A collaboration between BMW i, Designworks (creative consultant and design studio owned by BMW) and Peter Salzmann (BASE jumper and Austrian skydiver) resulted in the addition of two electric thrusters to a wingsuit, or wingsuit, to fly faster and also more time — it's the first electrified wingsuit.
The carbon fiber impellers rotate at approximately 25,000 rpm, each powered by an electric motor with 7.5 kW (10 hp). The structure that supports them is like “hanging” in front of the skydiver's trunk. Being electric, the engines are powered by a battery that guarantees five minutes of energy.
It seems little, but it's enough to increase speed to over 300 km/h and even gain altitude.
Something we can see in this test, where Peter Salzmann is dropped from a helicopter at 3000 m altitude, passes over the top of two mountains and then turns on the electrified wingsuit thrusters to pass the third mountain, higher than the other two:
It took three years to make the electrified wingsuit a reality — with a lot of time spent in a wind tunnel — starting from an original idea by Salzmann himself.
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