ManBird

The theory I heard was that he dumped in full flight and his canopy opened off heading 180° while he was also spinning during deployment, thus putting the canopy UNDER him. Whether this happened or not, it is a possibility. I've seen some VERY unstable deployments that just resulted in line twists. Though I don't doubt that instability could have caused it, as my little "experiment" of leaving the plane with the wings unzipped put my right risers and lines under my right wing (there is little/no control over inflated wings that aren't zipped up). "¯"`-._.-¯) ManBird (¯-._.-´"¯" Click

So that's 750 EUR w/ VAT? What's the price without? "¯"`-._.-¯) ManBird (¯-._.-´"¯" Click

My girlfriend parallel parked her car and I made a little spread about it. In terms of icons... I like to keep it simple. "¯"`-._.-¯) ManBird (¯-._.-´"¯" Click

Ahh... thanks. They need to update their order form. It says 850 EUR on there. "¯"`-._.-¯) ManBird (¯-._.-´"¯" Click

The jumpship has already left and goes to SSD after that. Not sure who's flying it, as JW is evidently still up here. Well, it should be a nice clear weekend here, anyway. 46° on the ground, but clear. "¯"`-._.-¯) ManBird (¯-._.-´"¯" Click

I just now read this. Jari laid it down straight. I can't identify a single flaw in your thinking. Looks like the real challenge is ensuring standards without increasing regulation. This discipline is maturing and the flight numbers are climbing. Like any other discipline, I think the decisions on coaching made by new birds will be based on due diligence. It's painstakingly obvious who the best RW and freefly coaches are out there, because enough time has past for coaches to prove themselves. Maybe the solution is to just be patient. Something those disciplines have that we don't is competition... proving grounds. Some argue against competition and just want to fly for fun, but I have a feeling that we will see organized competition eventually. No discipline has escaped it yet! "¯"`-._.-¯) ManBird (¯-._.-´"¯" Click

So are we gonna go for it or what? Edited to add: by "it" I mean "wingsuit speed star". "¯"`-._.-¯) ManBird (¯-._.-´"¯" Click

HAHAHAA!!! Oh, man. But I'm sure he'd enjoy providing some sort of lecture the whole way down. He still needs to do his first wingsuit flight. A weekend away from AFF might be the time to do it. "¯"`-._.-¯) ManBird (¯-._.-´"¯" Click

I put in a request, but I think Joe is pretty solid on not turning his jump planes into taxi services. If for no other reason to avoid a, "Hey, Steve got to do it, why can't I?" type of situation. "¯"`-._.-¯) ManBird (¯-._.-´"¯" Click

Right. As I mentioned earlier, some people get the best glide ratio by comspensating a fast fall rate with faster forward speed and some people get their best glide ratio by compensating their slow forward speed with their slower fall rate. As Robi once pointed out, it takes very, very little to get the wing inflated. If your angle isn't perfect, your wing will still fully inflate. The angle that you feel you need to have your legs at in order to present the intake to the relative wind can be achieved without a bend in the knees. It is more difficult in terms of stability and endurance, but it can be done through practice. Having a bend in the knees causes an uneven airflow. The lower surface of your body is no longer one continuous shape, and the the portion of your leg wing below the knee becomes less effective. While this body position resolves stability issues, I don't think it is the answer to getting the most performance out of the S1 while trying to maintain stability. On the S1, I found that I could fly it straight legged, no problem, so long as my arms were back at a slightly increased angle. An argument might be that you are losing surface area by doing so, but by putting a bend in the knee, the decreased exposure of half of the tail wing and the decrease in forward speed is a bigger sacrifice than sweeping the arm wings back a bit. This is the same principle with wingsuit flying, in general, but it is definitely magnified on the S1 due to the size of the leg wing being a too small for the arm wings. Yes it is more difficult to fly like this, but the payoff is performance. Is there anything in this sport that gives you optimum performance without practice and hard work? There may be some suits where this is difficult to achieve. If it is just plain impossible, then there may be a design flaw in your particular suit. Sometimes the problem is that somebody jumped to the Skyflyer prematurely, and isn't ready for the "twitchiness". I did 175 flights on my GTi before touching a Skyflyer, and was able to quickly resolve stability issues. A lot of people pride themselves on the fact that they started flying a Skyflyer 30, 20, 2 or whatever number of jumps, but also go into the stability issues they had for their first ten flights. Just like canopies, one should master their current suit before moving onto the next one. Somewhere in this forum is the detail on a mod for the S1 that will allow you assume a fully maxed body position without instability, thus "patching" the design flaw. "¯"`-._.-¯) ManBird (¯-._.-´"¯" Click

Thanks for the tip. I think I'm just going to wait until next season when we have one at SDO or even closer. I doubt I'll be taking any birds up until then, anyway. Winter is here. "¯"`-._.-¯) ManBird (¯-._.-´"¯" Click

Congtratulations, Craig! That's awesome. I still haven't seen the videos, but it's apparent that you had some amazing flights. Thanks for the ProTrack experimentation. I think I'll eventually chuck myself off a rock in a wingsuit, and that's a pretty valuable tip you figured out there. Yes. You have some excellent theories on why that happens. One more is the possibility that a leg wing deflection is happening as you go for, or think about going for, the pull. When flying hard, making the angle of your d-arch more acute can result in a good deflection, like flaring on a canopy, that can put you below your stall speed... essentially stalling your body (which is, of course, followed by a drop). This was something that I've tried on a number of flights. Deflecting the leg wing and holding it down hard for several seconds can get me sub 30, but I drop out after that and up in the 60s, then have to slow back down to my normal fall rate. I think everyone has a certain "stall speed". Go below that, and you stall. Stay right on the verge of that, and you can maintain a really low fall rate. Stay just above it and drive forwards, and you can get a very powerful flight and gride latio. I mean glide ratio. "¯"`-._.-¯) ManBird (¯-._.-´"¯" Click

I've sent my apologies to Scott. My ignorance of him is just as big as his ignorance of me and it just got out of hand with the slinging. Who said what first or who's right or wrong doesn't matter to me at this point. Call me stubborn, but I do feel just as entitled to an apology. Then the kissing and making up shall proceed and this shit will be behind us. "¯"`-._.-¯) ManBird (¯-._.-´"¯" Click

Andy Farrington flew that one. Didn't land it, of course. It was their little model canopy at the PIA. "¯"`-._.-¯) ManBird (¯-._.-´"¯" Click

Getting back to the thread... you teach students to fly in the "proper" body position which I can only interpret as "optimum". This is pretty much guaranteed instability. What do you teach them to do when they become unstable? If someone who isn't used to flying a wingsuit pushes as hard as they can, it's a flat spin or at least really bad potato chipping waiting to happen. Watch your students really closely. The little things like slightly assymetrical legs, toes pointed in different directions, one knee slightly bent, one arm slightly higher than the other, are kinks that go unnoticed by the student at first, and need experience to be worked out. One leg being an inch higher than the other in maxed out flight can turn into really bad instability if the turn that should be happening in that position is not embraced. "¯"`-._.-¯) ManBird (¯-._.-´"¯" Click

Right, flying maxed out should be a goal. Rushing anything in this sport is a bad idea. "¯"`-._.-¯) ManBird (¯-._.-´"¯" Click

I built up a bad habit because I had no instruction whatsoever. The last student I had hit fifty in his GTi on his third jump because he did manage to fly straight legged and stay stable. I always show the student what the proper body position is, including straightened legs. The exact phrase I use is, "Keep your legs straight and your toes pointed. if you start to get unstable when you straighten your legs, bend your knees", and follow that up with, "you'll probably be bending your knees a lot at first." Not teaching what a safe, stable, and neutral body position is and only teach "maxed out" flight is like teaching swooping to an AFF level 1 without teaching them to land straight in. The first flights should be focused on stability and an on-heading throw at pull time, not performance. Performance should not be an issue until flight pattern, practice pulls, and the real pull are all dialed in. "¯"`-._.-¯) ManBird (¯-._.-´"¯" Click

Really? I wonder why the tiny holes in my smoking suit work so well, then. The placement of the intake on the S1's tail is less relevant to flight stability than the imbalance in the size of the wings (the arm wings were to big). You can fly the S1 straight-legged just fine... just sweep the arms back a few degree. Either that, or fly straight-legged with a more acute d-arch. Or as it was once put, "Ride a big ball of air". "¯"`-._.-¯) ManBird (¯-._.-´"¯" Click

I didn't take those pics,someone else did. OK... someone's slow ass. :) Even a slight bend in the knee affects your flight. Over 2.5 - 3 minutes of trying to cover as much ground as possible, a slight bend could result in losing a big chunk of a mile. Like I just wrote, I do tell new birds that flying straight-legged is the best way to go, right off the bat, but I tell them to bend their knees for stability. Maxed-out flying should be taught but not practiced immediately. The new bird should know how to fly properly, but also have a neutral to fall back on. That neutral position should be practiced first. If you teach someone only how to fly maxed out, they might not figure out what to do when they start potato chipping. It sounds like Phreezone came down pale-faced on the S1 due to instability, not for overperforming. Bending the knees will result in stability, not a higher performance flight. You helped a stability issue, not a performance one. I don't think one should jump into flying 100% straight-legged on their first Skyflyer flights. It's something to work up to. When it comes to forward speed, your leg wing is your engine, and the shape of your legs is the gas pedal. Remember, when you see a picture of an expert flying with their knees bent, it is because they are flying with the cameraman! bend in knees = thicker profile = more drag = slower forward speed = more stable flight straight legs = thinner profile = less drag = faster forward speed = less stable flight "¯"`-._.-¯) ManBird (¯-._.-´"¯" Click

Ah, thanks for the clarification. The fact that the BM-I program goes through the store and not the school sort of backs up what both TALONSKY and I said. Right, that is weird. The wingsuit knowledge without the instruction background is irrelevant. The instruction background without the wingsuit knowledge is even more irrelevant. I think wingsuit experience is the major factor here. You're comparing apples to alligators. There's the man himself, Jari (1,300+ flights), and Kim (350+ flights) from BirdMan. Some guys with x number of flights. And then a, if I recall correctly, pretty new bird that made a mistake. I think even the non-BMI "experts" made a point out of exiting wings closed, but it happened anyway (that's why we like to take the scare-the-shit-out-of-you approach to plane strike warnings). Not every drop zone has Jari and Kim to visiting them (most drop zones are a wee bit smaller than Perris), but we're not having plane strikes, either. It sounds more like a fuck up that can't really be blamed on anyone or anything but the jumper and maybe complacency. No offense or anything, I just think a finger is being pointed in the wrong direction. The jumper hit the plane, not the instructor. If no one ever explained to him about pilot communication, then that is exceptionally bad instruction that doesn't quite warrant a fix by Jari or Kim... just a wingsuit pilot that's at least a little competent. This sounds right. This is how it should be. Though it would be good for the staff to get a lot of wingsuit knowledge, or at least consult someone with a lot of knowledge. While the staff at SDO hasn't put many wingsuit jumps in, they make the policies while consulting with the wingsuit flyers. It's a collaborative effort where the strengths that everyone has to offer are combined to create safe and effective policies and instruction that make everyone happy in the end. The decisions are ultimately theirs, by they value our input. With Perris' staff and DZ managaement experience and the knowledge of flyers like yourself, JP, and whoever else is there, you guys should be able to come up with a fine program. Good stuff. "¯"`-._.-¯) ManBird (¯-._.-´"¯" Click

Just writing to note that Fly Your Body's bank does, in fact, take wired funds from the US. However, your bank needs to be able to wire in actual euros, not the dollar equivalent, if that makes any sense. My bank evidently does not do that. "¯"`-._.-¯) ManBird (¯-._.-´"¯" Click

Yeah, it's like they unintentionally made the problem ten times worse. But figuring out the bigger problem made the smaller one a piece of cake. Did you see the guy doing a perfect lawn dart position in freaking 1950?! Awesome stuff in that book. "¯"`-._.-¯) ManBird (¯-._.-´"¯" Click

Jari's bending his knees to stay back with your slow ass. ;) "¯"`-._.-¯) ManBird (¯-._.-´"¯" Click

The S1, as I understand it, did have an imbalance between the arms and the legs. I found it better to straighten the legs out and then pull the arms in an inch or two than straighten the arm wings out and bending my knees. You will usually see people bending their knees when flocking because it is a more stable position, and it is not good to be close to instability while relative to someone else in the air. Flying with a bend in your knees definitely slows your forward speed. If I'm outdriving someone, I bend my knees to back up to them. Kirk (TALONSKY) flies faster forwards than I do in maxed out flight, so he bends his knees a bit to stay back with me. When he straightens his legs out, he shoots forwards like you wouldn't believe. You can go prove it to yourself this weekend. Fly straight-legged relative to someone else who can fly straight-legged. Bend your knees, and you will back up relative to them. It's a more difficult body position, both technically and physically. If you aren't very, very symmetrical, you get the wobbles. You also need to push the air down a little hard with your legs to maintain a d-arch (your legs get above you and pitch you down otherwise). I will tell new birds to fly with a bend in their knees when they first start, because it is a safe and stable body position. But I also inform them that they should eventually work towards flying straight-legged. Flying knees slightly bent is recommended for flocking because it gives you room to perform in either direction in order to stay relative. When it comes to covering ground, bending your knees will get you nowhere... well, not as far, anyway. "¯"`-._.-¯) ManBird (¯-._.-´"¯" Click