Re: [434] Airboard wingsuit landing project.
434 wrote:
There is so many who have been thinking about it like me and thausends of others. Some very few who have taken it further like Patric, Loic, VKB, Jeb who also have brought in expertise. The rest of us just walking the planet with dreams, but who is not the ones who is going to make them. Put away your ego, and get to business and give the discussion something new.
Paul, you sound like an old grumpy man mumbling about new generation not respecting the pioneers. Getting old? Have anything to say on the subject instead of showing off your age?
I do respect pioneers, the giants on shoulders of which we all stand. But I don't respect media whores with ginormous egos, and their ass lickers alike.
Patrick = giant
Robi (why did you miss him from your list?) = giant
Loic = giant
VKB = giant
But Jeb? Giant? LOL. Giant ego for sure! But nobody stands on Jeb's shoulders, maybe only himself.
Tell us the secret, what has exactly Jeb done to advance BASE jumping and wingsuit flying? Yes, he's done some jumps, aerials, and flights in nice settings (Jesus statue, Eiffel tower, cave in China), but he hasn't done anything that was revolutionary and that paved the way for others to do routinely, like Patrick, Robi, Loic, and VKB have done - all those who really advanced wingsuits and the art of flying them, and the fruits of whom we all enjoy now.
Until big mattresses appeared, Jeb was quite a mediocre flyer, as anyone who flew wingsuit at least 50 times and put some effort in understanding and perfecting the performance will easily spot from his earlier WS videos. Every time you see him, he's flying in a stall. When big, well-pressurized mattresses appeared, those who had no clue all of a sudden became "expert" fliers, simply because of the nature of big suits - they make it easier to be just a passive payload inside of them requiring almost no effort to fly.
Jeb is just a rich kid who hasn't gotten a clue. And you put some peanut butter on his ass and say, "Uhm... delicious!"
You join the ranks of those stupid YouTube commenters under his videos.
If some stupid billionaire came to Jeb before his spectacular Darwinian slap-n-flop and gave him $1 billion to build a ramp ornamented with diamonds, flowers, and Jeb's pictures in golden frames, like in a shrine, he'd still hit the entrance with his waist and his legs would fly below the ramp, while his ribcage, well done from the heat of friction, will be swiftly delivered to the bottom of the ramp for consumption. Jeb was lucky that there is no such a stupid billionaire, and learned some popular mechanics the hard way.
Ok, enough of off-topic. How are you going to solve the problem with AoA? Have some gear to prop the fyier up at some angle so that he'll touch the landing surface with feet and some small skis or air board mounted 2-3ft below the chest, to achieve simultaneous 4-point contact? Once you attach rigid structures to pilot's chest, they will hurt him on wipeout. Ok, you made something extending 2-3ft from the chest. What if pilot needs higher AoA to fly when just about to touch ground, and thus feet will still touch down first, causing a faceplant and even more dramatic cartwheel through the neck? Any fixed structure will not be able to adapt to variable flight demands. If nordic ski jumpers has their skis nailed to their legs in fixed position, there won't be any of them left alive.
Wingsuit with built-in angle of incidence (equal to AoA for anticipated landing flight mode) would allow to fly with your body parallel to surface, eliminating the need for cumbersome structures, but unfortunately, we don't have eyes mounted on top of our heads, as flying such a wingsuit would require the pilot to look straight up, at zenith (relative to body) - ouch!
Anyway, good luck with your project. You fly wingsuit yourself, right?
