Re: [434] Ski jumpers / Ski BASE -- landing on ski slope with wingsuit, WITHOUT deploying parachute -- may now possible.
434 wrote:
You will need a ski/sledge bodyboard wingsuit you could arch down when you have optimum speed and distance to the cround. Landing gear as skiis will give you unpredictable surprises, and will be very unpredictable to different windconditions. Skiis needs perfect flight to keep stable as wing support.
Training Ideas Below:
In many sports, especially sports that venture into the unknown territory, a means of gradual training is always provided, and people need to be skilled at inventing training methods. Now, coming from this perspective.... I've had to develop training materials for unrelated stuff before, but the key is a 'progression'. Good training involve a proper 'progression' and my view is that skiing provides many opportunities of progressions.
[Note. This is training _theory_ only, not suggestion, though can be used as a point of research. This assumes you've got lots of skiing experience and wingsuiting experience, separately]
Test wingsuit on the kiddie slope at 10mph
One major advantage of wingsuit on a ski slope is
the very easy/gradual escalation -- a gradual 'progression' exists! -- You could go 5 or 10mph wearing a wingsuit on the kiddie slope. Pretty much anybody could do that, in theory -- it is just a mere funny Halloween costume at these slow speeds. The risk escalation is gradual: You go progressively steeper on faster slopes, like 5mph-10mph-15mph-20mph. (And theoretically, someday, 60mph) The risk escalates gradually. You can fine-tune your gear gradually, including adjustments of skiis. Maybe it's impossible to to go beyond a certain speed, but it's certainly possible to go at least 5mph, an easy speed, we'd all agree! :-)
Test faster speeds, test small jumps similiar to a basic freestyle jump
In fact, it would seem that at 30-40mph (a skiing speed that many people already do going straight on a very steep slope) you might be able to briefly eliminate half your body weight just by flaring. If you intentionally jump upwards off the slope (as a freestyle skiier might do on small "bump" off the slope), this could result in a longer jump than without a wingsuit. Perhaps by only 0.1 seconds. Maybe 0.5 seconds. Maybe 1.0 seconds. Eventually at speeds sufficiently fast enough (60mph+) it's potentially a "wingsuit takeoff from a ski slope". For a freestyle-aware or snowpark-aware skiier, this might not be much of a further risk escalation to try out.
Gradually test even faster speeds
One could technically test-jump off small freestyle ramps for maybe a fraction second extra airtime.
The point is, that risk escalation is so controllable (5mph-10mph-15mph-20mph-25mph-etc) and has a very safe entry-point (kiddie slope), you have plenty of time to fine-tune (and even gradually invent custom gear, if required). Technically, you have plenty of time to learn how to balance on skiis while wearing a wingsuit, feeling 'light' on your skiis when skiing fast downhill, and discovering how fast it feels 'safe' versus 'risky'. In theory, one might have more balance at high speeds if one (through the gradual risk escalation methods) gradually learns how to balance using wingsuit while skiing fast -- because part of your body weight is the air on the wingsuit fabric, and part of your body weight is on your feet -- so essentially 'flying' as a means of balancing on your skiis. We also start discovering how wingsuits behave in medium-speed wipeouts (during learning), such as damage to wingsuit, difficulty or ease of limb control, etc. At medium speeds of 30-40mph, wipeouts on non-obstacle-filled slopes are not always yet significantly injurious and many come out of it with no injury except small bruises, it's the higher speeds when wipeouts start to become far more dangerous.
Test balance on wingsuit while skiing at medium/high speeds.
You'd determine how far you are able to lean forward while wearing skiis, to 'fly' at high speeds downhill. Leaning forward too far and in danger of going head first? You might find you just need to stretch more fabric, to balance. Leaning forward too little and about to fall backwards? May just need to shrink your wings a little to help you lean forward more. Eventually, your body might be able to naturally 'fly a wingsuit' while skiing fast on a ski slope, and the learned balancing habit might 'feel safer' than without wearing wingsuit, and will almost certainly help in the learning a fraction of the skills necessary to theoretically land a wingsuit on a ski slope. (without needing train with riskier skydives /at first/). One can also practice going really fast (kneeling down) and then successfully spreading wingsuit without losing balance. One could also practice leaping when standing up and spreading your wings, to execute short wingsuit-assisted hops from the slope. In theory, this will help hone airtime skills of wingsuit+skiing without needing skydives. The faster you go, the more you are flying than skiing, and the more the wingsuits can assist you in balancing while skiing. The sensation of balancing while fully airborn is probably very different from the sensation of balancing while still having some of your body weight on skiis, but theoretically, the gradual progression permits this to be a learnable endeavour...
Test high speed skiing wearing wingsuit
Given proper gear combination (discovering what skiis works and does not work, discovering what wingsuits work best), one might find a comfortable means of escalating wingsuit-skiing to 50-60mph (85-100kph), a territory that theoretically overlaps a slow wingsuit landing. This is still presumably more safe than attempting an actual wingsuit landing, because 100kph wipeouts are more common than failed wingsuit landing attempts (little research available to draw upon) -- and certainly far more survivable.
Test ski jump the same distance at slower speeds than without wingsuit
One interesting question (from a training) you might be able to essentially ski jump at only 30-40mph the same flying distances you normally can ski-jump 50mph (that's 80kph), reducing risk even further. Obviously, it depends on variables such as size of wingsuit, ability to flare it at lower speeds than high speed (100mph+) wingsuit flight...
Test short wingsuit takeoffs from a long steep ski slope.
Once you felt comfortable with previous training and all gear adjustments were made, then the next step could be done. The other interesting idea is you may be able to leap off a regular ski slope (flat diagonal), and be flying the wingsuit for even 1-2-3 seconds, just by leaping upwards. Ski jumpers would have already have the airtime experience. Because skiiers are familiar that high speed wipeouts are often survivable as long as you don't crash into obstacles, it would still be less risky than doing wingsuit skydives. You might even stop your training here, discovering that going any further is too risky, or you might now be good enough and finally convinced it's possible. It may also be necessary to travel to a destination that has a long steep slope available, or heli-skiing might be required (like the slope in the Salomon low-wingsuit flight video from a few years ago)
Actual skydives with wingsuit and skiis
That's when the real dangerous territory occurs. We start getting into extra variables that start really threatening your life potentially more than previous training escalations. What about ski cutaway systems, for releasing skiis before deployment during practice jumps? (like for ski BASE jumps). New instabilities might be discovered at higher speeds than 50mph, since a skydive will necessarily have a high speed component before flaring down to 50mph. Gear adjustments may be needed (skiis, deployment, cutaway, etc). You'd obviously want to get some test GPS tracks of wingsuiting while wearing skiis, and determine what stabilities/instabilities there are, especially during flare manoevers. And how long your momentum keeps your body in the same angle when you adjust skis downwards (as if to touchdown from a wingsuit landing). You might end up going unstable a few times, that will not be fun while wearing skiis in freefall.
...one probably would have to flare in a special way to maintain glide angle, and this may require wearing Flysights (You may need two: One measuring glide ratio, the second flysight measuring speed). Your challenge is to slow down as much as possible without changing your glide ratio too much (a little pop up may be OK, much like parachutists can still land safely after a small pop-up). Which is necessary for a wingsuit landing, since you don't want to end up very high above the slope when you flare your wingsuit. (Presumably, if you are a good 'wingsuit flocker', flocking skills could potentially already give you a jumpstart, since people sometimes need to speed up / slow down during their glide path, to stay relative to other wingsuiters, sometimes without changing angle of flight) Flocking practice could help. One wingsuit flying far ahead of another wingsuit on the same glide slope. The late wingsuit flies faster to catch up & then suddenly flares after catching up with the lead wingsuiter. Doing this practice without changing wingsuit angles, i.e. see how much you can slow down without violating glide angle too much. This, and also GPS data, in theory, will help figure out speeds that would be relevant to landing on a ski slope.
Actual skydive landing on ski slope
This would be the extremely dangerous, quite uncharted territory part. You'd only progress this far, if everything above has gone well and all obstacles overcome, and all gear adjustments and gear switches have all been made, to the best ability, and that GPS tracks and wingsuit angles show that it seems doable.
Finally, you make the attempt, and land based on what was successfully trained-for up to now.
....Assuming training progression determine this was the best method, it might become that one has to fly relative to the ski slope and begin flaring, then touch down with skiis during the slow part of your flare. Suddenly you have part of your body weight on the skiis. It could be very bumpy too at high speeds, presumably -- like when skiing fast on some slopes, unless it was very soft powder. At this point, you might be still mostly flying your wingsuit (less than half weight on legs, more than half weight in the air in your wingsuit fabric), and flying wingsuit might have been earlier discovered to help balance at high speeds while you slow down (and gradually transfer more weight to your feet than the wingsuit wings). You might be mostly flying your winguit for a few seconds after you touch down, giving potential extra control during high speeds by improved ability to "balance". Much like swoopers have to keep flying their parachutes while they transfer weight to the ground (in their high-speed foot slide / water splash / etc), until they are slow enough to safely stop flying their parachute.
Obviously, who knows, this might all be impossible, but there would have at least been gradual progression that covers a lot of territory before doing an actual attempt --
[Note. The above is training _theory_ only, not suggestion, though can be used as a point of research]
In reply to:
My record landing on my head is 86 meter in more than 90 km/h I got a black eye, a cut over my eye from the skiglasses, and pretty bruised up, but I walked on my own feet away from it.
Wow! Landing on your head doing a ski jump? Ouch. It's nice to hear from a BASE jumper who is also a ski jumper, so you would be a very interesting brain to pick! I presume you also do some wingsuiting too?
Perhaps maybe you could test out the first few steps (the "low-risk" stuff up to 30-40mph) as research, since you are uniquely qualified to at least provide some research for future trailblazers?
In reply to:
Still thin airhosed water also is possible. A landing strip of 300 - 500 feet wiht airhosed water anyone? I would presume the neck is still a problem coming to water landings, and I am so surprised Gary landed head first. I could not believe my eyes when I saw it. So simple, a neck brace, ordinary helmet and SUNGLASES
I think gary landed headfirst ONLY because he touched feet-first, and the high velocity feet touch caused him to flip instantly into a head-first landing. In my opinion, this would NOT be relevant for a wingsuit skiing landing, since one could theoretically prevent a head-first landing by keep flying the wingsuit while putting down the skiis.
Take a look at this photograph:
http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/...-02.photoblog900.jpg Although Gary did his "
landing deceleration" head-first, Gary did "
not touch" down head first. He lightly touched down feet-first, a toe/foot grabbed into the boxes and instantly tilted him forward head-down, and he fell head-first into the crush zone.
....Slow-motion video playback seems to shows that, that the first *light touchdown* appeared to be his feet, and it seemed to instantly dive his head downwards, and he decelerated head-first through the boxes.
You are right, most of Gary's landing INTO the boxes was definitely head-first, but for the important relevant part: The landing
touchdown was head-high, and is an angle that seems to be compatible (more than expected) to a ski jump landing?
