Austrian Red Bull athlete, Peter Salzmann, brought human flight a step closer to how birds fly, achieving a continuous soaring flight and gaining altitude, with the help of a revolutionary foil wing design. Above the volcanic cliffs of El Hierro in Spain’s Canary Islands, Salzmann used rising air currents along a mountain ridge to sustain a 160-second soaring run that included a 67-meter climb during his best ascent.
Wingsuit flying has traditionally been defined by continuous descent: pilots can glide forward, but gravity ensures they steadily lose altitude. To mimic birds, wingsuit pilots have had to use extremely strong winds of around 120 km/h. In El Hierro, however, Salzmann flew in much lower winds — around 40 km/h — gentle enough that paragliders could still fly alongside him.
Drawing inspiration from fixed wings in aviation and hydrofoiling, a custom foil wing was developed in partnership with Red Bull Advanced Technologies and Austrian wingsuit expert Andreas Podlipnik. The aim was to reduce descent rate and increase flight stability with a wing design that helps maximize lift and efficiency when paired with the suit. To reach that goal, the Red Bull Advanced Technologies aerodynamic team modelled real flight conditions using the same Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) and analysis tools applied in the design of the Red Bull Racing Formula 1 car.
During the flight, Salzmann completed multiple 180-degree turns while losing less than 200 meters of altitude overall. For context, a standard wingsuit flight would typically lose ten times more altitude during the same duration, underscoring the significance of Salzmann’s performance, and marking a shift from “falling with control” to “soaring with the wind.”
“I was able to pass a point, soar along the mountain, turn around and, after 40 seconds of flight, pass the same spot but higher,” says Salzmann. “I gained 67 meters of altitude along the ridgeline, which is crazy — that’s the height of a 22-storey building!” Salzmann is also the record holder for the world’s fastest wingsuit B.A.S.E jump.
At El Hierro, a location chosen for its strong, constant winds in combination with a mountain next to the ocean and a ridge perpendicular to the wind, Salzmann completed six passes along a 740-meter soaring section during his best flight, sometimes climbing, sometimes holding level, and sometimes descending. Staying close to the terrain to remain in the high-lift and compression zone required extreme precision, with very little margin for error. Combined with the added complexity of controlling both the wingsuit and the foil, the flight was truly a masterpiece of skill and innovation.
Images courtesy of Red Bull
