A wingsuit is a specially designed jumpsuit with fabric panels stretched between the arms and legs, creating wing-like surfaces that let a skydiver glide forward through the air instead of just falling straight down. Think of it as a wearable airfoil: the suit inflates with rushing air, generating lift and dramatically slowing the rate of descent while converting vertical speed into horizontal distance. Wingsuit pilots still need a parachute to land safely, but during the flight itself, they can cover miles of horizontal ground for every thousand feet of altitude lost.
How a Wingsuit Works
The suit has two main wing surfaces: one stretching between each arm and the torso, and another between the legs. These panels are made from durable parachute-grade nylon with internal chambers that fill with air through small inlets, giving the wings a rigid, inflated shape during flight. By changing body position, tilting the shoulders, arching the back, or adjusting the angle of the legs, a pilot controls speed, direction, and glide ratio (how far forward they travel relative to how far they drop).
A skilled wingsuit pilot can achieve glide ratios of roughly 3:1, meaning three feet of horizontal travel for every foot of altitude lost. Some advanced suits push even higher. The result is a flight that looks and feels remarkably like flying, with the pilot carving turns, adjusting altitude loss, and navigating through the sky at significant speed.
Speed and Flight Performance
Wingsuit flying is fast. Horizontal speeds vary depending on the suit and pilot skill, but experienced fliers commonly reach 100 to 120 mph of forward speed while descending at around 40 to 60 mph vertically. In competitive speed skydiving (a related discipline without wingsuits), top athletes exceed 300 mph in near-vertical dives, traveling roughly 450 feet per second at 310 mph. Wingsuit pilots trade that raw vertical speed for forward glide, but the combined airspeed is still substantial.
Flights typically last two to three minutes from a standard skydiving altitude (around 13,000 feet), though BASE jumpers launching from cliffs may have much shorter flights depending on the terrain. During that time, a pilot can cover several horizontal miles.
The Parachute Is Not Optional
Every wingsuit flight ends with a parachute. No commercially available wingsuit generates enough lift to slow a pilot to a survivable landing speed. At around 5,500 feet above the ground, the pilot initiates parachute deployment. The process involves transitioning from the spread-eagle flying position into a controlled arch, pulling the deployment handle symmetrically with both arms, and keeping the knees slightly bent for easier access to the pilot chute (the small parachute that pulls the main canopy out).
For first wingsuit jumps, the United States Parachute Association recommends breaking off from any group work at 6,500 feet, beginning parachute deployment by 5,500 feet, and having an emergency decision altitude of at least 2,500 feet. Audible altimeters, small devices worn in the helmet that beep at preset altitudes, help pilots track their height without needing to check a wrist-mounted gauge during the intense focus of flight.
Origins of the Modern Wingsuit
People have been attempting to fly in wing-like garments since the early days of aviation, often with fatal results. The modern wingsuit traces back to the 1990s, when French skydiver Patrick de Gayardon designed a suit using sturdy parachute fabric with two distinct wing surfaces and built-in vents that allowed the panels to inflate during flight. His design was the breakthrough that made controlled, repeatable wingsuit flight possible.
De Gayardon died in a skydiving accident in 1998, but his design became the template for the entire sport. The first commercial wingsuit company, called Birdman, was established in 1999 in his honor. Today, several manufacturers produce wingsuits ranging from beginner-friendly models with smaller wing areas to advanced competition suits with massive surface area for maximum glide performance.
Proximity Flying
The most visually dramatic form of wingsuit flying is proximity flying, where pilots intentionally glide close to terrain: mountain walls, ridgelines, valleys, and sometimes under bridges or between narrow gaps. Helmet-mounted cameras brought this discipline to public attention around 2006, when French jumper Loïc Jean-Albert posted footage of himself gliding along cliff faces. Those videos helped make wingsuit flying one of the most recognizable extreme sports in the world.
Proximity flying is also by far the most dangerous form of the sport. Flying fast near solid objects leaves almost zero margin for error. A slight miscalculation in speed, wind conditions, or terrain judgment can be fatal within a fraction of a second.
Risk and Fatality Rates
Wingsuit flying from an airplane with a proper skydiving rig carries meaningful risk, but it benefits from high deployment altitudes and open airspace. The far more dangerous version is wingsuit BASE jumping, where pilots launch from fixed objects like cliffs, antennas, or bridges at much lower altitudes with less time to recover from problems.
A study published in the journal Injury Prevention analyzed 180 BASE jumping fatalities from 1981 to 2011 and found a sharp rise in wingsuit-related deaths as the sport grew. Between 2002 and 2007, wingsuits were involved in about 16% of BASE jumping fatalities. By 2008 to 2011, that figure jumped to 49%. In the first eight months of 2013, 17 out of 19 BASE jumping deaths involved wingsuits. The most common cause was cliff or ground impact from miscalculating the flight path, accounting for 39% of the fatalities studied.
The year 2016 was particularly deadly, with 38 wingsuit pilots killed globally, 15 in August alone. These numbers reflect the inherent tension of the sport: the same precision flying near terrain that makes proximity wingsuiting thrilling also makes small errors lethal.
What It Takes to Start
You cannot simply buy a wingsuit and jump. The USPA requires a minimum of 200 completed skydives and a current skydiving license before attempting a wingsuit flight. This prerequisite exists because wingsuit flying demands strong freefall skills, comfort with parachute deployment at various body positions, and the ability to handle malfunctions calmly. Most dropzones also require completion of a wingsuit-specific first flight course covering body position, emergency procedures, and deployment techniques unique to suited flight.
Beginner wingsuits have smaller wing surfaces that are more forgiving and easier to control. As pilots gain experience, they graduate to larger, higher-performance suits. Modern pilots also use GPS flight computers and apps like BASEline to log their jumps, review glide ratios, and even receive real-time audio feedback on speed during flight, turning each jump into measurable data they can use to refine technique over time.