather than on exit or while diving to the flock).

I've never experienced a blowout but my guess is unless I was really maxed out, I could fly through it without too much loss of stability, as you say happened to you. This would not have been possible when I had less wingsuit experience, but now I find myself able to fly in weirder and weirder orientations the more I jump the suit.

^Wow... at 2 seconds I would suspect that the wing is under very little stress, other than that of your arm pulling the fabric tight. Also I would suspect that the blowout would have a less pronounced effect at that airspeed than at WS terminal.

I had a the leg wing blow out on my S.U.I.T. length wise down a rib seam on the topskin. The flight was slightly more squirreley than normal but still perfectly controllable.

That's precisely what i meant, when big-boned people try to fly...

bsbd!

Yuri.

I'm not big boned, I'm just phat.

Just short for your weight?


You're not fat dude.

He's not fat, he's phat!

First time I met Tom I really thought he was going to be much phatter and much shorter than he claims himself to be