ManBird

Good call. "¯"`-._.-¯) ManBird (¯-._.-´"¯" Click

Where's the love? "¯"`-._.-¯) ManBird (¯-._.-´"¯" Click

Complacency kills. Last time I was at the potato bridge, I experienced a sensation I've heard described to me before. You're taking pictures and after everyone exits, you feel like it's your turn and even motion to climb over. Then you realize that you don't have a rig on. You get so used to it working every time, that you don't quite grasp the consequences for such a mistake. "¯"`-._.-¯) ManBird (¯-._.-´"¯" Click

Heavier? Especially if it's ZP with a lot of construction and a hackey handle. Don't know the details. It was obviously just a stunt gone wrong. Discussions about using BASE-specific gear don't apply, says I. It's not like he used a Tri because he didn't know better. Maybe a different slider and PC could have helped. Whatever. He was trying to BASE a skydiving canopy to get a swoop and put on a show. It's a risky stunt that he's done before. It didn't work this time. While last year's incident was, IMO, FAR worse than this, it's sort of the same principle. Had it gone right, there'd be more heroic heralding and a lot less bashing. Two years in a row, high risk demos have proven themselves unnecessary and tragic. Maybe the BASE jumping is enough for this event. The public at large, to whom this event really caters, doesn't know any better. "¯"`-._.-¯) ManBird (¯-._.-´"¯" Click

I had a tweaky arm position at first, but what I found works best is to keep your arms and hands flat, like in a normal track, but then rotate the sleeves to have the inlets pointed towards the earth a bit more. Works like a charm. I flew the suit against a GTi yesterday (the wingsuit pilot weight about 15lbs less than me). It was amazing how little he had to compensate his body position to stay with me. It was basically a full flight position, but with an arch. We were within a couple feet of each other for the whole jump. I had a fall rate in the 60s at the start of the dive, and he was able to catch up, horizontally, very easily. So I pushed forwards more. This put my fall rate in the 70s, but the forward speed was very fast. He had a hard arch to stay with me vertically, but his arms and legs were fully extended. At the end of the dive, he went into a maxed out position. The wingsuit, of course, had a much better fall rate, but the difference in forward speed was marginal (with the wingsuit outpacing me, of course). Fun crap. "¯"`-._.-¯) ManBird (¯-._.-´"¯" Click

My Katana openings are soft, consistent, and dead-on heading, and I love the way it flies and dives. However, I'm also loading it at 2:1, which is, as I understand it, the sweet spot for this canopy. What I hear more and more is that the Katana doesn't like to be too underloaded. "¯"`-._.-¯) ManBird (¯-._.-´"¯" Click

Hell, I bet he could do that in swim trunks.

Show of hands... DZs that don't allow skysurfing? There are a LOT. Perris isn't one of them. The space taken up on the plane, the amount of time they take in the door, and some incidents had them kicked out of DZs all over the place. Basically, inconvenience for DZs and a bad safety record. It became a "specialty" jump, not a regular discipline, and this was a big factor in the demise of skysurfing. The more we can fit in, the less wingsuit flying will be looked at as "specialty" jumping. But wingsuit flying, still, is considered a sort of weird thing. If we continue to behave in a way that we fit into DZ operations as well as RWers and freeflyers, then we maintain the longevity of our unique discipline. A lot of skysurfers never figured out how to fit in properly. So it went away. "¯"`-._.-¯) ManBird (¯-._.-´"¯" Click

Kevin Love is a cool cat from Hawaii. He qualified last year for the IPC cup, as well. Get this... when he qualified here at Skydive Oregon, he had never swooped a pond before! They just use the land and ocean over there. One hell of a canopy pilot and nice guy. Edit: And he wasn't sponsored at the time that he qualified last year. "¯"`-._.-¯) ManBird (¯-._.-´"¯" Click

Chuck's dead on. Long story short: skysurfing. In regards to Eloy. There were like 40+ wingsuit pilots. The only people who were told directly about ban potential from Bryan were those at the BirdMan booth, because Bryan has better things to do than track down everyone with a wingsuit. Rather than tell everyone, "play nice or else," the LOs were more positive. When you're trying to put together a nice 10-way+ and keep up the energy, the last thing you want to do is start bringing up DZ politics. LOs just opted for more dirt diving and repetitive briefing, and it worked. It's the kind of self-regulation we need to maintain the trust and acceptance we've earned in skydiving. I've definitely been on the end of "play nice or get out" when travelling to DZs that are seeing wingsuits for the first time. We all play nice, and by the end of the weekend, we are a welcome bunch. We don't see bans right now because we all have, for the most part, been playing nice. Probably best not to experiment with pissing off DZOs. "¯"`-._.-¯) ManBird (¯-._.-´"¯" Click

Most definitely to both of the above. After my vacation, my stuff was sort of in disarray and I didn't find my GPS until last night. To get close to a "no wind" glide, I divided some jumps into thirds -- the first third into the wind, the second third crosswind, and the last third downwind. As well as I know Skydive Oregon, I'm guessing that I was getting about 2.5 miles total, so something like a 1.2:1 - 1.3:1 glide. I'll verify this with GPS, but I'm sure it's in that ballpark. "¯"`-._.-¯) ManBird (¯-._.-´"¯" Click

Hell, I did a straight in landing on my Katana 97 because I hadn't jumped it in three weeks (did more BASE than skydiving last month). And from there, I only did 180s into the wind (I usually do 270s -- often downwind). Take it easy and practice up top. "¯"`-._.-¯) ManBird (¯-._.-´"¯" Click

So, do I log these jumps as wingsuit jumps or not? I have ten jumps on the PF tracking suit now. My Neptune reports the following on my ninth jump: 12K: 62 MPH 9K: 65 MPH 6K: 71 MPH 3K: 78 MPH Exiting at 13,300' and deploying at 2,400', I had a 105s delay and an overall average of 69MPH. This felt more like a wingsuit flight than any other non-wingsuit jump I've ever made. I was flying really cupped and floaty at first. As I got a visual on tandem canopies (to use as a reference point), I started flattening out more (hence the increased fall rate). I found that when I was covering the most ground, I had a fall rate of 70 - 75 MPH (71MPH and 73MPH came up as averages a lot). When I first flew the suit, I found the twitchiness a little disturbing and wondered if this was just a trait I'd always deal with or eventually overcome. It ended out going away on my fifth jump. You just have to pay a lot of attention to your legs and use your arms a bit more than you would in a normal track, and RELAX. It also helped to move the bootie setting up one (shorter). There was a noticeable stability improvement with a much "tighter" setting. As far as how it feels... after flying a bit more proficiently, it FEELS like a wingsuit jump. It feels and SOUNDS like flying a Classic, but with more forward speed. I'm utterly impressed. I did find it a little tougher on the legs, though, to really keep it flying. It's a workout on your calves to keep your legs from getting too high. My USB IR port broke. As soon I buy a new one, I'll grab a chart. Edited to add: My exit weight was 189lbs for those jumps (got on the scale fully geared up). And for body position -- it's too tough to explain. It's sort of weird but makes sense at the same time. "¯"`-._.-¯) ManBird (¯-._.-´"¯" Click

There is a free codec and version of the player. I just downloaded and installed the Codec and I view it using Windows Media Player. It's pretty buried in the site, but it's in there. "¯"`-._.-¯) ManBird (¯-._.-´"¯" Click

Divx 5.2.1. I just installed it and it works now. http://www.divx.com "¯"`-._.-¯) ManBird (¯-._.-´"¯" Click

What codec did you use? I get audio, but no video, and rarely have this problem. "¯"`-._.-¯) ManBird (¯-._.-´"¯" Click

Yeah, it's pretty focking rad. If you fock enough before then, you won't need to order a STD. Paradoxically, if you have a STD in Eloy, you won't do much focking. "¯"`-._.-¯) ManBird (¯-._.-´"¯" Click

I jump a Mighty Mack 335 and I pitch on my back. Recommended. "¯"`-._.-¯) ManBird (¯-._.-´"¯" Click

I'd heard it was more of full flight pull issue than just instability. That's one part that might be lost on people without instruction. Of course. I don't take these message board things seriously. Pay no attention to what "tone" comes across online. I'm tired and need some sort of sandwich. "¯"`-._.-¯) ManBird (¯-._.-´"¯" Click

I said that proper instruction would have helped, not that it had to come from a BMI. "¯"`-._.-¯) ManBird (¯-._.-´"¯" Click

As I understand it, improper pull technique was the major factor in the fatality. Improper pull technique doesn't guarantee an incident on the first jump. In this case, it took four jumps. Proper instruction from the start could have made a big difference. "¯"`-._.-¯) ManBird (¯-._.-´"¯" Click

Doesn't JP have Matter's answer to the BMI rating? "¯"`-._.-¯) ManBird (¯-._.-´"¯" Click

I got a hawk with my Fox 245 just recently. Story here: http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=1281007#1281007 Just wondering if there are any other accounts of catching any sort of bird in a parachute in flight. "¯"`-._.-¯) ManBird (¯-._.-´"¯" Click

Fly a big, docile canopy until you getting your on-headings deployments dialed in. Then jump whatever you're used to, except for airlocked canopies and Velocities (IMO). "¯"`-._.-¯) ManBird (¯-._.-´"¯" Click

Matter and Fly Your Body both have manufacturer/instructional ratings, like BirdMan. Don't think PF will, as it's more from the BASE community, which is fairly unregulated. And Ed is right. When accidents start happening, the governing bodies (including DZs) don't help out with regulation or organization -- they start banning. Swooping is a good example -- people started getting hurt or killed, and DZs and some countries started banning the practice. The efforts of those accepted as authorities on the discipline helped set up organized coaching and aided in writing guidelines. DZs and governing bodies want to keep up skydiving's image. If a discipline has a lot of inconvenience, accidents, and fatalities coming along with it, the solution has been to stop it. It happened to the super old school wingsuits and a LOT of DZs banned skysurfing, as well. And there are some awesome, awesome cakes out there. "¯"`-._.-¯) ManBird (¯-._.-´"¯" Click