[magentabluesky]

Current state of the art wing suit performance is an L/D of 2.6/1 and a sink rate of 2700 feet per minute. Dean Potter (Rip) holds the longest verified WiSBASE jump of 4.7 miles (7.5 kilometers) while Andy Stumpf set the absolute distance from an aircraft (Altitude 36,500 feet) of 18.257 miles.

World Record Breaking Wingsuit Flight

So the question is whether the current state of the art wing suit performance is capable of sustaining soaring flight? To answer that question, the answer is in this question: are there natural weather phenomenons that yield more than 2700 feet per minute lift? The answer is yes. Mountain Wave around the world produce workable (for a wing suit) lift in excess of 2700 feet per minute.

26 Knot Mountain Wave

So if a wing suit pilot is dropped in a mountain wave with greater than 2700 feet per minute lift the wing suit pilot would be able to maintain his/her altitude or gain altitude while covering distance over the ground which should easily break Andy Stumpf’s record of 18.257.

Dropping a wing suit pilot in a mountain wave should easily double or triple the distance record. I believe 100 kilometers or 100 miles is doable with a wing suit.

[Rick Masters]

Interesting idea.
Being frozen to the marrow should help keep the wings open after he dies of oxygen depravation.

[Bill Cummings]

Interesting idea.
Being frozen to the marrow should help keep the wings open after he dies of oxygen depravation.

[Rick Masters]

Seriously. My brother-in-law was an emergency room nurse in Albuquerque in 1980 when an ambulance brought in a dead hang glider pilot. His marrow was frozen. He'd been sucked up into a huge thunderhead, the highest of that year, in an ill-advised launch off Sandia. Around 50,000 foot cloud tops. He was last seen circling up under the cloud. It was Darwinian. His broken glider had come down ten miles upwind of the thunderhead in someone's backyard. He'd died inside the cloud, most likely from oxygen depravation, because he'd obviously been in it for a long, long time.

I mean, try to freeze your leg to the marrow.
There's formulas for that. I forget.
Something like 50 degrees below zero for 30 minutes with massive wind chill.