Just One Fix

[Kris 0]

Holyyyyyy shit!
Okay, here's the dealio. I ordered a BirdMan suit having never even tried one before. I came close at Rantoul but was just shy of the needed jumps to try it at the convention.

I was ready to write off ever getting to try one, but seeing the responses on this forum, and talking to people who have done it...I just had to know what was so amazingly life-changing about the whole deal.

In mid-Sept, I ordered a custom GTi and began the waiting game. UPS dropped my suit off at my office Thursday of last week. I knew it was going to be bad the second I realized that I couldn't take my eyes off of it. Sigh...I was the grown 31 year old man that was running around his office in my purple & silver BM suit two days back. To say I got some strange looks would be an understatement in the extreme.

Cut to today. I made it out to the DZ about noon. The winds on the ground were calm but from 3K on up they were honking along at 40-50 knots.

I jump at a fairly small DZ and there were only a couple of people there who had seen an actual suit in the flesh. Questions abounded.

I did a couple of dives before putting it on, doing nothing but practicing the deployment & wave-off, and doing a little tracking. Then it came time to finally put the suit on. I got it rigged up around my container harness and off we went.

A couple of buddies tagged along and decided they were going to see if they could hang with me. I let them know I wouldn't be tracking much as I would be practicing deployments but they were welcome to come along & stay the hell out of my way.

So, out the side of the C-205 I went. There is no step, just the factory foot-hold & the wheel. I decided not to tempt fate so I gave one last check to my zippers, cables, & handles, then put both feet out the door with me facing the tail.

I've done this exit several times, I just tuck my feet up, put my arms forward, and I'm always stable. Not this time. I saw ground - sky - ground - sky -ground. I immediately arched and collapsed an arm-wing and was flipped back over where I needed to be. I did a quick scan to find where everyone was then I did three practice pulls with great stability.

Buoyed by the fact that I wasn't dead yet, I decided to try flying this thing. I pointed myself 90 degrees from jump-run and started tightening the leg-wing & arm-wings and rolled my shoulders forward. Then things got eerie. The sound changed. It got a little quieter. The wind changed too, it was more in front of me than below me.

We got out a bit long (2.5mi), even with the 50k uppers, so when I came around for the turn onto my down-wind leg I took it a bit wider and started heading for the DZ on a bit of a diagonal. At 6K I relaxed my arms and shoulders and got ready to pull. 5K comes so I wave off with my heels and bring both arms back to deploy. Shit got ugly...fast. I started dipping onto my right side so I immediately popped back out into full flight, took a breath, planted a smile on my face to relax, and tried again. I closed my leg wing, launched the PC, brought my arms in by my suit handles, then I bent my knees to sit myself up as soon as I felt line-stretch.

My Stiletto opened on-heading and quite gently. Not even a turn. I then noticed I was about 1/2 mile ahead of the pack who had been tracking for the DZ from the get-go and they had been under canopy for a while as I was stowing my slider at 4300'. I was already undoing the wing-zippers as soon as the slider started coming down the lines. However, the leg zippers were a bitch. I couldn't get them. I was able to get the snaps un-done but I couldn't feel the tab on the zipper with my gloves on. I ended up having to chop the leg-wing via the LQRS but was able to get my feet out of the booties to run out my landing.

Lessons learned: SkymonkeyONE said it best....come deployment time, your shit had better be switched on & ready. Because of the problem I had the first time I tried to deploy, and also because I was also sliding a bit from side to side during flight, my next jump will be another drill-dive until I get relaxed a bit more.

For the leg wing, I'm taking a wide pullup cord I have and I'm replacing the little zipper tab on each leg zip with it. I'm also putting a big knot in the end so I can feel it with gloves on.

This shit is simply amazing. Unfortunately Sunday will be here with winds 20-30, gusting to 45 and a high temp of 45....with 1500' ceilings.

Sigh....I'll have to wait until next weekend for my next hit.

My final numbers were 45 seconds from 9600' to 4800'. My speed ranged from a low of 74 (for about 3 seconds), an average bouncing between 80-90, with a high of 116 while I was tumbling on the exit.

Not bad for a 5'8, 235# Messican bowling ball on a first flight.

Sky, Muff Bro, Rodriguez Bro, and
Bastion of Purity and Innocence!™

[LouDiamond 1]

DAMN! A flying bowling ball, what next? Way to go brutha. I knew you would eventually do it, I saw it in your eyes at WFFC Welcome to the FLOCK

"It's just skydiving..additional drama is not required"
Some people dream about flying, I live my dream
SKYMONKEY PUBLISHING

[skybytch 273]

[jceman 1]

Faster horses, younger women, older whiskey, more money.

Why do they call it "Tourist Season" if we can't shoot them?

[kevin922 0]

so what did you do for training? Glad you made it out okay :) suit looks nice. flock on!

Kevin