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Nick Yu thinks nothing of jumping out of a plane more than two miles above the Earth’s surface and spending a leisurely three to four minutes hurtling back down on his own.
The Ottawa wingsuit skydiver says he has made in the neighbourhood of 500 jumps so far, wearing an outfit that resembles a flying squirrel and, with Yu manoeuvring it like a human airfoil, reaching speeds that put cheetahs, NHL slapshots and even most automobiles to shame.
Clocking in at about 300 km/h, Yu flies 100 km/h faster than the terminal velocity he’d reach if he simply fell out of an airplane.
“I’m not going to say it’s a non-event,” he says of the sport’s inherent hazards, “because it happens. I don’t want to say it’s a dangerous sport, but it has risks.”
The 37-year-old engineering project manager is one of three wingsuit flyers — Edmonton’s Blair Egan and Asbestos, Que., native Nicolas Alie-Charland are the other two — who make up Canada’s national wingsuit team. The trio will compete against about 70 of the world’s best at the world championships, Nov. 2 to 9, in Florida.
Wingsuit skydiver Nicholas Yu prior to a jump from the Gatineau Executive Airport. Next month, Yu will compete in the world wingsuit championships in Florida.
“As a kid you just want to fly,” Yu says. “You look at a cloud and think, ‘That would be great.’ I’ve always liked air sports, like flying. Anything like that. It’s just a great feeling, even though you are falling. There’s much more horizontal.
“With regular parachutists,” he adds, “you get out a mile, maybe a mile-and-a-half at most, from the drop zone. But because I’m wingsuiting, I’ve jumped from Ontario (to the Gatineau Executive Airport) a number of times. We go three, four, five miles away. I’ve jumped from Orléans, over Orléans, over the river and all the way back here. You can go quite far.”
Yu, in fact, currently holds Canada’s record for wingsuit distance, soaring a little more than seven kilometres in a one-kilometre-high competitive “window.” The speeds, distances and times of competitive performance wingsuiters like Yu, as opposed to acrobatic wingsuiters, are measured once they descend to an elevation of 3,000 metres, or about 10,000 feet, and continue until they fall to 2,000 metres, or 6,500 feet.
Ottawa wingsuit flyer Nicholas Yu in the skies above Gatineau. Next month, Yu will compete in the world wingsuit championships in Florida.
Similar to wingsuit BASE-jumping, wingsuit skydiving has been around for a couple of decades, but was only officially recognized by the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale world governing body at the end of 2014. Last year, the Canadian Sport Parachuting Association took it under its administrative wing as an official sport.
Yu, meanwhile, made his first, regular, skydiving jump in 1998, when he was a student in Toronto. But the drop zone — from where the plane takes off and parachutists (hopefully) land — was more than a two-hour drive from the city, and it’s not an inexpensive pastime, so he abandoned the sport after a handful of jumps.
Four years ago, a friend encouraged him to take it up again, and he hasn’t stopped. He completed about 200 regular jumps before switching to wingsuit skydiving in 2014.
In performance wingsuit skydiving competitions, athletes are measured in three categories — time aloft, greatest speed and distance — over three separate jumps. Yu’s top speed is 290 km/h, although he’s hoping to break 300 in Florida. The world record is 312.8 km/h.
Yu describes the suits, which have air-filled webbing under the arms and between the legs, as glorified air mattresses. His Jedei-3 suit, which costs about $2,000 US, is “twitchy,” he says, meaning that the slightest movements of his feet, hands and head send him in different directions.
Next month, Ottawa wingsuit skydiver Nicholas Yu will compete in the world wingsuit championships in Florida.
And while he’s certainly heading to Florida with hopes of winning, it’s not the glory or records that keep him doing it. Part of his motivation is the fact that wingsuiting remains, at least in its nascent stages, a friendly sport.
“That’s what attracted me to it the most,” he says. “Everybody is so helpful. The top guys will sit and have a beer with you. There are a few egos out there, but for the most part it’s a super-relaxed sport. It’s a really good atmosphere. I could go to any drop zone and they’d be like ‘Hi. Let’s go for a jump.’ It’s a good sport.”
Then there’s the feeling he gets when he’s soaring, a Zen-like serenity that belies the sport’s speed and danger.
“Everyone says, ‘You must do it for the adrenaline,’” he says, “but it’s funny; I do it for the calm. When you get out of the plane, you’re focused. There’s nothing else going on. You are in the moment. Your only task at that moment is to fly as best you can and get safely to the ground. You’re concentrating on everything. You feel everything; you feel the wind going over you. But you tune out everything else.
“Obviously you get that adrenaline rush, but I find it peaceful. And it’s the closest thing to actually flying, especially when you cruise and carve around clouds.”
bdeachman@postmedia.com
查看原文...
The Ottawa wingsuit skydiver says he has made in the neighbourhood of 500 jumps so far, wearing an outfit that resembles a flying squirrel and, with Yu manoeuvring it like a human airfoil, reaching speeds that put cheetahs, NHL slapshots and even most automobiles to shame.
Clocking in at about 300 km/h, Yu flies 100 km/h faster than the terminal velocity he’d reach if he simply fell out of an airplane.
“I’m not going to say it’s a non-event,” he says of the sport’s inherent hazards, “because it happens. I don’t want to say it’s a dangerous sport, but it has risks.”
The 37-year-old engineering project manager is one of three wingsuit flyers — Edmonton’s Blair Egan and Asbestos, Que., native Nicolas Alie-Charland are the other two — who make up Canada’s national wingsuit team. The trio will compete against about 70 of the world’s best at the world championships, Nov. 2 to 9, in Florida.
Wingsuit skydiver Nicholas Yu prior to a jump from the Gatineau Executive Airport. Next month, Yu will compete in the world wingsuit championships in Florida.
“As a kid you just want to fly,” Yu says. “You look at a cloud and think, ‘That would be great.’ I’ve always liked air sports, like flying. Anything like that. It’s just a great feeling, even though you are falling. There’s much more horizontal.
“With regular parachutists,” he adds, “you get out a mile, maybe a mile-and-a-half at most, from the drop zone. But because I’m wingsuiting, I’ve jumped from Ontario (to the Gatineau Executive Airport) a number of times. We go three, four, five miles away. I’ve jumped from Orléans, over Orléans, over the river and all the way back here. You can go quite far.”
Yu, in fact, currently holds Canada’s record for wingsuit distance, soaring a little more than seven kilometres in a one-kilometre-high competitive “window.” The speeds, distances and times of competitive performance wingsuiters like Yu, as opposed to acrobatic wingsuiters, are measured once they descend to an elevation of 3,000 metres, or about 10,000 feet, and continue until they fall to 2,000 metres, or 6,500 feet.
Ottawa wingsuit flyer Nicholas Yu in the skies above Gatineau. Next month, Yu will compete in the world wingsuit championships in Florida.
Similar to wingsuit BASE-jumping, wingsuit skydiving has been around for a couple of decades, but was only officially recognized by the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale world governing body at the end of 2014. Last year, the Canadian Sport Parachuting Association took it under its administrative wing as an official sport.
Yu, meanwhile, made his first, regular, skydiving jump in 1998, when he was a student in Toronto. But the drop zone — from where the plane takes off and parachutists (hopefully) land — was more than a two-hour drive from the city, and it’s not an inexpensive pastime, so he abandoned the sport after a handful of jumps.
Four years ago, a friend encouraged him to take it up again, and he hasn’t stopped. He completed about 200 regular jumps before switching to wingsuit skydiving in 2014.
In performance wingsuit skydiving competitions, athletes are measured in three categories — time aloft, greatest speed and distance — over three separate jumps. Yu’s top speed is 290 km/h, although he’s hoping to break 300 in Florida. The world record is 312.8 km/h.
Yu describes the suits, which have air-filled webbing under the arms and between the legs, as glorified air mattresses. His Jedei-3 suit, which costs about $2,000 US, is “twitchy,” he says, meaning that the slightest movements of his feet, hands and head send him in different directions.
Next month, Ottawa wingsuit skydiver Nicholas Yu will compete in the world wingsuit championships in Florida.
And while he’s certainly heading to Florida with hopes of winning, it’s not the glory or records that keep him doing it. Part of his motivation is the fact that wingsuiting remains, at least in its nascent stages, a friendly sport.
“That’s what attracted me to it the most,” he says. “Everybody is so helpful. The top guys will sit and have a beer with you. There are a few egos out there, but for the most part it’s a super-relaxed sport. It’s a really good atmosphere. I could go to any drop zone and they’d be like ‘Hi. Let’s go for a jump.’ It’s a good sport.”
Then there’s the feeling he gets when he’s soaring, a Zen-like serenity that belies the sport’s speed and danger.
“Everyone says, ‘You must do it for the adrenaline,’” he says, “but it’s funny; I do it for the calm. When you get out of the plane, you’re focused. There’s nothing else going on. You are in the moment. Your only task at that moment is to fly as best you can and get safely to the ground. You’re concentrating on everything. You feel everything; you feel the wind going over you. But you tune out everything else.
“Obviously you get that adrenaline rush, but I find it peaceful. And it’s the closest thing to actually flying, especially when you cruise and carve around clouds.”
bdeachman@postmedia.com
查看原文...
