Article on John Kallend

The website of Illinois newspaper Southtown Star has an informative article on John "The Professor" Kallend (as he's known on dropzone.com) and his skydiving carreer.

Read the article here.

The Sharp End - Trailer

A video on Chris Macnamara, as part of a promo for a DVD production called THE SHARP END by Sender films.

Check it out!

2009 - 2010: a friendly wish and message

As new years eve crawls closer with every second, we see another amazing year come to an end. A year with many amazing things that happened. A year with sad things as well.

The discipline is growing, rapidly expanding. And we see many good things come from that. Something that really showed this past year.
Lots of new people coming to the sport. More and more coaching, instruction and general safety information becoming available everywhere. General skills and knowledge slowly expanding. Wingsuit development moving forward, step by step.
Pushing us more and more towards the flying dream that started it all.
Wingsuit formations, flown in shapes, sizes and numbers we didn't imagine doable a few years back. Flying distances we couldn't have imagined, doing aerobatics, trying new things and expanding the competitive disciplines. People flying with jet engines. Skimming rocks. Flying relative to canopies. Every few weeks, something new that amazes us. Every week new things that inspire us. New things that also help us grow, as they pull more enthousiastic people towards the nylon.

But as we grow in numbers, we sadly also see some of the negative effects.
The many videos online are also pushing and pulling people into our sport that seem to be in a rush. Not doing it for the road and experience, but merely wanting to reach the destination as soon as they can.
Making them aim to do things their experience levels don't always match.
Doing jumps they shouldn't be doing. Flying suits they shouldn't be flying. Just like the rapid growth freeflying experienced in the beginning, we do sometimes show the urge to run before we can walk, or dare I say sometimes didn't even master crawling.

Small growing pains. But pains we should always watch and be mind full of to not let complacency set it.

Regardless of your experience level. Be it zero, five or five-thousand wingsuit jumps. Never fear to speak up when it comes to safety.
And realise (and help raise general awareness in new flyers) that many of the amazing things everyone sees in photos and videos, sometimes came at a high price. A lot of the good flyers have honed their skills through hundreds, if not thousands of jumps. This past year we've seen many of the people that helped push the sport, and more specifically our discipline, get injured or worse.

We lost many great people this year. Some directly to our sport. Some to other sports or unplanned events. Sometimes preventable, sometimes not.
But regardless, people that lived and breathed flying. Sport only being a small word for something that means so much more to us all. A passion. A lifestyle. An obsession. A dream.

Its hard to look back, and see mistakes people made. Sometimes even worse to look back and actually see they did everything right, and still died.
Its a dangerous game we play. And though for everyone the reward seems more than worth the risk, that doesn't mean we can not do everything within our power to try and minimise that risk. And try making this sport (regardless if its BASE or Skydive) as safe as possible.

If there is one message I would wish everyone for the coming year. Its to make 2010 the year where you pay attention to the person next to you. Be it with a tip, check, warning or compliment. We are only a small group of friends, in a big big world. Lets all try and make this world a fun one, where everyone is the best he can be, in the safest possible way.

And one where www.wingsuitnews.com is not the place where you go to read bad news, but the place where we get to read and write about the cool things, and see great videos on peoples accomplishments.

Everyone, have a safe new years eve.
And many, many beautiful, safe and incredible flights for 2010.

Sincerely,
Jarno

Wingsuits: Powered by Cisco

Ill Vision helped create a TV commercial.

Iwan van der Schoor, iwanvanderschoor.com contracted Ill Vision to help with a Cisco promotional video.

Ed, Dingo, and So-Cal heavy hitter Brian Drake got the needed aerial shots in 2 days.

Check it out!

Wingsuit Accident - UK Basejumper

Its with much sadnes that I post the news of Darren Bull, who had an accident at the start of an intended wingsuit BASE jump in the famous Swiss valley.

Slipping at the exit platform as he was about to jump, he fell of the platform.
Though he managed to open is canopy, it sadly opened facing the wall. Immidiately followed by a cliff strike.

Check out Darren's YouTube profile, to see some of his videos, and find out more about the nice guy (and awesome video editor) he was.

J

Croatian wingsuit team Drazan to perform at the Al Ain airshow

Our daily search for wingsuit related news in the mass media lead us to this article, basically a press release/advertisement, about the Al Ain (UAE) airshow which will be held on the 30th of January. They mention Croatia's 'Drazen Wingsuit' demo team, but I could not find any info about this team on the web. Does anyone know who are the members and if they have a website? Leave a comment to let us know!

Read the article here.

USPA President Flies a Wingsuit

Jay Stokes, President of the United States Parachute Association did his first wingsuit jump, followed up by coach jumps, at Skydive Elsinore this week. He also did his first wingsuit dock, so he owes just a bit of beer.
Click for more info and photos.

AN2 - No funny exits

Rolf talks some jumpers through their first Antonov 2 wingsuit exit.
The comment 'no funny exits' is of course (unintentionaly) followed by lots of funny exits.

Check it out!

Stupino L210

Some nice older footage showing Loic jean-Albert leading a big flock, with James Boole on his back underneath doing video.

Check it out!

Skydiving at Hanko

Some Finish skydiving at Hanko.

Check it out!

Article by James Boole on his accident

In an interesting article written by James himself, instead of some sensationalist whuffo reporter, he retells the story of his accident in Russia and the events that followed.

Read the article here.

Scientific paper on wingsuit aerodynamics

Swiss university researcher Geoffrey Robson has been studying wingsuit flight to unprecedented accuracy, by using a very sensitive instrument which measures 3D location by GPS and inertial measurement, flyer attitude and heading, altitude, and air pressure (for air density data) during many wingsuit BASE jumps. The device, called the MTi-G, was purchased from Xsens, a Dutch company that specializes in 3D motion tracking.

Geo studied the optimal angle of attack for the best glide ratio. He's also been working closely together with Visa Parviainen to gather data on powered wingsuit flight. The article of a couple days ago about Visa mentions doing tests and gathering data. Visa is sharing this data with Geo for his research.

Geo submitted his paper to the 2010 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, where it will hopefully be published. We've been given a sneak preview of the very interesting paper, but unfortunately we cannot show it to you yet. When Geo releases it to the general public, probably in January, we'll post a link to it here on WWWN too.

Read the article/press release on the xsens.com website here or visit Geo's website on the subject.

Wingsuit BASE jump

A promotional with endorment quotes from Matt Gerdes for TonySuits

Check it out!

Birds Flock

Not really wingsuit flying, but so cool we had to post.

Bird Swarm Captured on Video Over Sacramento County
An expert estimated it was a flock of up to 500,000 European Starling birds gathered in eastern Sacramento County Friday that put on a dazzling aerial display -- a sight caught on video.

Check it out!

Stealth flying (GoPro Hero)

B-Rad taking his new birthday present out for a spin (gopro HD camera)

Check it out!

Latin American Wingsuit Boogie 2009

Juan Mayer posted a nice video on the third edition of the Latin American Wingsuit Boogie 2009.

Check it out!

Stealth Jet

Visa Parviainen is well known for his jet (micro-turbine) powered wingsuit adventures.
Recently he has been testing some new Jet Engines, combined with the (soon to be released) Stealth2 from Phoenix-Fly, and the results are quite awesome to watch.
Expect more footage on this one soon!

Check it out!



From Visa's facebook account

Had a successful rocket test with a sophisticated flightrecording device. Exit alt 1460, got levelflight at 1150m. Lenght over 4 minutes, deploy alt 960m. airspeed around 180 km/h . During 30 seconds I was able to climb 30 m. Test shows that angle of the attac has to be less than 10 degreess and Phoenix-fly wingsuit i...s actually working as a wing and creating lift :) Very happy now

The footage was shot by Tanel

Visa is sponsored by:
Phoenix-fly
AMT-Jets
Wings-Containers
Atair

2009 antics in review

Justin Shorb has posted a new video called 'Collective Addiction' showing some of the events he attended and organised the past year.

Check it out!

DLD - Karina Hollekim

DLD is a similar format to the famous TED talks, and this interesting talk on Basejumping (and wingsuits) surfaced on their website today.

Karina Hollekim from Norway loves risk and is a professional free-skier and the only professional base jumper from the Skandinavian state. Karina Hollekom's skills, fearlessness, struggles und successes have been documented in several films - one is '20 seconds of joy'. In the session with the same name she talks about her passions.

Check it out by clicking here

Flock & Dock 5, 2009

And its one of those fun times where we get to (ab)use WingsuitNews.com a bit for our own video stuff.

There is a short trailer on YouTube, and if you like, you can check out the full version at www.flylikebrick.com.



Click here to go to the full (23 minute) video.

Bispen

And some nice Bispen (Norway) FlyBy's as shot by jumpers and tourists.

Check it out!

Team Funky Spin

Mostly (aerobatic) paraglider stuff, but some lost shots of wingsuit flyers also show up in this promo for Team Funky Spin.

Check it out!

Filmato Wingsuit

A nice video showing some flocking/coaching jumps in San Diego (CA, USA).

Check it out!

Plane vs Wingsuit

We posted on aerobatics pilot Melissa and her wingsuit flying husband before.
Now they are the subject of a nice TV item. Pretty cool!

Chrck it out!



PS. A nerdy WingsuitNews.com first. This news was posted from a mobile (I)phone...So more 'on the road' updates. The ever climbing visitor numbers are way cool! Thanx for reading and making our efforts worthwhile.

Red Bull WS team

Some nice POV and Air2Air shots on some of the Red Bull athletes flying.
Check it out!

(NOTE: could be old footage, as it wasnt uploaded by the original owner. Anyone who has more information, please reply in the comments)

Zwartberg flying

Gert Michiels shot some of his wingsuit students at Zwartberg (Belgium), flying the clubs' new S-Fly 'Indy' demo suits.

Check it out!

Wingsuit vs Pilatus PC-6

Some nice relative flying with an airplane, and a good full-flight canopy flyby.

Check it out!

Dolomiti Air Show - Wingsuit Demo

A nice wingsuit demo in Italy for the "Dolomiti air show", set to some groovy tunes of which I swear Ive heard em before on some bad p*rn movie.
But back on subject, a nice double view halfway into the video, showing the smoke trail from the ground.

Check it out!

wingsuit big way 2009 US

Bo Weinberg posted the following video:

Pictures and video from my point of view in the US national wingsuit Big way

Check it out!

Leo Houlding in Manchester

Note to any readers living in or around the Manchester, UK area, website Outdoorsmagic.com has a short press release that climber and base jumper extraordinaire Leo Houlding will be at the new Nevisport outdoors store in Manchester on Thursday 10 December giving a talk about the Asgard Project, which we've covered before.

Houlding's at the store on Deansgate from 4pm to 7pm talking about the ambitious expedition to Baffin Island that forms the basis for the astonishing Asgard Project film - see our review - and also discussing the Berghaus kit used on the trip, which involved climbing a desperate big wall in arctic conditions followed by a wingsuit descent back to camp.

Click here for the complete article

2009 in review

Brian Drake just posted a new video called '2009 in Review' with some of his year highlights.

Check it out!

Wingsuit BASE by proxy

New Zealand news site The National Business Review has an article about (wingsuit) BASE jumper Chuck Berry having set up a clever tourist attraction where a tourist can pay to watch him jump off a cliff, from the safety of a nearby hovering helicopter.

Read the complete article here.

Gryphon

The (jet-powered) Gryphon glider is getting more and more media attention (probably related to Yves Rossy and his recent Jet-Wing adventures)

IGN: Jet Powered Wingsuits Coming soon - Mixing up the Gryphon designers and Yves Rossy, but its aimed at whuffo's so accurate facts dont matter :)
Wingsuit Soldiers: Man can really fly - similar article
Gryphon Stealth Wings.

An older item from FOX news showing some footage from the Gryphon



And a PIA report from our own DSE, with the Gryphon designers.

2009 extended

Leslie Mathues posted another nice video, with some of his 2009 season highlights.

Check it out!

Frode - A BASE life

Some fairly dramatic music, but nice scenery and flying by Norwegian wingsuit pilot, Frode.

Check it out!

Close shave - BASE jump Bispen Norway

Though it sounds close to the title of a great Wallace and Grommit animation, this video also shows it deserves that name.
A basejumper wanting to perform a cool tourist flyby, accidently stalls his wingsuit while making a sharp turn and has to do an emergency pull to avoid a collision with the ground.

Check it out!

GoProHero HD - Backflying

Hans Schoeber was also testing his new GoPro Hero HD past weekend, and uploaded some shots to Vimeo.

If we have one more post with GoProHero HD in the title, we will start charging the company for free advertising ;)

Check it out!

GoProHD - Wingsuit

With many GoPro Hero HD cameras now hitting dropzones and mountains worldwide, we see more and more test and demo shots appear on the web.

Here is another one. Check it out!

new website - s-flycommunity.com

There is now a French blog/community website at s-flycommunity.com which shows a selection of wingsuitnews related to the French brand/wingsuit S-Fly (FlyYourBody).

The site is part English, part French. Click here for a Google translated version.

Check it out!

Red Devills Parachute Regiments Freefall Team

The Parachute Regiments Free fall team the Red Devils team film 2009.
A compilation of Displays and Tandem skydives the team has undertaken for Charity in 2009.

Be sure to check out the Red Devils website for more information about the charity jumps and demo skydives they do.

WingFutoon 2008

These guys created quite a unique exit/aircraft/what is it

3 good friends, one couch (futon), a hot air balloon, and some parachutes. What better way to spend a cold Colorado morning!

Check it out!

Military flying wing 'Gryphon'

From the somewhat-wingsuit-related-dept, Wired.com has an article about the Gryphon rigid wing developed by some German companies. It is the same idea as Yves Rossy's wing, except one that can also carry a payload.

One wonders how useful this would be compared to a parapente, which can fly further and carry more cargo...

Check it out here.

It's our 1 year anniversary!

Today it's been 1 year since we posted our first article!

We've done our best to cover as many aspects of the wingsuit world as we can. Our intrepid Jarno Cordia has been our top poster, providing you with 90% of the content you read, watch and enjoy on this website. And of course we'd like to thank you for making lots of videos and doing crazy stuff so we can keep on posting new items to this site.

We've been keeping tabs on our visitors too. Using Google Analytics we've seen our reader numbers increase throughout the year. Since our inception, we've had over 65,000 pageviews during 40,000 visits by close to 18,000 visitors!

The highest peak was on May 19th, with 654 visits. This was during our coverage of James Boole's accident where he deployed low during a BASE jump and got injured pretty badly, but thankfully survived.

As you can see from this map, most of our visitors come from the US (click on it to make it bigger):


It's been a great year, and we plan to keep going. If you think you'd like to become a WWWN author, let us know, and we'll consider it. Jarno could use some help with all the videos... :)

New Scientist article: "Don't pack your parachute: Totally free fall"

In a very well written article on the New Scientist website, author Julian Smith explores the idea of landing your wingsuit without a parachute.

Apart from Jeb Corliss' project, a huge ramp on which to land and slow down, he also reveals an idea by Maria von Egidy of Jii-Wings, where during the last bit of the flight, you hang underneath your wingsuit as in a glider...

Read the full article here.

Sebastian Flock

The Sebastian Flock uploads clips from their jumps to YouTube regularly. Here are a few of the recent videos.

Check it out!

A history of wingsuiting

The Globe and Mail's Peter Cheney is apparently very interested in wingsuits, because he's posted a third story about wingsuits. This time it's a short timeline of various wingsuit milestones.

Read the complete article here.

For a truly indepth story about the history of wingsuiting, check out Birdmen, Batmen, and Skyflyers: Wingsuits and the Pioneers Who Flew in Them, Fell in Them, and Perfected Them by Michael Abrams.

Servus TV, 2009

A brief item on hot air balloons, from GermanAustrian television.

Check it out!
NOTE: wingsuit at 2:12

Apocalipse Snow - Wingsuit Flying

A trailer for the cool docu/drama production Apocalipse Snow.

Check it out!



You can order the DVD at adrenalinbase.com

Landing a wingsuit: "The last great first"

In a cleverly titled article "The last great first" on The Globe and Mail website, Peter Cheney's interviews Jeb Corliss on the various aspects and difficulties of landing a wingsuit.

Read the complete article here.

"How the Rocketman flies"

From the wingsuits-in-the-mass-media dept, a story in The Globe and Mail on Yves Rossy, "Rocketman". He actually calls himself Fusion man and doesn't use rockets at all, but jets. :-)

Read the full story here.

Wingsuit Balloon Flyby

A pretty cool wingsuit flyby, on a hot air balloon.

Beautiful Colorado morning, Ultralight, Cessna, Hot Air Balloon, and Wingsuit action. 110 mph at 15-feet.

Check it out!

Countour HD

Some brief shots of hybrid wingsuit/tracking suits (VKB would have been my first guess, but appearantly its 'pressurized' gear) shot with the increasingly popular HD sports camera toys.

Check it out!