Hydrofoils have become the go-to technology for boats, making sailboats faster, powerboats infinitely more efficient, and they’re even starting to show up on superyachts. Airfoils come in many examples, the most prevalent being the actual shape of wings.
But there’s never been a foil like the one beneath Red Bull athlete Peter Salzmann’s wingsuit. It helped the Austrian smash records for unpowered human flight. A wingsuit is a one-piece garment of ripstop nylon, shaped almost like a rectangular sleeping bag, with three wings—two between the arms and torso and a third between the legs. The wings create lift that allow for horizontal gliding and controlled flight.
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This wingsuit also has electric power to control the foil. “It’s super light and has a throttle you can control with your hand,” Salzmann told Redbull.com. “We’re also quiet and light as a bird. I glide almost silently through the air.”
The Austrian and another wingsuit jumper, Andreas Podlipnik, developed six airfoil prototypes over six years, testing them at an indoor wind tunnel in Stockholm, before deciding on one that would be optimal—at least theoretically—for the wingsuit.
Salzmann then jumped from a 13,330-foot-high ledge in the Swiss Alps to prove it. The video (below) shows the Austrian flying longer (5 minutes 56 seconds), faster (124.2 mph) and farther (7.75 miles) in free, unpowered flight to smash existing BASE jumping records. At one point before deploying his parachute, he says: “I’m tired.”
BASE jumping is the recreational sport of jumping from fixed objects, using a parachute, or in this case a wingsuit, to descend to the ground. An acronym for buildings, antennas, spans and earth, BASE jumping is considered highly dangerous, with many jumpers having been killed over the years. The injury and fatality rate is 43 times higher than parachuting from a plane.
Salzmann initially got into it for the adrenaline rush, but now there’s no adrenaline. “What you have is the most intense focus you can imagine,” he says. “You are so focused that you can see yourself from the outside, imagining yourself flying. Physiologically, you have full body tension, but fear doesn’t play a role.”
Podlipnik’s wingsuit/foil combination was aided by Red Bull’s Advanced Technologies Group, including F1 engineers and aerospace experts. The foil has a wingspan of 6.9 feet and weighs 8.3 pounds, with a foam core and 3-D printed components. The light weight allowed the pair to carry the foil up to the launch point in the Swiss Alps.
“The main problem was that when we first built the wing, whenever I got into position, it pulled me down because the wing had a bad flow,” Salzmann says. The solution was to build a wing that could be adjusted during flight.
Now that the design has proven itself, it’s not clear if this will be a one-off project or the next norm for wingsuits, and perhaps other forms of BASE jumping.
“How will this develop? I assume other jumpers would like to try it as well, but whether everyone will be jumping around with a foil in 10 years, I can’t predict,” says Podlipnik. “But with the ability to fly further, there will be new possibilities that we can’t yet imagine.”
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