Wingsuit flying is the sport of flying the human body through the air using a special jumpsuit, called a wingsuit, which adds surface area to the human body to enable a significant increase in lift. Modern wingsuits, first developed in the late 1990s, create the surface area with fabric between the legs and under the arms. A wingsuit may be referred to as a birdman suit, flying squirrel suit, or bat suit.

A wingsuit flight normally ends with a parachute opening, so a wingsuit can be flown from any point that provides sufficient altitude to glide through the air, such as skydiving aircraft or BASE jumping exit points, and to allow a parachute to deploy.

The wingsuit flier wears parachute equipment designed for skydiving or BASE jumping. The flier deploys the parachute at a planned altitude and unzips the arm wings, if necessary, so they can reach up to the control toggles and fly to a normal parachute landing.

Wings were first used in the 1930s as an attempt to increase horizontal movement.^{[citation needed]} These early wingsuits were made of materials such as canvas, wood, silk, steel, and even whale bone. They were not very reliable. Some "birdmen", notably Clem Sohn and Leo Valentin, claimed to have glided for miles. The wingsuit was showcased in the 1969 movie The Gypsy Moths starring Burt Lancaster and Gene Hackman.

Jeb Corliss (born March 25, 1976 near Santa Fe, New Mexico) is a professional skydiver and BASE jumper. He has jumped from sites including Paris' Eiffel Tower, Seattle's Space Needle, and the Petronas Twin Towers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Jeb Corliss is co-founder of 3 Triple 7, a clothing label.

He was also the original host of the Discovery Channel series Stunt Junkies, appearing in 13 episodes, but was fired by Discovery as a result of his arrest (below).

On September 25, 2011 Corliss jumped out of a helicopter at 6,000 feet and glided through a 100-ft wide archway in Tianmen Mountain in Zhangjiajie, Hunan Province, China, landing with a parachute on a nearby bridge.

In April 2006, Jeb Corliss attempted to BASE jump off the observation deck of the Empire State Building, while wearing a camera, but was restrained by building security and arrested by the NYPD. As a result, Corliss received three years probation and 100 hours community service, which was at one point overturned by a Manhattan state judge on the basis that Corliss "was experienced and careful enough to jump off a building without endangering his own life or anyone else’s". This sentence was affirmed in January 2009. Corliss was later permanently banned from setting foot in the Empire State Building.

Roberta Mancino is an Italian skydiver, BASE jumper, wingsuit flyer and international model. She has participated in more than 7,000 skydives and won several awards and world records. She has gone on four skydives while completely naked, and on five occasions her parachute did not open in mid-jump. In 2010, Mancino was named the World's Sexiest Female Athlete by the magazine Men's Fitness.

Born in Italy, Mancino was 16 when she did her first modeling work for a magazine. She started skydiving in October 2001. Mancino convinced her best friend, a skydiver, to take her on a jump even though he encouraged her not to because it was too dangerous. She began to take it more seriously as a profession when people started asking her to coach them. Eventually, Mancino started participating in international competitions.

She regularly trains at the Skyventure XP Paraclete in North Carolina. Her parachute has malfunctioned five times though she was able to use the reserve. She has also made four jumps while completely naked for magazine photo shoots. In 2008, Mancino appeared on the Italian television program Le Iene with Marco Berry, jumping topless and demonstrating her freeflying and sit flying skills. Mancino met her boyfriend BASE jumper Jeb Corliss, in 2009 after he learned about her jumps and arranged to meet her. In 2009, after having made about 5,500 skydives, Mancino started BASE jumping along with Corliss. She performed in 115 BASE jumps (35 with wingsuit) between August 2009 and September 2011. Also inspired by Corliss, she began wingsuit flying, which involves jumping from an aircraft wearing a jumpsuit with webbed wings similar to a flying squirrel. This led to proximity flying, which is the flying of a wingsuit in close proximity to cliffs and trees during the flight, the jumper then deploys their parachute once they have moved a safe distance away from any hazards (similar to BASE jumping in this respect).