lurch

Bill, You don't is because you're a loud buzzing, without last Friday, Winnie-the-Pooh sat does? Once upon a forest, and buzzing-noise like thout its means head began to himself under why he was out last Friday, Winnie-the-Pooh sat down at the only reason for making, he was out walking, he had the only reason for making a buzzing-noise that, just buzzing a buzzing-noise, and buzzing honey." Is anyone else laughing as hard as I am or is it just me? This thing's ability to generate sentences that almost but don't quite make any sense is almost creepy. -B Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

More... I know of the middle of the only reason forest all he climbed and he had the door in the only reason forest all he climbed he tree. He climbed, and said to an open place was out it." So he had the only reason forest, and said: "And the name to thing. If the top of think. First of the name of the top of this: Isn't is funny how a bear like thought another long time ago now, about it." So he got up, and between he had the middle of all by himself: "Then he wasn't is because you're a large oak-tree. Absolute genius! You could win arguments with this thing! -B Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

Wow... I asked it for a level 4 on Pooh and got Pooh likes honey? Buzzing. You does? One day, Winnie-the sang time, about was out large over little of all got of is making so as a bee." Then he walking a buzz! Buzzing. You does he meaning a because likes 'under Robin. "It was a little only reason forest a last Friday, Winnie-the-Pooh said I.) One does 'under why honey is how I withought all got up, and that I am," said I.) Once walking. You down at I came' means head buzz! I wonder the to his because likes he sure," sat is bear like think. First! Which sounds like either some of the best conversations I ever overheard at a party or someone's religious argument. Cool factor: 8.2 -B Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

Depends on the wage and conditions. I was a high school dropout due to illness, later ran with a carnival and did a variety of industrial/roadie type jobs. 13 years later I'm still a plain old hourly employee... but theres a big sign on the door leading to my cube that says "Engineering", they pay me to play with industrial robots lasers and neat little automated widgets and nobody cares how many or how long of a break I take cause thats how this place treats its tech people... if you're good enough at what you do, you do what you want. 2 years in and I still enjoy my job, even if I AM just a rent-a-brain. Rent-a-brains that have enough initiative to figure out how to hack the gear without much training are kinda hard to come by so theres recognition and respect thrown into the deal, too. Nice. -B Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

Holy shit...Duane? How you been brother? Damn, man, you gotta get your ass up here and come fly with us again. Been a few little changes around here, the old AFF room is now the Birdhouse, Flock U has gone from a vague concept Justin and I were discussing over lunch with friends to one of the biggest concentrations of wingsuit pilots to be found anywhere, (on a slow weekend you're still likely to wind up on a 6-8 way technical flock of some kind, usually with some prototypes thrown in and maybe a few students) and we got all kinds of cool going on. Come on up anytime, man, we miss ya. -B Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

Ouch.... Had my Dad out to the DZ for a tandem a couple years back... his goggles started to pop off. Right before he would have lost his glasses his TM reached around and held em on his face (Thanks, Rich!) for the remainder of the dive, Dad came down with his goggles in his teeth. Now THATS style! Thought it was so awesome he went right back up for another one. -B Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

Ryno I hate to tell you this but I think you're spinning your wheels here. Your response has so little coherency I cannot derive any useful information from it. The sentences just don't connect to each other. I appear to have made the mistake of bringing a gatling gun to a pillowfight. My bad. Good luck with that whole god thing, hope it works out for ya... -B Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

So when you gonna stop on by here again and fly that thing with us? I'm like damn near the last one left here without a Mach somethin or other, all I gots a small tattered fleet of old birdman suits and that fucked up leather monstrosity. I feel like SUCH a loser. -B Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

...And for what its worth, thanks, glad you like my take on reality. I've met plenty of christians that were unshakable in their insistence that my failure to bow to their god meant I was evil because I beg forgiveness from nothing and refuse to consider myself guilty. I had to be deluded and could not possibly be experiencing any joy in life because I haven't got any Jesus nor have I abjected myself before any religious ideas since I was old enough to reject them. I'd hope the rather undeniable fact of my existence, exultant moments and all is proof enough for you to accept that it is entirely possible to have a full complete fulfilling and happy existence without any belief in gods saviors salvation judgement, sin and all the rest of it. To me one of the biggest best freedoms I ever earned by mental effort was freedom from your god. You never did address the reason I spoke up in the first place though... You openly stated that people who think they deserve life must understand that they deserve just the opposite. Do you not see this as wrong? Think about it man, do you have any idea what that kind of corrosive belief would do to the mind of a child if you infected them with it? They can't create handle or process the kind of elaborate rhetorical "what the definition of "is" is" mental gymnastics necessary to try to turn a thought like that into something they can draw hope from.... They'll simply understand that Daddy just told them they deserve to die, even God thinks so. You could easily kill a kid that way. If any kid you ever said that to ever suicides, they're doing exactly what you convinced them God wants and will make you theoretically if not legally guilty of murder. I'd suggest reevaluating your ideas. -B On second thought, there may be a practical reason for this kind of self propagating belief: Natural selection. Ryno you may actually be helping evolution improve the species by direct application of survival of the fittest.... any child strong minded enough to reject the idea as fundamentally incompatible with their basic survival functions, lives. Any child weak minded enough to try to believe in and live up to "deserves just the opposite" dies easily, possibly automatically if they're prone to depression, thus eliminating themselves before they can breed and leaving the gene pool open to the strong, who will of course then fight among themselves for space in it. Its brutal, but its about the only rational explanation I can think of for propagating an idea like that. There are better ways to improve the species, Ryno. You could just run around passing out candy to fat kids. Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

Matt, he's not going to get it, he doesn't distinguish between belief and reality the way we do. Ryno, you also have it backwards yet another way... I'm an atheist. Yours is just one of many religions none of which make much sense when viewed critically. I go by knowledge taken from objective reality. I don't "believe there is no judgement" because belief has no part in my awareness of its absence. I know that I have seen no evidence whatsoever to lead me to think there would BE one of any kind, let alone the specific christian flavored judgement you insist is reality. And the intensity of your belief is strong enough that you are openly claiming with a straight face to have personal knowledge of the thoughts desires intentions value systems and behavior of an assumed creator of the universe. This is not rational. If it involves belief, it is not knowledge. You can't have a conversation about what IS without using facts and you can't have a reasonable discussion without using reason. You're not using either one. -B Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

"people like me?" You don't know jack about me, man but that generalization has me laughing my ass off. Any of my friends reading this would find it hilarious as well... Rage? Only when I decide rage is necessary which isn't often. I'm more of a connoisseur of experiencing and savoring emotions like curiosity, awe, appreciation, friendship, honor, humor in all possible forms, exultance, screamingly intense joy, that kind of thing. Positive stuff. If you're big on things like guilt, judgement of others, preaching, condemning stuff or doing unto others that which you should already know they would not have you do, well, you probably wouldn't understand. I love the turns of phrase you use. "fall into deception" isn't a phrase that buys much credibitity, man. Way too much pompous drama. I can't believe you take yourself seriously enough to come off with that line. Very good comedy, though. Next, what on earth makes you think I need to have done anything to "deserve" my life? What makes you think you don't deserve yours? Man... I thought my outlook was sometimes bleak and cynical but thats downright gothic, man. Guilt based notions such as not deserving life are harmful to the mind. You get one life. What you do with it is no ones concern but your own, your only duty to use it as well as you can for the benefit of yourself and those you choose to love or share it with. It would seem to make sense to me that the purpose of life is to burn as bright as you possibly can. If you're doing it right, your existence is self justified. I found I was a lot happier if I dismissed any worries about being judged by spooks in the sky or other people or judging other people and just decided to stick to judging myself based on the same set of standards I'd be judging others by if I was into that sort of thing. Bitterness? Blame? They're experiences I know from long past, and I laugh at them. And they sure as hell don't keep me from experiencing that which you so inadequately label "God". Any of my friends who've been with me groovin' in the door on the way to altitude for a wingsuit bigway or surfing a sunset cloud could tell you that. They were experiencing it, too. We're here to enjoy it. You don't seem to think so. Why not? -B Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

"you still believe that you deserve life. Until you truly understand you deserve exactly the opposite, the bitterness, blame, and pride will keep you from God." WOW what a diseased mindset. I had a coworker used to spout lines like this, guy should have been kept away from children. Lines like this piss me off because the entire thought process behind it is so toxic and destructive to weak or uninformed or young minds, and thats exactly who gets targetted with this stuff by preachy types. Anyone with a healthy, sane free mind believes they "deserve life." The only humans who do not deserve life are Jeffrey Dahmer type "deliberately evil" and human society has its own effective ways of handling THEM. -B Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

Agree 100% of the 3 miles part just for emphasis here. 3 miles doesn't sound like much when you say it and its easy to think its no big deal when you get the Florida and Flock U crowd reporting 5 and 6 mile flights... But the only ones who've done 6+ around here are myself and Justin, both with a lot of time in, a big tailwind, got out 6.5 miles upwind while being flown downwind so we got thrown in the direction of the DZ, huge wings and we barely made it. Under normal conditions for a new bird 3 is waaaay too far, man. 3 miles is far enough that even with a 30 knot upper at your back, if you don't fly very efficiently and with a LOT of wing out you'll see yourself coming up a good mile short and by the time it becomes visible it might be too late to do anything about it. Stick close to home until you get a feel for how far you can go with different flight styles, then venture further from home as your confidence grows. -B Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

Thank you, brother bird. It'll be in the air again soon enough, and as soon as I get tired of wingset 1 I'm zippin em off and building wingsets 2 and 3. Don't know how far thats going to go this season, but I expect to be flocking in it soon. -B Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

I was wondering if and when you were going to pull the trigger with that rooftop photo, Howie. That was cold, man. Right on. Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

Got a good suit there. GTIs are badass and underrated. Gotta really cup your shoulders lock your knees and point your toes hard to get the performance out of em, but done right I've seen 220 lb guy getting into low 50's with one and he was a student of mine flying my old GTI at the time. I put about 500 on mine before retiring it to student suit status and loved it. Tough as nails suit too. -B Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

Damn. Out of all the cool people of whose existence I was aware he is one of the ones I'm most disappointed I'll never get to meet. Satan is out of a job. That guy was as admirably badass as they come. So long, man. -B Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

DSE, thanks for putting up the video, I was expecting basic youtube, that was classy. Fasted, Tony,, thank you. I needed a good old fashioned transcendently awesome experience and Damn, I got mine today. Mildly curious here, why do you say it looks like I may have had challenges? Only thing I can think of is the first pic Howie posted looks a bit like I got a bloody nose but its just the lighting... Nose is fine. Actually happy to say it was a very "uneventful" drama-free flight. The suit performed exactly as designed. I have two minor corrections to make prior to next flight: The tail flaps at several different tail positions but I'm fairly sure I know what I did wrong with that... When I set it up the tail intake was huge, and worried about overfilling the tail or controllability/snag hazards I whipped up a louvered half-assed reverse airlock/intake restrictor. It worked too well and although easy to shut down, the tail didn't inflate with much enthusiasm at all. Easy enough fix, just open the intake up a bit. The other tweak is I just have to let out the harness a bit... this thing sports adjustable wingspan and chord via an integrated harness/spectra channel layout and I got the toes to shoulderblades setting a bit too tight meaning I was somewhat restricted from going to minimum fallrate. What you guys saw was the lowest performance setting. Control and flyabilitywise it performed exactly as expected. Didn't pull to either side, had loads of lift and power, far far more than I used on this flight. I never really opened it up, topped out at about 75% of max throttle briefly around 5500 feet or so, just gave it a brief burst of speed to see how it reacted. I haven't really evaluated its fallrate potential enough to judge yet mostly because of that too-tight setting, but given what it did evenwhen tuned down, I expect it to easily meet or beat my S-6's range and performance envelope fallratewise. The thing is rock steady stable and turns easily enough, all releases that I bothered to use under canopy worked flawlessly, (I didn't test the arm chops but the legwing locks worked fine) and although the restrictive settings on the suit made the deployment feel radically different than deployments in my daily driver suit, that didn't seem to matter any, didn't take me any longer to execute post-deployment procedures than it does in a factory suit, perfect on-heading opening, no interference or interaction between the suit and the rig/canopy/deployment system whatsoever. The set-back wing position and forward center of mass had some really neat effects on the trim, stability and how easily it accelerates. My S-6 flies very neutrally, but to go fast I have to push for it. This thing on the other hand, I have to deliberately hold back. Its default flight setting is "Go like hell!" So far the built-in 10-pound weight penalty of the leather jacket is more than offset by the increase in flight efficiency I get from the trim tweaks, harness setup and building it around the body positions I felt would work best. When I get it tweaked a bit more, put a few more flights on it and start actually mapping the settings for it I'll see whether its got a wide enough range that it can climb relative to a flock even when being flown at a slow forward speed. So far I think so, with a vengeance... Justin flew an SM-1 and still had to fly a wide curve to get the drive necessary to climb back up to me after he shot the exit- so I don't think I'm going to have issues with this thing sinking out. Best of all nothing failed, got stuck, unravelled or tore. I had contingency plans, multiply redundant emergency releases, a hook knife a cypres and I pulled high and I didn't need any of em. One of my bigger fears was bizarre structural or fabric failures resulting from my total incompetence with a sewing machine that heavy overengineering might fail to prevent, resulting in sudden, complex and very durable entanglements. I found so many "I'm in deep trouble if that lets go"s building the tail that I wound up altering the design heavily and repeatedly to include lots of structural overlap and lattice effects... if anything goes, a wing blows out or a zipper fails or starts to tear out there are few places where a tear or strap failure can do more than loosen a panel a few inches before the tear runs into a strap or fabric junction or major structural intersection usually featuring a fat knot of spectra tucked in there somewhere. A knot that was tied with vise grips. Basically a "ripstop wingsuit." I gave it a fairly close lookover after the flight and found no visible damage or physical changes, so now it goes back to the lab for a much more detailed millimeter by millimeter inspection under bright lights and a few tweaks, probably fly it again late next week, start picking up speed with it as I get the settings dialed in and start getting comfy with the thing. Also could use a few ergonomic tweaks, I think in time I'll add a zipper down the front of the tail because right now it is also the most awkward-to-don wingsuit to hit the skies in the last decade at least. Even those skinny hindu guys that specialize in stuffing themselves into 5 gallon water jugs would have a hard time putting this thing on. Its that bad. This is going to be fun. -B Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

Thank you Jarno, seriously. I'm honored you guys care enough to bother commenting let alone whipping up stuff to tease with. So far I've taken the razzing and photoshopage as good natured hard-timing. I figured it must have made the wingsuit community sit up and take notice, especially when I actually BUILT the damn thing instead of just talking about it. Scotty Burns told me last season's suit hacks made far more of an impression than I was aware of, people worldwide asking him if he knew that guy and what the fuck is he flying, and that being the case I can only wonder what the silent majority thinks of THIS. To be honest theres a part of me that still remembers first few jumps and is scared shitless... Many times I've bet my life on my own hacks and always won... but this time the commitment is absolute and irrevocable, the design is 100% new and unproven instead of derived or modified from existing known models, there is no "pull over and fix it by the roadside" and the penalty for failure is... total. Going out that door in that thing is going to take more sheer steel nerve than anything I've ever done or may ever do. I'll need all the moral support I can get. -B Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

Ok you guys are gonna love the last bit... I just put the finishing touches on the main armwing cutaways. It was just velcro holding a zipper down and I didn't like it, pull the wings tight enough and I was able to force the zipper to start backing out, wing'd start to detach at the back of the wrist, just wasn't quite right. Spent some time sitting and thinking about ways to make that wing edge both easily detachable and multi-hundred-pounds worth of load bearing. The result: I combined the loops-through-loops mechanical advantage 3 ring release concept with a tiny closing pin design snugged up next to the zipper and velcro, invented a tiny one piece smooth chrome spring loaded closing pin about an inch long, diamond shapes about 4mm wide at both ends so movement just causes it to settle itself better, connected it to the zipper with a little slack. All this is on a tiny scale, occupies 2 square inches and takes all the force I can load it with. Zero zipper creep now cause it makes the outer wing edge solid like a single piece and takes all the load off the zipper, but pops loose easily when and only when its pulled in the direction the zipper goes. Pretty much snagproof-its so small its sheltered under the zipper's profile and the pin itself goes in between the Spectra windings at the end of the sleeve, its smaller than the zipper tab right next to it. Its a minor pain in the ass to reassemble it after using it just cause getting the pin back in takes some wiggling, but when I tested it, it worked so unbelievably well I laughed my ass off. Its failure resistant several different ways-if the velcro snags fails or peels the pin keeps the wing locked and the zipper in place anyway... and even if the pin system fails, the original zipper and velcro setup underlying it will still resist coming apart since even without the pin, it takes a LOT of force to start forcing the zipper to back up and start unpeeling the velcro with it... after a couple inches the velcro bunches up and stops the zipper again before the failure goes catastrophic and allows the wing to come off. Backups within backups built into this design. I'm tickled pink, this may be one of the coolest tech tricks I've ever pulled off with real hardware. Pics coming when I get a chance. -B Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

Jarno, I laughed so hard I thought I was gonna yak in my crispix. That pic is fucking awesome. -B Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

...(yawn...) another "you're gonna crater", eh? You want to give me a hard time and THAT is the best you could do? I'm insulted. MY crater would be MUCH cooler. A Lurch-shaped hole in the ground. Scraps of leather, stainless, zp, spectra, shredded videotape and feathers all over the place. Media taking notes. Congressional investigative committees spending billions to decide not to do anything about it. The DZ staff arguing furiously about who has to figure out how to fix the hole in the field or should we just mow around it? My friends all pissed off cause I escaped a beer debt and took my gear with me. Freakin' amateur. Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

It is done. I could fly it today but I won't... want to give it a week to debug it, find loose ends I missed. In any case I want to kind of savor the moment. You only get to finish your first suit once. ETA first flight: 6 days. -B Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

Well Scotty looks like my own caution with my own caution tape mattered more than I thought it did at the time the other day when you were up on cam step. Figured it might, is why I thought it through and kept that puppy trapped and didn't release it till a second after exit. Usually I deploy the thing during climbout... but usually I'm the one on the step here. I kept getting this mental visual of you trying to film that exit with my stupid little ribbon flapping in your face. I figured I'd done enough damage to your camera equipment already anyway. Its always nice in retrospect to discover I -wasn't- being stupid... makes the stupid times look cooler. -B Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

Half-u... call it an L pattern actually, a single very wide, shallow flat turn, then haulass for home. You sacrifice so much fallrate with turns. It gets worse the slower you're going... at 60mph fallrate a turn might not cost anything cause theres more wing than you need, at low-30's and below, the slightest disturbance knocks me up into the high 30's mid 40's. In the end the limits always been muscles, though. Last year's zipon wingmod flights were unbelievably brutal on the arms. As I got used to the loading my Neptune began failing to detect exit altitude till 9 grand when my arms got tired, then lower and lower till I could sustain those fallrates for most of the dive and it stopped detecting freefall at all, just logged dataless jumps like it does when you ride the plane down, showed canopy display during the flight with the FPS display strobing wildly between 40-80 feet per second, basically sustained but irregular high 20's, mid 30's, low 40's range. If I had anywhere near the endurance to sustain that the whole way down, a 4 minutes from 13.5 flight would be doable. But I don't. Any wing big enough to pull 4 minutes is too big to fly maxed at that level for that long. Every flight theres a sagout somewhere in there where I'm overstraining a couple muscles while trying to rest the main ones for a few seconds and the efficiency loss forces me up into the 40's and 50's. -B Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.