dlague
Active member
These guys are crazy to begin with, but if something goes wrong - holy shit! And it did in this case! This guys survived.
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Wing Suit Crash
- Thread starter dlague
- Start date
I wonder what their insurance rates are like participating in this sport.
Not Sure
Well-known member
Looked up the lift to drag ratio, Only 4 to 1. That gives no room for error,by the time he realized he had a problem simply reaching back adds more drag . Add some sinking air ...no thanks . 40 to 1 is a bit better.
bigbog
Active member
I know it....more chance of surviving, when padded to the hilt, by crashing in the treetops...
Just a fun way to spend time on the weekends eh'?...if you live, you're the king of Youtube...:roll:
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skiNEwhere
Active member
What that guy is doing is known as proximity flying, where the object is to, as it sounds, fly as close to the ground as possible. That was also a BASE jump.
I don't wing suit but I do skydive and know a few wingsuiters from my drop zone and only one of them attempts proximity flying, and he's a little bit crazy. The rest say it's just not worth the risk.
For just standard skydiving it's already astronomically high, which is BS considering that the fatality rate is actually much lower that perceived by the general public (last year it came out to 1 per 200,000 jumps)
BASE jumping is about 100 times deadlier (about 1:2,300), add in a wingsuit, and proximity flying.....yea pretty sure he's uninsurable
I don't wing suit but I do skydive and know a few wingsuiters from my drop zone and only one of them attempts proximity flying, and he's a little bit crazy. The rest say it's just not worth the risk.
For just standard skydiving it's already astronomically high, which is BS considering that the fatality rate is actually much lower that perceived by the general public (last year it came out to 1 per 200,000 jumps)
BASE jumping is about 100 times deadlier (about 1:2,300), add in a wingsuit, and proximity flying.....yea pretty sure he's uninsurable
bigbog
Active member
I can't imagine anyone but wealthy inheritants participating....I mean really...y/n?
Not Sure
Well-known member
I don't know any Base Jump wingsuiters as East doesn't have the vert for that but the Jumpers I've met seem pretty down to earth ..."pun intended". For less that 10K you can get hooked up .
bigbog
Active member
:lol: ...I stand corrected once again...Sbsp.
jimk
Well-known member
Pretty compelling interview/recap of the wing suit crash story from 2016: http://topgunbase.ws/i-flew-my-wingsuit-into-trees-and-woke-up-in-a-hospital/
He was not a complete goof, but apparently a young Navy pilot looking for off-duty kicks and progressed to base jump wing suit stuff rather quickly. Should have died though, complete miracle of survival. Nothing more recent on the guy, so he may have gone back to tamer recreational activities??
Not Sure
Well-known member
Pretty compelling interview/recap of the wing suit crash story from 2016: http://topgunbase.ws/i-flew-my-wingsuit-into-trees-and-woke-up-in-a-hospital/
He was not a complete goof, but apparently a young Navy pilot looking for off-duty kicks and progressed to base jump wing suit stuff rather quickly. Should have died though, complete miracle of survival. Nothing more recent on the guy, so he may have gone back to tamer recreational activities??
"Brandon Russell and I went to the scene looking for your GoPro. Dude, there was blood, tree carnage and debris everywhere. You flew through an 8” diameter tree trunk and snapped the top 20’ completely off. Your debris trail was almost 300’ long. How on earth do you explain being alive, let alone essentially unscathed?":-o:-o:-o:-o:-o
WOW . Thanks for posting this! Halfway thought the article after watching the video I couldn't help but think something as small as the Go Pro on his helmut could have created enough drag to drop enough to cause the crash . Altough if he turned left a little he could have cleared the trees. Seemed he was more concerned about making his LZ and not "flying the plane " so to speak.
bigbog
Active member
............He was not a complete goof, but apparently a young Navy pilot looking for off-duty kicks and progressed to base jump wing suit stuff rather quickly. Should have died though, complete miracle of survival. Nothing more recent on the guy, so he may have gone back to tamer recreational activities??
No, not goof...but young and addicted to the level of danger! ..to a sport where you're very vulnerable, even moreso than base jumping. Where you push the level of danger for the thrill of defeating that danger....that is addiction to the thrill of defeating danger. When that is even marketed through the new mobile media hardware/sw jewels with adjectives like "Extreme"...that addiction is hyped even more...y/n?
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jimk
Well-known member
Anybody who flies military aircraft is a risk taker. The guys who get to fly the sexiest military aircraft usually got in that position because they had the highest test/intelligence scores. As we know from ski country avalanche deaths, even the smartest/most highly trained experts can be vulnerable to overestimating their abilities and rationalizing a poor risk.
Interesting thing about thrill seeking, extreme sports and addiction...many couch potato type folks might think that skiers/boarders who ski double black diamonds and inbounds extreme terrain (many on this forum) come under that category and have a death wish. Who here thinks they have a self-destructive adrenaline addiction comparable to a base jumping wing suiter? Probably no one. It's something you gradually progress to and just think of as good clean fun
It's possible most base jumping wing suiters have the same mind set? I'm not sure. Interesting question.
Not Sure
Well-known member
Wing suit saves a life ?
I just saw a post on FB from @skiNEwhere - he got into a pretty bad accident on his speed glider. Send him some good vibes for a quick recovery.
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