iStockphoto / Mikhail Blavatskiy
Staying in the air while wingsuit flying requires an individual to keep their arms outstretched like a flying squirrel would in order to spread the suit out and capture as much wind shear as possible.
Renowned wingsuit flyer Jo Hannes who uploads his videos to his JoHannes / Wingsuit YouTube channel struggled to do exactly that during what he’s calling his ‘most brutal fight ever’ recently on the 4491 meter (14,734 foot) Täschhorn peak in the Swiss Alps. Just getting up to the peak took 9 hours of climbing! They also spent a night at the Mischabeljoch bivouac before flying back down.
In the video’s description, JoHannes explains why this went sideways and the time stamps he calls out are worth remembering because you’ll soon recognize how this wingsuit flight gets VERY intense at times. He writes ” after 40 seconds of flying, my arms got really tired so I couldn’t hold the glide and had to fly steeper. Unfortunately, it is not getting much better and it is becoming a serious problem as I can hardly feel my fingers.”
So keep an eye out for around 40 seconds after he starts flying:
For me, it’s was around 2:47 that I really started to get concerned that I might be about to unwittingly watch someone plow into a mountain. He was getting DANGEROUSLY close to the rockface on whatever peak that was around that time stamp.
Thankfully, he was able to make it to the bottom safely and wrote that there was a cold beer waiting for him on the ground. He added that he doesn’t know what happened to his arms but speculated perhaps it was because of the heavy bag or the altitude. All’s well that ends well!