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Witness History

The invention of the wingsuit

Witness History

BBC

History, Personal Journals, Society & Culture

4.41.6K Ratings

🗓️ 3 January 2024

⏱️ 10 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The wingsuit is the ultimate in extreme sports clothing. The aerodynamic outfit allows base jumpers and skydivers to free-fall for longer before opening a parachute.

The road to creating it was littered with casualties, but in 1999 skydivers Jari Kuosma and Robert Pecnik developed the first commercial wingsuits.

In 2019, Jari told Jonathan Coates how exciting, but also how dangerous they can be.

(Photo: Jari in his wingsuit. Credit: BBC)

Transcript

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0:00.0

Does talking to strangers make you happier?

0:04.4

Could aging disgracefully help you live longer?

0:07.8

I'm Dr. Michael Mosley and in my Just One Long Thing podcast series I'll be chatting to doctors and scientists

0:15.1

we'll be covering topics like sleep exercise happiness and staying young with each

0:20.6

of our experts choosing a health hack they claim is the single most effective way you can improve your life.

0:27.0

Just one long thing. Listen first on BBC Sounds. You're listening to the Witness History Podcast from the BBC World Service.

0:41.0

We're going back to the early 90s and the creation of the first commercial

0:45.0

wing suit. It's an aerodynamic outfit that allows skydivers and bass jumpers to

0:51.0

glide through the air before finally opening their parachute.

0:55.0

In 2019 Jonathan Coates spoke to the inventor, Yari Kuzma.

1:00.0

You feel that you can keep on flying and keep on flying and keep on flying.

1:06.2

People get this feeling that they can keep on flying.

1:09.8

While in reality we are always falling, we are just gliding and you cannot keep flying forever.

1:17.0

There will be a point when you need to open the parachute,

1:20.0

but the feeling is that almost that you don't meet you. You really feel like you're flying.

1:25.0

That's a sensation. So you feel like a bird.

1:28.0

Meet Yari Kuzma. He's exactly what you'd want from a daredevil.

1:32.0

His black hair stands on end like he's just stepped out of a wind tunnel and he has a glint in his eye.

1:37.0

He first came up with the idea of making a wing suit in 1997.

1:41.0

We were standing on a 600-meter cliff Arco, Italy, and there was an Italian base jumper who told me the story of Patrick de Gardon, a famous French skydavaro flying away from that cliff and gliding 28 seconds before opening the parachute

1:56.4

and that's when I got the light ball with my head at wing suit.

2:00.5

That's what I want to do.

...

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