Costyn

True, especially since many of these early birdmen weren't wearing a BASE rig & chute to slow themselves down. Pretty brave guys. Costyn van Dongen - http://www.flylikebrick.com/ - World Wide Wingsuit News

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W.T.F... "leaping off towers, castles, cliffs" sounds like BASE jumping to me. yeah, it might have been more dangerous than BASE jumping is now, but no way that is still the case... oh well... I guess whuffo's think we're all crazy anyways, no matter what we do up in the air. Costyn van Dongen - http://www.flylikebrick.com/ - World Wide Wingsuit News

Nice video! I like the visuals starting at 1:15. Very cool! Cheers, Costyn. Costyn van Dongen - http://www.flylikebrick.com/ - World Wide Wingsuit News

Here's Babelfish's attempt at translation: High Tech wing You can at least make out what they're trying to say.

When you get a reply, please share with us. The S3S has lots of ribs too and is quite packjob. I usually make sure that all ribs are flat, fold it in half lengthwise, then again at the waist, then roll it up and put it into the bag. That is of course what I *would* do if I were to take my wingsuit out of my rig, which I don't, because that's blasphemy. Costyn van Dongen - http://www.flylikebrick.com/ - World Wide Wingsuit News

I've done quite a number of ws jumps out of a 206, and I find the most comfortable place to sit is in the rear, behind the pilot seat (left of the plane). In the 206 I jumped from, I could stretch my legs underneath the bar (that is there to prevent people from sitting too far back). It's quite comfortable and people don't really mind; you dont' really get in the way on exits, although you will get some rigs in your face as people maneuver around for the exit.

Haha damn that does sound like fun and now I wanna see video of it! (and try it myself of course) I've never seen much in the way of tricks with yaw, except that Jarno sometimes flies with a slight yaw towards the person he is flying next to... If you look at the attached picture, Jarno (red S3) is not closing in on Darren (red & blue Phantom), not about to crash, but flying the same direction as Darren, only he seems to be slightly sideways, drifting I guess you can call it. Funny thing is he doesn't do it consciously.

In Soul Flyers 2 Loic does some pretty flat turns when he's wingsuiting along the cliff edges. But then again it is a monowing, which I've heard does those flat turns a lot easier. That particular part of Soul Flyers is online at Skydiving Movies, but I don't remember what it was called (I'm guessing someone will post a link). I must say I've never tried doing a turn the way you describe but it sounds plausible. Flat turns are something I still need to work on. Cheers. Costyn van Dongen - http://www.flylikebrick.com/ - World Wide Wingsuit News

Heheh, chemistry is a lot harder than computer science is you ask me, so thanks for the compliment. Well, since you have already figured out Premiere and Photoshop and things like that (which are pretty damn complicated), this shouldn't be too hard for you; no programming required, I promise.

Hehe yeah it's pretty easy, especially if you have some experience with mucking about with video files. And with all my IT degrees I already did the hard part, calculating lots of statistics from 2 coordinates and an elevation. The tool I use to convert from GPX to SRT (subtitle files) I put online here. The instructions for multiplexing it with video data are there too. However, during testing with some different GPX tools, I encountered some bugs. The tool is not that robust yet. Unfortunately I do not have that much time at the moment to thoroughly debug and test it. Any other people with Perl programming experience out there? Cheers, Costyn. Costyn van Dongen - http://www.flylikebrick.com/ - World Wide Wingsuit News

Actually, it might take shorter interval tracklogs at slower speeds, to make sure it doesn't miss turns at slow speeds. If you think about it, you want longer intervals at higher speeds because the heading is not likely to change very abrubtly. So, for the highest resolution, you should use perhaps the setting for walking? Anyways, this is all very speculative. I suggest you go out for a walk with the device. In the first 5 minutes, you set it to one setting, and in the second 5 minutes you set it to another setting, then go back home and see how far apart the trackpoints are in the tracklog. If you use a program that produces GPX files, you can open them with a text editor and look at the differences in time stamps. Cheers, Costyn van Dongen - http://www.flylikebrick.com/ - World Wide Wingsuit News

I finally got round to uploading the complete video of the flight Jarno and I made out to sea in April. There were pieces included in the above linked video, but I had GPS data on this jump as well, which I overlayed onto the video. Thought you guys might enjoy it. Here ya go: http://www.skydivingmovies.com/ver2/pafiledb.php?action=file&id=4202 Cheers, Costyn. Costyn van Dongen - http://www.flylikebrick.com/ - World Wide Wingsuit News

Can you change the resolution anywhere? I think the foretrex has different resolutions for track recording, such as 'low', 'medium' etc. There's is also 'custom' where you can specify the number of seconds you want between trackpoints. Oh and where are you mounting the GPS? The most ideal location is on top of your helmet, but this is not really practical. A good location I found is just on your hand. I've mounted it to my altimeter strap, and it gets good coverage there. Cheers, Costyn. Costyn van Dongen - http://www.flylikebrick.com/ - World Wide Wingsuit News

Some tips: - Make sure you have the 1 second intervals set for recording. - Turn it on before you board the plane, have it get a fix. The longer it is without a satellite fix, the longer it will take to get a new fix once you leave the plane. - During the flight, try to not sit beneath the wings; this is definitely the worst place. Sit near the pilot (ideal in a caravan for example) or in the rear of the plane near the door. In many cases it will get a fix (not to high accuracy) but it won't take as long to start recording data once you leave the plane. - Turn track recording on at 11K (if you're leaving at 12K). This makes it easier to interpret the data later, if you don't have all the data from climbing to altitude. - If the GPS doesn't have a fix as you are about to exit, if at all possible, wait for 10 or 15 seconds by the door, facing the GPS outwards and let it get a fix before you exit. Good luck! Costyn van Dongen - http://www.flylikebrick.com/ - World Wide Wingsuit News

Unless otherwise noted by a special license (like a Creative Commons license), pictures (and other artistic works) are automatically copyright by the people who made them. So even if they have no copyright symbol on them or accompanying them, they are still copyrighted by the authors, and usually people will be ok if you just include their name by the picture. However, with larger resolutions, you are getting into murky water, because high quality pictures can be used and misused, for example by having them printed on postcards or magazines without an attribution. What I am describing is basically what the Creative Commons license Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 is (it sounds more complicated than it is - see the link). But like I said, if you want to be correct about it, you have to ask the author/cameraman for every picture you use on your website (even if you use it as background art or whatever). The internet has made it easy to use other people's images, but the fact that it is easy does not make it legal. The due dilligence in this matter is yours. You have to contact the author to ask for permission, not the other way around. The author might never find your picture on your website and this would be unfair. I understand that no harm was meant, but I'm just trying to warn you that there will be people that will be angry at you posting their high resolution pictures on your website without their name next to it. Even worse, when someone finds their pictures in a commercial magazine without themselves being paid for it. Kind regards, Costyn. Costyn van Dongen - http://www.flylikebrick.com/ - World Wide Wingsuit News

You seem to collect a lot of pictures and videos from various places and post them to your website? Some of them without attribution? I don't think this is fair to the original photographers and, in the case of video, the creators and camerapeople of the videos? Although 99% of the people probably wont object, it might be nice to ask their permission to host it on your site first... Cheers, Costyn. Costyn van Dongen - http://www.flylikebrick.com/ - World Wide Wingsuit News

Holy crap yeah that's nice, especially the shot at the end. It's Icarus Canopies' Team Extreme (Jim Slaton, JC Colclasure, etc) flying the canopies. Costyn van Dongen - http://www.flylikebrick.com/ - World Wide Wingsuit News

But what if the wingsuits are not following their pattern? What if the pattern was all messed up after a tumble during exit (people losing their orientation) or a wingsuiter with low experience making a mistake or someone unfamiliar with the area gets lost. All these things can happen, and in these cases, tandems could be passing by/through wingsuiters. I don't see any problem with the wingsuiters getting out last and waiting a good while; besides its more fun, flying mostly straight back, instead of a pattern. Cheers Costyn van Dongen - http://www.flylikebrick.com/ - World Wide Wingsuit News

Latest news is that Jari Kuosma will also be joining the fun on Texel! Costyn van Dongen - http://www.flylikebrick.com/ - World Wide Wingsuit News

Ah great idea! Although the opening is something that you should have right from the start (be taught during your ff course), indeed some people still do not open symmetrically many jumps later. Cheers Costyn van Dongen - http://www.flylikebrick.com/ - World Wide Wingsuit News

We had some exemplary students, it was a nice day. I dunno what's up with your video Scott, maybe you should download it again. I've tried it, and it plays perfectly. Yeah, and they can be used as flotation devices in case of an emergency water landing. Cheers, Costyn. Costyn van Dongen - http://www.flylikebrick.com/ - World Wide Wingsuit News

Dude... how many times have you flown with Haygarth? Come on man, that's not very nice. It's David Haygarth from the United States of England. Costyn van Dongen - http://www.flylikebrick.com/ - World Wide Wingsuit News

[replyHowever the skill set required to compete in these events is not there yet within wingsuiting. Why hold an event that no one is capable of doing? The thing to remember is "yet". Scott, great post. Very informative and insightful. I agree with you and I think we should wait until it pans out a bit. Like in freefly, it was quite a number of years before serious competative events were being held, right? Maybe we should let the same thing happen for wingsuiting; let it mature for a while. At any rate, I am curious to hear what sort of competition events you have thought out, for which there aren't enough skilled people yet for them to take place? Perhaps you don't want to elaborate just yet, but well, no harm in asking, right? Cheers, Costyn. Costyn van Dongen - http://www.flylikebrick.com/ - World Wide Wingsuit News

It's a great story definitely. Is the book no longer copyrighted? Not that I really care if you post it here, but to enjoy it to the fullest, go out and buy the paperback. The other books by Richard Bach are really great too; many of them are flying related and I think wingsuiters will enjoy them. Costyn van Dongen - http://www.flylikebrick.com/ - World Wide Wingsuit News