Nicholas Yu says it’s the closest he can come to flying without an aircraft.
“Especially when there are clouds around,” he says. “You do feel like a bird, that you can just soar and carve through the air. It’s a good feeling.”
The Ottawa man is talking about wingsuiting – skydiving with a special suit that allows the wearer to glide and maneuver through the air in ways previously unimagined. From his training base at GO Skydive at the airport in Gatineau, Yu can travel ten times farther than a typical skydiver before returning to the ground. “On some of my jumps I can get out over toward the city, fly down the river, then fly back to the drop zone all on my own steam,” says Yu.
“You feel like Superman. You feel like you can fly around. It’s great.”
The secret is in the specially-designed suit, with “wings” that extend between the arms and the torso, and between the legs. They contain special pockets that fill up with air during flight, creating semi-rigid one-man glider. “It actually kind of takes the shape of an airfoil. That’s how we’re able to generate the lift,” says Yu.
To get a small taste of what it’s like, I tagged along on a training jump at GO Skydive. Co-owner Martin Sévigny was kind enough to take me on my first-ever tandem jump. (Using a wingsuit was out of the question. Skydivers need to complete 200 basic jumps before they can even try one.)
I can tell you our vertical free-fall was incredibly exhilarating. I can only imagine how much more fun it would be with the ability to glide along the way.
Wingsuiting has been around for a few years now, but only recently has it become an organized sport. Nicholas Yu is one of three wingsuiters preparing to represent Canada at the World Championships in Florida in November.
Competitors vie to see who can glide the farthest, who can stay in the air the longest, and who can travel the fastest. Yu says he’s hoping to hit a mind-boggling 300 kilometres an hour before he has to open his parachute.
And if that’s not flying, it’s pretty darn close.
