Team Acero developing jet wingsuit

Flying like superman has been a driving factor for many aeronautical engineering students to start their study program at Inholland in Delft. Particularly in the recent years this has become a viable option, mostly for dare-devil skydivers and extreme DIY aviators.

Since 2018 three students from the Innovation Studio have been developing multiple versions of a wingsuit with on-board gas turbines. This idea came from Jarno Cordia, a famous Dutch skydiver/basejumper with more then 20 years of experience. Cordia acquired two gasturbines and approached Inholland for an innovation project.

After 2 years of experimenting at Inholland Composites and a special wingsuit windtunnel in Sweden, Team Acero recently engineered the optimised design. Kai van Hoof, Bas van der Kaaden and Kristiana Sevastjanova (team Acero’s core members) are now preparing the new wings for the next iteration in windtunnel testing.

“Designing a wing seemed pretty straightforward, but in reality is not very different compared to designing an aeroplane. Understanding the loading profile on the wing and gasturbines and combining that with the best carbon fibre composite lay-up is very similar to how aeroplanes are build. The manufacturing of the wing is almost identical to the way wings for small aerobatic aeroplanes are build, so my aeronautical engineering education program in Delft is really useful for this development”

Kristiana Sevastjanova, manufacturing lead engineer.

During the experiments, team Acero got in touch with the Gravity, also well known for their unparalleled human flight. Gravity used last years windtunnel model from Acero for manned flight experiments and successfully tested the model on october 24, 2019. Team Acero and Gravity are now exploring options for extended collaboration.

Always chasing the boundaries and pushing the limits in human flight!#humanflight#testing#jetsuit#gravityindustries pic.twitter.com/xk0dguVeUW

— Gravity (@takeonGravity) October 24, 2019

Kai, Bas and Kristiana are now working with Jarno on the next iteration in validation and are preparing for the next round of windtunnel tests. This is scheduled for March 2020 and will take place again in Sweden. If you suddenly see a rocket man flying above you like superman, then you know which students and skydiver made that happen:-)

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