Costyn

Hehe sounds like you had a lot of fun. So tell me, how does this side flying stuff work? I mean, what do you do with your arms & legs to fly in a stable position on your side? Seems like thats the only surface area that I haven't seen people fly stable yet. Tell me more.

Perhaps some altimeter device could be integrated with these goggles featuring a head up display: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4626823.stm#update3 pretty cool tech. Even the builtin compass would be useful, I think. Cheers, Costyn. Costyn van Dongen - http://www.flylikebrick.com/ - World Wide Wingsuit News

I haven't tried them personally, but they are sold here in the Netherlands, and I've talked to some people who've used them. They are quite expensive compared to a bag of regular rubber bands. The theory is that they are tough and durable and that they should last you a whole season of jumping. In practice however, the people I talked to said they didn't really last that much longer than regular rubber bands, and so weren't really worth the price. They get notches and small rips the same way rubber bands do, and eventually will shear and break. So, their recommendation was to buy a bag of good quality rubber bands. Use the rubber bands with the highest percentage of rubber you can find. BTW we're talking about these right? http://www.unfeathered.com/silibands1.html Cheers Costyn van Dongen - http://www.flylikebrick.com/ - World Wide Wingsuit News

Well some of the important things are: - hidden bridle: you want as little as possible of your bridle exposed to the outside. Optimally it should be routed under flaps & things. Velcro'd to the rig is not recommended. - Good riser covers: you don't want your risers exposed to the relative wind either. - A good BOC pocket. The spandex should be tight so your pilot can't slip out. This is true for any discipline of course, but with the higher speeds in freefly a premature opening can be very nasty. - Some people say you should have a pillows for cutaway and a pillow for your reserve deployment. Opinions vary. in freeflying you get into more weird positions and someone might accidentally hook their foot, hand under your reserve handle. Personally I think you'd have to get into a seriously weird collision for this to happen, but it's probably happened to someone before. - And in general find something with as little velcro as possible. It wears out and the hooks part can wear out webbing and other materials on your rig. I'm sure there will be more suggestions. Perhaps check out the gear and rigging forum as well; I'm sure this question has been asked before. Good luck! Costyn van Dongen - http://www.flylikebrick.com/ - World Wide Wingsuit News

Damn dude... 66th jump and already a stable sit eh? Nice work! nice pics too,btw.

I feel I should be able to reach 2 minutes with my classic II from 12k, but I'm still 10 seconds short (and have been on several jumps). So my stats: Suit: Classic II Alti: 12k - 3k Time: 110 secs Avg speed: 54 mph (as reported by ProTrack) Weight: 83kg; 180 pounds (with no gear) Height: 183 cm; 6' have about 50 birdman jumps on the suit now. Cheers! Costyn van Dongen - http://www.flylikebrick.com/ - World Wide Wingsuit News

I think he means turbine. My home DZ has a 206 with turbine conversion too (http://www.soloy.com/206one.html); 420 HP doens't suck! I think it does about 1200 feet per minute with 6 jumpers. Of course, the time getting into the plane to finally being able to get out is about 20 minutes, like Jarno said. What times are you used to, Tonto, for a 206 turbine? Cheers Costyn van Dongen - http://www.flylikebrick.com/ - World Wide Wingsuit News

Yeah, I've seen that on some atmonauti DVD as well. A whole bunch of people doing atmonauti around someone in a birdman suit. It was so busy around the wingsuit that it wasn't really clear if there was someone sitting rodeo style on the birdman. But I'm guessing there had to be, to increase the fall rate of the birdman (or he was wearing lead). This was actually what we had planned in our original dive. Combining atmonauti with birdman. Except that our formation flew too well, had too much lift for anyone without a wingsuit to keep up with. :-) Costyn van Dongen - http://www.flylikebrick.com/ - World Wide Wingsuit News

Thanks for the responses. I'll give the manifest a call later today. Cheers! Costyn van Dongen - http://www.flylikebrick.com/ - World Wide Wingsuit News

Hi all, Sorry if this is perhaps not the appropriate place. If not, moderators please delete this thread. I'm trying to get in touch with the guys from the freefly mega center concering the freefly tunnel camps they give. I've tried sending emails to both the freeflytunnelcamp.com and freeflymegacenter.com but haven't gotten a response (I've waited a week). I thought some of them might lurk here and so this is a heads up to check their email once in a while. Or perhaps some of their RW coach buddies who read this can give them a heads up. Sorry if this message is inappropriate. There is no phone number listed on either website; I guess if this doesn't work I'll try the Perris manifest. Cheers! Costyn van Dongen - http://www.flylikebrick.com/ - World Wide Wingsuit News

A friend of mine was there and snapped a pic of the wingsuit in flight (see attachment). Its not very detailed, unfortunately. I'm not sure what the zoom sequence on the insets is either.

Okay, while we're on the subject, I have a similar question but a little more specific than Nikolaj. I wanted to ask: I'm considering exchanging my current BM Classic to something with some more wing area. Now both the S3 and the V1 look very interesting. I have about 50 or 60 jumps on the classic (and some jumps on a S1 and a S3). I'm not sure which one to pick. I've heard good things about the V1 and I really like the design and look of it, but others say there's not really that much difference compared to the S3 in flying characteristics. I love flying for long periods of time, so a low descent rate is more important than a high forward speed (yes, I read the links posted earlier and the articles on the PF website about sink rates and glide ratios - very informative, thanks!). Of course it'll be hard to get a straight answer out of all you BMI's and PFI's. Cheers. Costyn van Dongen - http://www.flylikebrick.com/ - World Wide Wingsuit News

Heheh ... sounds like fun. Gonna have to try some of these ideas some time. Costyn van Dongen - http://www.flylikebrick.com/ - World Wide Wingsuit News

This looks awesome. Especially the guy flying down the hill... Although I'd rather have a chute over my head of course. Too bad I'm no good at skateboarding, skating, skiing, iceskating, or any of the other sports they show in the demo video... My guess is you have to be fairly proficient at these sports before you can take one of these wings along. Very cool concept though. Costyn van Dongen - http://www.flylikebrick.com/ - World Wide Wingsuit News

Here's a fun jump I did 2 weeks ago I did with a friend. I was flying the suit and Mark was on my back. These are screenshots from the video. I would post the video, but the cameraman wasn't wearing a wingsuit, so we quickly lost him after our little formation started flying. :-) And so there's not a lot of good footage. The plan was that the cameraman would be doing atmonauti on his back, and be able to keep up with us, but that wasn't really possible. In the first few pictures we're still almost head down, but later it levels off and the formation really flies. My pro-track said something around 80 to 90 mph. It was stable too, we weren't rolling forward or anything. It got too overcast later and so we weren't able to get enough altitude to try the jump again that day. Yeah, my posture wasn't that good, but I was concentrating more on keeping it level. It was silly and we had a good laugh. So I wanted to share this crazy formation with you all. Cheers. Costyn van Dongen - http://www.flylikebrick.com/ - World Wide Wingsuit News

I just ordered a [url=http://www.sonicairwear.com/]Sonic[/url] 2 piece suit, so the pants & jacket. The nice thing is that you can use the pants only if you're making a fun jump in a t-shirt and the pants. Another thing is that you can take off the jacket after jumping on a hot day. Of course you could also take off the top and tie the arms around your waist on a regular suit, but this is easier I think. If the suit is well made, the jacket should extend well below the waistline of the pants. Some of them have longer flaps on the side, which sit beneath your hip rings and leg straps, so they should never come out. Personally I think I'll like the 2 piece suit. Costyn van Dongen - http://www.flylikebrick.com/ - World Wide Wingsuit News

Hey Loic, Great DVD. I ordered it a week ago and got it several days later in the mail. It got here really fast! I've watched it many times already. Very cool stuff, everything. I was wondering, did the guy under the PD canopy in Verbier following the snowboarder (on the really really steep slope) not have a camera with him? There is no footage from his point of view, which I thought would have been really cool (similar to the stuff on Team Extreme's 'Out of the Blue' DVD). Thanks for a great 45 minutes of entertainment! Cheers, Costyn. Costyn van Dongen - http://www.flylikebrick.com/ - World Wide Wingsuit News

Hi, Maybe you haven't heard of the bittorrent protocol. Its a (free, spyware free) swarming download plugin for your browser. This saves a lot of bandwidth as everyone who downloads the file helps eachother, and the load on the server is a lot less. Perhaps it'd be something to try with the movies. Check it out: http://bitconjurer.org/BitTorrent/introduction.html Cheers, Costyn (fellow birdman since yesterday ) Costyn van Dongen - http://www.flylikebrick.com/ - World Wide Wingsuit News

I've seen it. Its pretty cool. There's a lot of base stuff, some very nice wingsuit flying, and a lot of crazy stunts with parasails. How about a head down tandem? Crazy I say.

Weird, it was working a couple weeks ago. What I don't understand either is why don't keep the old site up while they're making the new one. This is very unprofessional. I'm guessing they're having major problems with their new system and can't get the old running again... Anyways, at least they have links to order forms for their helmets. Cheers! Costyn van Dongen - http://www.flylikebrick.com/ - World Wide Wingsuit News

Very cool trailer. I will certainly be getting the full film, if it comes out on DVD (I have no video player ). Anyways, for future download, you could consider using BitTorrent. Its great for when hosting a large file which a lot of people will be downloading. You won't need any mirrors any more. Its basically a system where the downloaders help eachother get all the parts to the file. It works very well, and has gained a lot of popularity the past year. My download went pretty well (50 KB/sec) on my ADSL line, but with BitTorrent, on a popular file I usually max out my connection (80 KB/sec). And the load on the server/internet connection is a lot less. Cheers, Costyn. Costyn van Dongen - http://www.flylikebrick.com/ - World Wide Wingsuit News

I tried hard with various network sniffing tools like tcpdump to see what the macromedia flash application was getting from the web (where it was getting the movie), but I couldn't figure it out. Sorry. Maybe there's other network nerds around who can figure this one out? Edited to add: Ehmm... okay... I did manage to find a link. Ethereal to the rescue: http://www.aria.bz/fotos_swf/sebastian/video1.swf Its still a flash movie, so you'll have to watch it in your browser, but you can right click on this link, and select 'save as...' and then save it to your HD, for later watching. Have fun. It is indeed a very impressive movie. These guys have amazing control.

Okay, while I can't spot any flaws in your logic, from my own experience I can say I definitely need a lot less flare on windy days. I can land softly pulling my toggles down to only half brakes. On windless days, I need some flare to level my canopy off and some more to finally stop. So whats up with that? Cheers, Costyn. Costyn van Dongen - http://www.flylikebrick.com/ - World Wide Wingsuit News

Sorry, I gave the impression that this system was installed on my rig. It is not. They describe it in their manual as option for their rigs, so I was just curious how their system works. Yes, it would certainly be dangerous to use equipment while not knowing how it works. Cheers, Costyn. Costyn van Dongen - http://www.flylikebrick.com/ - World Wide Wingsuit News

In what way, Bill? I have a Parafun Advance (a very nice rig, btw), and they mention they have something which has the same functionality as the skyhook in the manual. I was never able to ascertain just exactly how it functions. They don't provide any documentation on the web either. And I forgot to ask my rigger about it last time... Cheers, Costyn. Costyn van Dongen - http://www.flylikebrick.com/ - World Wide Wingsuit News