More wingsuit HALO jumps

Apparently Shin Ito wasn't the only one getting out of the plane above 30,000ft at Skydance in Davis, California. UK wingsuiter Michael Romanek sent us a link to his exit video and this accompanying text:

2 Wingsuit Jumps from 30,000 ft
No reason to call the Guinness Book folk, but great jumps nonetheless, I made two 30,000 ft wingsuit jumps, at Skydance, over the same weekend as Shin Ito’s record jump (Sat 25th & Sun 26th). I wore my O2 bailout pack internally, attached to the inside of my left leg inside my wingsuit (S-Fly Expert). Since Shin and I were the only HALO wingsuiters and on separate loads, unfortunately there’s no in-flight video. It was pretty cool to fly for a while and look at your Alti and still be over 20K

How cold was it?!

Flock filming McCordia stylee

Our own Jarno did some creative flock filming the past weekend at the UKS Boogie in England. Check out the funky long pans across all sides of the flock.

Sports blog bettor.com covers wingsuiting

In a refreshingly well written whuffo media article, sports blog site bettor.com posted a story summarizing the history of wingsuiting, wingsuit base (which they shorten to the unheard of acronym WiSBASE, except on wikpedia??), and the powered wingsuit flight projects of Visa Parviainen and Skyjester, and some stuff about records... actually, come to think of it, it seems they just summarized the wikipedia page!

Check it out here.

Phoenix-Fly: The Need 4 Speed

The Phoenix-Fly team have posted a new teaser video on Vimeo showing some amazing wingsuit proximity shots and some new wingsuit prototypes in flight...

A collection of shots from flights made by Robert, Jean Noel, Ludo and Halvor during the 2009-2010 season, while flying the V3 and testing several new V-series prototypes.

Feel the need. The need for speed!

Check it out in HD on Vimeo

Ski film teaser with some wingsuit flying

Teton Gravity Research posted this video which appears to be a teaser/behind-the-scenes for an upcoming ski movie "Light The Wick".

In this week's Almost Live, Erik Roner, Seth Morrison & Sage Cattbriga-Alosa find themselves at North Cascades Heli with a familiar pilot, Seamus. To cap off a particularly epic day, Roner utilizes the heli's sliding door and convinces the pilot to let him jump out in his wing suit.

Check out the post on their website here.

Pascal - Fly in Peace

French wingsuiter Romain Friedli posted this video to Vimeo.

A video tribute to Pascal Campion, my flight instructor, friend and para with whom I conducted beautiful wingsuit proximity flights with a Porter Pilatus in 2007

Wingsuit BASE Lauterbrunnen, Switzerland

Randy McCoy posted this video to Vimeo. As a description:

Intentionally conservative flight, pull height.

LA Times posts Jokke Sommer's proximity video.

The LA times website has posted Jokke Sommer's video we have mentioned before.

Check it out here.

Wingsuit distance record by Shin Ito

Sorry it's been a busy weekend for us, but we're back now!

Japanese wingsuiter Shin Ito did a 16.5km wingsuit flight and is applying for it to become an official record. Golden Knights Ben Borger had 18.5km, but that was including canopy ride.

In his press release is written the following:

On September 24th 2010, Japanese wingsuit pilot Shin Ito (BIRDMAN inc “TOP GUN” Team) makes the record for non-powered, human-self flight over the suburbs of Davis, California, U.S.A. SkyDance Skydiving..
At the altitude 33,430 ft (10.180m) by PAC750XL, he flew the horizontal distance of 10.19 miles (16.4 km). Wingsuit flight distance 11.68 miles (18.8km). (From exit point to Parachute deployment. point)
Free fall time was 4 minutes and 57 seconds. The Max horizontal speed was 177.7 mph (286 km/h) with his "flying squirrel "BLADE II Special Wingsuit Manufactured by BIRDMAN Inc. in Helsinki Finland.

He is going to apply UK Guinness record book, US and Japanese officials to verify his record.

The details of Shin's flight are written on the blog and website below:

Blog http://http://ameblo.jp/wingsuits/

Homepage: http://www.wingsuits.jp/

Delivered on September 26, 2010
Risk Control Corp.

Summer @ Hoevenen

Belgian Eli uploaded this new video of his past summer of flying

A quick edit I threw together of some jumps made at Dropzone Hoevenen

Check it!

FlyLikeBrick - Free Round

And we posted the video of our own free round from the wingsuitcompetition on the YouTubes!

Check it out!

Coupe Icare

A short video segment about the French Coupe Icare.
Showing some bits and pieces of wingsuit flying that was done at the event as well.

Check it out!

First Female Indian Wingsuit Flyer

YouTube gave us a video today, highlighting the aireal adventures of an idian woman, who was on a quest to become the first female indian to fly a wingsuit (together with Birdmans former CEO, Jari Kuosma)

Within minutes of posting the video, we got noted that she isnt actually the first female flyer from india. But most likely 2nd or 3rd.

The credit of being first woman flying from india should go to Amit Singhania's wife Rahjet. She is also a woman from india, and already did her first wingsuit jump in the US early sumer of 2010 at a USA wingsuit event. Taking her first flight with a well known American wingsuit instructor.

Regardless, we would like to congratulate shital with her first wingsuit jump, and present you with this video:

Shital Mahajan who is already famous for her earlier records for jumping has now made a new record.

She jumped from an aircraft at 13000ft with "wing suit (birdman-suit)". On 19th September at Spain as per Indian time 8:00 pm.

She had jumped with the wings like a bird till 4000ft and then she opened the parachute & landed normally. This kind of wing suit jump had not been tried by any woman from India and it is a great achievement for Shital Mahajan. It will be a new national record for Shital and for India too. When asked to Shital about the experience while jumping she said, "It's a great and different experience for me, and I got to know how a bird fly in air, I am very happy that I did this.

Before that I have jumped without any training over Geographical North pole in minus 37degree Celsius from 2400 feet on 18th April 2004. After that, I jumped over White Continent of Antarctica on 16 th December 2006 from 11600 ft in minus 38 degree Celsius. But this jump was different and flying like a bird was nice experience for me and I am proud to be Indian, Shital after married to Vaibhav and lived in Finland, but she belong to Pune.

Wingsuit + GPS

And from Brazil, some playing with Gizmos:

Skyvan Wingsuit exit Nailed!

From South Africa comes this clip with a 'vintage' Birdman suit:

Normal speed exit out of the Skyvan with my new Birdman Blade II

Check it out!

Wired.com article on proximity flying

Wired finally joins the bandwagon of mass media reporting on the "hype" of wingsuit base proximity flying. They interviewed Jokke Sommer and post a YouTube video he made of some of his proximity flying exploits.


Check the full article out here!

Volo wingsuit game, another teaser

Programmer extraordinaire Martijn 'Tinus' Zandvliet has posted another teaser of his upcoming wingsuit game. This time it's a first person view and let's just say he's hauling some serious ass. :) He writes:

Here's me having a ridiculous amount of fun with a tweaked first person camera. I've added camera shaking and Multivac's updated motion blur into the mix, and the result of it all is just absolutely visceral.

Music courtesy of the Electronic Explorations (.org) mix I was listening to. I promise to not forget to turn it off next time. ;)

Team ILL Vision wingsuit BASE jumps the North West Coast

Team ILL Vision posted this article to their blog about a wingsuit BASE trip they had recently.

Check it out here

Jumptown Vertical Challenge pictures

Scotty Burns posted a boatload of cool pictures he took at the Jumptown Vertical Challenge.



Check it out here.

BBC: Flying with the fastest birds on the planet: Peregrine Falcon & Gos Hawk - Animal Camera

Not wingsuit related per se, but I'm sure every wingsuiter can be envious of these birds mastery of flying.

Intl Artistic WS Competition Round 5

Jarno finished editing round 5. The figures here were 'Duck & Roll' (barrel roll under the other performer) and 'Fruity Loops' (front loops).

Flock N' Dock N' Puffies

Scott, Scotty, Grey Mike, Paul, Eduardo, and Ralph having fun at Skydive City.

Video footage by Ralph and Eduardo
Music by Josh Martinez

Check it out!

S-Fly Demo Flights

S-fly demo flights at the Coupe Icare, St-Hilaire du Touvet, France.

Check it out!

Cool pics from Icarus Cup 2010

The S-Fly demo team has been doing some cool demo wingsuit jumps with smoke. These pictures were posted to Facebook by the S-Fly team yesterday (click on the photo for a bigger version).

Intl Artistic WS Competition Round 6 (free round) posted!

Our intrepid tireless video editor Jarno produced yet another video today; this one of the free round, where every team got to show the creative side of the team, showcasing their team flying and camera skills. We'll be posting the other rounds in a while, but this one was most requested!

For extra greatness, watch this on Vimeo instead of the embedded small version here:

Wings over Gransee 2010

The perfomance competition Wings over Gransee 2010 was held last weekend in Gransee, Germany and was again a great succes. Tony Uragallo of Tony Suits fame won the competition, having had the best scores the Distance and Speed categories, and 2nd in Time.

The final scoreboard is here.

Some more pictures from the competition



The live scoreboard from the website was projected onto a wall for everyone to see during the competition:

Aleksander Domalewski Diverse Extreme Team - Wingsuit

Our athlete Olek Domalewski flying his wingsuit in Swiss and Italian Alps trying to push as hard as he can. Trimming trees and buzzing walls. Check this out !!!

New "must-have" wingsuit gadget: FlySight GPS

A clever Canadian, Michael Cooper, has come out of nowhere with this very cool toy/tool many of us have been waiting for: a GPS unit that gives you instant feedback on your flying perfomance by generating a tone that varies with your glide ratio. He's made operation extremely simple with just a few controls and place to plug your earphones in. The device is not only a variometer (the official name for this tool, what gliders, hang gliders and paragliders use) but also a 5 Hz logger, with space for up to a million trackpoints.

At the recent Wings over Gransee performance competition (which I will post about later), Klaus Rheinwhald (author of Paralog), amongst others, tested it and was enthusiastic about it. I can't wait to try it out. If you ask me, this wil revolutionize training jumps for wingsuit pilots wanting to get the most out of their wingsuit, just like wind tunnels have been revolutionary for formation skydiving and freefly.

The device is currently selling for $249 Canadian/US $200.

Check out the website here!

In Europe the FlySight is sold via flysight.de for 249,- Euro.


Update: I've received info that the price will be going to Canadian $250. And not only does it report glide ratio, but can also vertical speed or horizontal speed (one at a time of course). And: Mirko and Klaus will be at the ProBase Wingsuit Race with some demo units for people to try (and buy!).

First Indian woman to fly a wingsuit

In what is apparently a first for an Indian woman, Shital V. Mahajan-Rane flew a wingsuit over Spain (not further specified) recently.

Read the full article here.

Hercules Boogie in Uruguay

Lucky skydivers in Uruguay got to jump out of a Hercules. Diego Sanchez posted this video to Vimeo of the wingsuit part of the boogie. Unfortunately it seems he made a mistake with the encoding and the aspect ratio isn't right (pillarboxes where they aren't necessary).

Anyways, you can still enjoy the video:

Living the Icarus Dream

News site Euronews has an article on the upcoming Icarus Cup, a festival of paragliding, hang gliding and wingsuit flying taking place near Grenoble, France.

Check it out here.

Docked 14-way wingsuit formation???

This Australian Daily Telegraph article popped up, about a 10-year old doing a tandem, nothing special, but there was a short blurb of text in the article which raised my eyebrows:

Mr Hill and other skydiving enthusiasts from around the world are also on their way to breaking the world record for the most skydivers in a docked wingsuit formation.

The world record is for 14 people. Although 16 skydivers completed the wingsuit formation yesterday they did not submit it as a world record attempt but plan to in the near future.

I wonder where they got that information... I'm guessing they meant a wingsuit formation conforming to the grid.

Read the article for yourself here

Project XRW doing more cool things

A while back we posted about Project XRW having done docks between a canopy pilot and a wingsuiter. They're doing more cool things at the moment, like multi-ways with 2 canopies docked to 2 wingsuiters and Taya Weiss and Jessica Edgeington doing a girls-only wingsuit-canopy dock.

Check out the blog posts on the website here.

BIRDMAN ceasing operation

Wingsuit manufacturer BIRDMAN is ceasing the sales and production of wingsuits. The blog on the website has the following notice posted:

BIRDMAN Oy has recently changed it’s ownership structure and is ceasing sales and operations until further notice. We will only proceed with orders that have been invoiced and paid for, and at the time being we will not take any new orders for wingsuits nor accessories.

All BIRDMAN training centers will continue their operations as normal, as will the BirdMan Instructor (BMI) program; the ratings stay unaffected.

Birdman Oy CEO Jari Kuosma has stepped down from operational leadership to pursue new challenges.

"Jump. Fly. Land." Article on Jeb Corliss' landing a wingsuit plans

Air & Space magazine has an article on their website about Jeb Corliss' long time plan to land a wingsuit without using a parachute.

Check it out here!

AirShow Slowmo

Some beautifull slowmotion shots made during an Airshow, showing the wingsuit/aerobatic pilot couple Melissa & Rex Pemberton performing their show.

Check it out

First Eiger Basejump

Mark Sutton posted a video on his first wingsuit jump of the Eiger.

Hiking up to the Eiger mushroom the hard way

Check it out!

Wingsuit Demo

And back online after a few days in Italy for the 3rd International Wingsuit Competition.

First update is a video from the Swedish wingsuit team, showing some demo flights they made at a Big airshow.

Check it out!

10 way speedstar vs 2 way wingsuit

A cool video from the Swedish wingsuit flyers, carving around a 10 way speedstar in their wingsuits.

Check it out!

Chuck Berry - Wing Suit NZ 2010

Chuck Berry Wing Suits down the front of the Remarkable's, Queenstown NZ.
Part of the production filming for The Red Bull Chronicles - Season 1 - NZ 2010.

Camera: RJLOW, Chris Kirkham, Sebastian Solberg, HD Camera Rentals
Director: Trinity Ludlow

RED BULL NZ
NZ Greenroom Productions Ltd

Here is what Chuck had to say:

Ever since I was a kid I imagined flying parallel with the earth, with arms outstretched, navigating the terrain ahead to fly in harmony with the planet. Today, the wingsuit does just that. Yippeeee.
On a beautiful April day I gather with the Red Bull NZ crew, camera teams & the fab Heliworks chopper crew in a field directly below the majestic Remarkables Range in Queenstown, NZ. The Remarkables is a craggy, steep range of mountains rising to 7396 feet rows of steep gullies leading down to the flats below.
Yahooo, the heli takes me to 9000', right above Single Cone, the highest point on the mountain. My 3 Go Pro cameras are rolling, pilot gives the thumbs up & I launch into the air. Ahhhhhhhhh... how lovely to feel the freedom of falling through space. I tuck my wings back to dive steeply & pick up speed & energy to line up the correct gully at the right angle. The wind noise picks up, the gully entrance gets closer... time to spread my wings, fly past the camera crew & continue on flying in close proximity to the ridge in front of me.
What a sensation.... flying your body in relation to the earth... watching the ground race past only feet away. Seeing my shadow on the ridge, racing among the tussock, matching my speed & angle makes me laugh at the incredible things we can do if we dare to DREAM & DO.
If ever there was a bird experience, this was it! This is what I've seen in my dreams, arms out streched, racing through the air, just above the terrain, ridges flying by. I've seen this for real... in glorious, real time 3D, with live stereo audio. What a sensation!
Many thanks to the Red Bull team, Heliworks Heli team, camera team & Dick Jardine the friendly land owner & good keen man.
Yeharrrrrrrr. What Fantastic Fun.

ZDF - Wingsuits

The German television aired a cool live-show, showcasing wingsuit flying by some German Basejumpers/Skydivers.

Check it out!

A nice basejump in France

A short video on a some French basejumps.

Check it out!

Paraclub Flevo 2005 JumpWeek

A long (55 minute) video on a jumping holiday from former dutch DZ ParaClub Flevo.
Lots of freeflying, staticline jumps and a lot of other misc. stuff, with a few select wingsuit scenes spread out through the video with flights by Tristan, Roel, Jlo, Anouk, Jarno and others...

Check it out!

Wingsuit Sunset Coaching Jump With Jarno Cordia

Eli posted a jump on a jump where he practices docking manouvres.

A wingsuit sunset coaching jump with Team Fly Like Bricks's Jarno Jordia and Team Oxygen's Eli Gerris, made over Skydive Rotterdam. Jump altitude was 9750ft, deploymet at 3000ft.

Check it out!

French Compilation video

A bit of everything....

Check it out!

BASE: Check the Legwing

A nice intro, but sadly online legwing for the freefall portion.

Still we wouldnt be wingsuitnews if we didnt post it. So here you go...check it out!

Ambri - Mnt Gravity

And more videos on Mountain Gravity (Swiss) popped up online.

Check it out!

Mountain Gravity 2010

Some of the wingsuit flocks from Mountain Gravity 2010

Check it out!

Rodeo pull-off

A cool video showing a rodeo rider pull of the wingsuit flyers back.

Note that a pilotchute can easily get caught in the bigger burble, causing scary situations. So always plan these things with care, and within everyones experience level.

Check it out!

Skydive Taft - Nightjump

A wingsuit night jump at Taft, USA

Boldfacers - Justin Shorb

Boldfacers magazine has a video interview with Justin Shorb, with a nice item on how he got into wingsuit flying, and why he loves flying.

Look! In the sky! It's a bird! It's a plane...

Cut.

It isn't Superman. It's better than Superman. Justin Shorb is a super real man. He flies though the air at 150 miles per hour wearing a piece of clothing that transforms him from a man into a bird. Super crazy? You could argue that.

So how does a sweet kid from Powell, Wyoming, go from playing baseball to risking his life dozens of times a day? He observed his first skydive on a whim with a good friend when he was 17 years old. His friend never jumped; Justin was hooked. For most, jumping out of a plane is a kooky adventure — intense! Terrifying! Awesome! -- and one-time-only, thank you. But Justin wasn’t scared at all. He never felt so alive before in his life. The heart-attack speed of the freefall, the feeling of floating in a parachute, the stark reality that the ground was 13,000 feet below and that human or technical error could snuff him out — what a rush.

He survived, and learned that skydiving was safer statistically than driving to the supermarket. (Roughly 35 out of two million skydivers die every year.) And flying was a helluva lot more fun. He started jumping all the time, getting 3,700 jumps under his belt by the time he was 24. Then he saw a dude slice through the air in a wingsuit. It made his parachute look like a lollipop.

He tried the suit on. Pros call it a “squirrel suit” because it’s shaped like a flying squirrel. Justin pushed his arms into the sleeves and spread them out to the full seven-foot wingspan. He knew he wouldn’t be wearing much else out of a plane anytime soon.

Four years later, Justin has traveled all over South America, Europe, Canada, and the United States as a wingsuit instructor. Locally, he teaches out of Jumptown USA and Skydive Pepperell. He regularly performs in wingsuit flying demonstrations and recruits folks to skydive. (Full disclosure: The Boldfacers team skydived with him in Jumptown in one of the most hair-raising, fabulous experiences of our lives.) The father of two has been filmed for the History Channel and the Science Channel, and there’s talk of consulting on a Batman film. As for the dangers of his everyday life, Justin is insouciant. Dying is part of living, he says; it could happen to you today. To him, it’s super logical.

Check it out here

First Wingsuit Basejump - 2005

This is a video of my first Wing suit BASE jump from ITW in Sept 2005. Equipment used: V1, Gargoyle, BJ280 and a Fat Kris(90Kg...helped with speed).

Check it out!

The good the bad and the ugly

Wingsuit flybys at Bispen Norway 2010

Check it out!