The wingsuit is perhaps the most dramatic advancement in personal flight since the parachute itself. By extending the aerodynamics of the human body through fabric wings between the arms and torso and from torso to legs, wingsuit pilots achieve something that was long considered impossible: genuine aerodynamic lift from a human body in freefall. The sensation of a wingsuit flight — the rush of horizontal movement, the sweeping views, the feeling of truly flying rather than falling — is unlike any other experience in skydiving.
How Wingsuits Generate Lift
A wingsuit creates lift through the same principle as an airplane wing: a curved surface that forces air to travel faster over the top than under the bottom, creating lower pressure above and higher pressure below. The wingsuit's wing surface — made of fabric that extends between the arms, from the arms to the body, and from the body to the legs — creates an airfoil shape that generates lift when air flows over it.
The amount of lift generated depends on the wing area, the airspeed, the angle of attack, and the air density. Wingsuits typically achieve a lift-to-drag ratio of approximately 2.5:1 to 3:1, meaning that for every foot of vertical descent, they travel approximately 2.5 to 3 feet horizontally. This glide ratio allows wingsuit pilots to cover significant horizontal distance from a single jump.
The fall rate in a wingsuit is dramatically reduced compared to standard freefall. Where a belly-to-earth skydiver falls at approximately 120 miles per hour, a wingsuit pilot in stable glide configuration might fall at 60 to 80 miles per hour, depending on the suit design and the pilot's skill. Some advanced wingsuits and skilled pilots can achieve fall rates below 50 miles per hour in optimal configurations.
Wingsuit Design and Types
Modern wingsuits fall into several categories based on their design and intended use. The standard wingsuit — sometimes called a squirrel suit or birdman suit — features wings between the arms and body and from body to legs, but the wings are relatively narrow and the suit is designed primarily for recreational use with moderate glide ratios and fall rates in the 80 to 100 mile per hour range.
The flying squirrel style wingsuit features wider wings that extend from wrist to ankle, creating a larger wing area and better glide performance. These suits can achieve glide ratios approaching 3:1 and lower fall rates, but they require more skill to fly and are less maneuverable than the standard suit.
Prototype and experimental wingsuits push the boundaries of performance with increasingly sophisticated airframe designs. Some experimental suits feature rigid or semi-rigid wing structures, variable geometry wings, and other advanced features that push glide ratios even higher. These suits are typically used only by highly experienced wingsuit pilots with extensive training.
Safety Considerations and Risks
Wingsuit flying carries unique and serious risks that distinguish it from standard skydiving. The most significant is the lack of viable emergency options if something goes wrong in flight. In a standard skydive, if the main canopy malfunctions, the skydiver cuts it away and deploys the reserve. In a wingsuit, a wingsuit malfunction — a structural failure, an entanglement, a loss of control at low altitude — leaves very little time or altitude for corrective action.
The low fall rate of wingsuit flying creates specific hazards. Because the wingsuit pilot descends more slowly than a standard skydiver, they spend more time at each altitude level and may not have adequate separation from other jumpers who are falling faster. Wingsuit pilots must be extremely careful about airspace sharing and must always be aware of what is above and below them.
Landing is a particular challenge for wingsuit pilots. The wingsuit must be collapsed and controlled before the landing flare, which means the pilot must transition from wingsuit configuration to standard parachute harness configuration in the last few hundred feet of altitude. This transition must be completed before the final approach phase, and any error in the transition can affect the quality of the landing approach.
Training Requirements and Progression
Wingsuit flying requires extensive prior skydiving experience and specific training. Most reputable wingsuit instructors and schools require a minimum of 200 jumps and demonstrated proficiency in freefall skills including stable body position, altitude awareness, and canopy control before accepting students for wingsuit training.
The first wingsuit jumps are typically done with an instructor and involve learning the basic flight positions, the transition into and out of wingsuit configuration, and the emergency procedures specific to wingsuit flying. The first flights are short — just a few seconds of actual wingsuit flight — and focus on learning to feel the aerodynamic forces and control the suit's attitude.
Progression in wingsuit flying follows a well-defined path from basic glide flying through increasingly sophisticated maneuvers and finally to advanced applications like proximity flying — flying close to terrain features — and wingsuit formation flying with other wingsuit pilots. Each stage requires additional training, and the risks increase at each level of progression.