lurch

Yuri. I'll start by saying I'm a bit of a fan of yours, the stuff you write on these boards is often funny as hell, often true, but sometimes makes no sense. Saying we've made no progress since 1997 is a bit insulting to every one of us who has built or flown something new in the last decade. When I started, a 2 minute flight was amazing, a 2.5 minute flight was extraordinary and 3 minutes almost unheard-of. Theres now a fair number of us pulling flights over 3.5 minutes from normal altitude, and 3 birds at my own DZ who have done over 3, and only ONE of those 3 weighs less than 150 lbs. A 3 mile flight used to be incredible. These days the faster birds can go over 5 miles. Finding two birds skilled enough to dock at all, let alone fly docked for awhile used to be hard to do. These days half the birds I fly with can do prolonged 3 and 4 way docks routinely. Sometimes even 5. We get to our slots in seconds, and take it for granted. I think the effort and enthusiasm you bring to the wingsuit community is awesome but you'll make it a lot harder for the other birds to take you seriously with statements like that. It sort of implies a dismissive disrespect for everyone who has done anything noteworthy in the last decade. In a discipline as full of constant radical dedication-driven change as ours, that just makes no sense. Look around you at all the new stuff people are flying these days, think about the effort it took to develop and fly it and ask yourself if its really true "We still haven't moved an inch since Patrick." If Patrick was here, and saw what we can do, and heard you say that, he would smack you in the armpit ballsack. -B Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

That is the funniest wingsuit pic I've seen in a long time. The look on your face made me instantly bust up laughing. Awesome! Carry on... -B Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

1. Scott Bland (notsane) 2. Scott Gray (The Brothers Gray) 3. Chris Gray (The Brothers Gray) 4. Todd Statdfield (DaMan) 5. Michelle Statdfield (EmLo) 6. Justin Shorb ( Flock U) 7. Jeff Nebelkopf (heffro1) 8. Chuck Blue (Z-Flock Wingsuit School) 9. Mike Masheff (Grey Mike) 10. Phil Peggs (boring uncreative name) 11. Nick Rugai (#1 gay guy) 12. LoudDan 13. Tyler Smith(jumpinfly) 14. Scotty Burns (Scottygofast & Z-flock) 15. Tero Paukku (Aerodynamite) 16. Matt Hoover 17. Rick Hough (Flock U) 18. Bob Futrell (FlyinBob) 19 Frank Boluk (FrancoR) 20 Rand Mahoney (rmahoney) 21.Lurch (Flock U) Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

Up next on MTV: Chuck Blue Blasphemy's debut single, "Drunk Russian Math Talk" Off their recent double platinum Blick It Or Stick It. Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

I'd like to see a Tony suit built with ZP. This may sound strange coming from a guy who's already shredded two ZP Birdsuits and flies the most hacked-over tattered-ass S6 out there, but I think its comfier and lighter. I've tried on a handful of M1's. I'll agree without hesitation that it has its major benefits, its 1000% tougher and a shitload easier to work with. But its HEAVY. So far every Mach suit I've tried on was excruciatingly uncomfortable, like wearing a duffel bag. This may be more due to the fact that I have yet to find one that fit me right, but the fabric just felt way too coarse. It makes a great outer-hull material but doesn't feel remotely clothinglike to me. Don't suppose they have any plans to build one with a light clothingy sort of jacketlike liner? -B Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

Hey Hate to say it but I simply can't make it this year. I can manage 4.0, but 2 events that close together are too much, can't get the time off, not willing to go that broke even if I could. To the rest of Flock U, have fun guys, do a missing man formation for me or something. -B Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

Thanks, Jeff. That thing wasn't intended for fast, but if you had to work to catch it, I got it. But I said outfloat, not outrun. That jump, I WAS trying to see if I could outrun you in it, or at least make you work to catch it. I can't wait for my next chance to fly it with you cause I want to know... If I fly for float instead of fast... can you catch it? I never did get a chance to try that. At the very least, I'll give you the toughest fallrate battle of your career. If you've also fooled your neptune till pull time though, I am in deep shit and should build a better suit before I get my ass dusted. Glide ratio was nothing spectacular, best of about 2.4ish depending on winds and GPS accuracy. The increased drag factor really shows at high horizontal speeds, much of the outer corners become ineffective and just vibrate furiously. I did notice it tended to encourage me to slow down and not try to force the suit up to high speeds, and once it was stabilized in balloon mode the GR went through the roof by conservation effect, same forward speed as always but 25% less fallrate. I couldn't get home that FAST, but could cover the distance easier and with less altitude loss by being patient and tilting over a bit headdown from max float, just enough to get a nudging kind of easygoing thrust. With that thing, its ALL about the hangtime. Most flocks, at breakoff it gave godlike power to climb above the flock, but get left behind in the process. If I fly floaty all the way home from breakoff I arrive dead last, but go further, although how much of that is low pull, only Justin could tell you, if he did it too, but we all know Justin would NEVER come play at breakoff... The massive increase in area completely destroyed the subtleties of the S-6 design that make that suit a joy to fly, though. All the tiny tweaks of body position that delivered low-30's in the stock suit don't work with the big wings on, but now brute force gets me there, and way, way beyond, and I don't need all those ninja tricks to do it. Although I lost a lot of the finer points, the overwhelming brute force effect of the mod far more than made up for the loss in efficiency and make it easy to get low-30's even with piss-poor technique, 20's and teens at best. Now when I fly with the big wings off, the 6 feels tiny and easy on the arms and SO much more refined, but so much less powerful. I didn't fully appreciate how well a 6 is designed till I ruined it. Wrecked the gas mileage and handling, but hey, it stays up longer... SCOTTY! Sorry about the thread hijack, I didn't start it, but its somehow my fault anyway. Anybody else wants to talk suit hacking, we can start a new thread or something. Your pics are awesome. I still feel horrible about the bite switch incident. After that, would you believe I spend all day every day fixing industrial robots? And no, it doesn't involve cylindrical blocks of concrete. -B Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

You like that? THAT, is my final answer to all the bickering about fallrates everyone is doing in the "to all tony series 2 owners" thread and the one suit in existence I'm pretty sure Jeff can't outfloat. Its a supermodified S6, singleskin triwing/monowing hybrid prototype that does some interesting things when you pull it tight. I KNOW the new tony stuff will deliver steady mid-20's cruise... because THAT thing got fallrates too low to measure directly without resorting to timing the video, and a number of dives where my Neptune never registered freefall at all till I folded the wings to pitch. The manufacturer refused to give me a straight answer when I asked how slow do you have to descend to do that to a Neptune. I'm not aware of anyone ever managing to do that before, but I expect the tony suits will soon. The shackle arrangement was for tuning, the design was incredibly sensitive to tensioning and fit. Allow half an inch too much length or too little and it doesn't do much for you, get it just right and it delivered steady stable flight in the low 20's to high teens till my arms give out. Its a 4-minute suit from 14k in theory (3 minute flights in less than 10,000 feet, do the math) but I could never manage to keep flying efficiently that long, arms always gave out by 220 seconds or so. Flies ok dirty, I wound up flying that thing for half the summer in all kinds of small flocks, but the snag hazard posed by the hardware makes it too dangerous to fly in large "full-contact sport" flocks which is why it was only seen flying at the edge of a flock once at 3.5. The rigger I was working with quit the project which has slowed me down a bit but some of that stuff I built myself at home, so expect to see more weird stuff coming out of the northeast next year. Nothing was published about it cause I didn't want to make a big deal out of it till I knew it worked and besides, if Jari saw what I'd done to his nice clean efficient suit design he'd strangle me on sight. There were a couple extreme variants on that suit that were almost lethally unflyable, but I flew them anyway. Justin flew chase on some of those test flights, scary stuff, mostly chasing dead ends, you'd be amazed at the stuff you'd think would work...and didn't. -B Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

There are very few cases where I'd applaud somebody assaulting somebody else... But this is one of them. Buzz is one of the last of the great American heroes, part of the one event that could arguably be called the pinnacle of human civilization. Although our tech has improved since then, our society has become a lot more degenerate and I doubt we'll ever see that kind of greatness again in our lifetimes, possibly for centuries, maybe EVER. The little shit that got in his face should show some fuckin' respect. Did NOT know who he was fuckin with. -B Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

Hey, no offense taken, besides, Justin did all the work actually making the video, I just hooked him up with some of the raw footage.

Yeah, but what may look like filler to someone who wasn't there was some of the most hilarious moments we had this season. The flare incident for example. I think its an awesome vid, but I'm biased- I'm in it and I shot a good 1/3 of it. -B Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

Wheres everyone flying in to? San Juan? I'm up to about a 75% chance I can attend. The website mentions it is at both Arecibo and some place called Humacao. I take it theres no actual DZ? How does it work, kind of a roving DZ concept? -B Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

Guys. I'm looking into seeing if its even remotely possible to stop by Puerto Rico for the first two days of it on my way to Manila. I don't think the dates going to be flexible so chances are, 2 days is all I get. What an adventure THAT'd be. Make an appearance, represent with Flock U for a bit, land on a beach a couple times, pound a few margaritas and split for a couple more weeks of wreck diving in Southeast Asia. Fuck yeah. I make no promises whatsoever. But it might be possible. -B Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

I think I'm related to that thing. Distant cousin maybe. Anybody notice the narrator? I'd recognize that voice anywhere. Sigourney Weaver. Shes hot. If she was a president she'd be baberaham lincoln. Her hotness factor goes up to 11. RRowr. -B Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

Yo. I wouldn't miss this if at all possible but I'm pretty sure right then I'll be in the Philippines doing wrecks and reefs off the coast of Luzon and raising hell in Manila. As anyone whos been to Manila knows, theres a LOT of hell to be raised in that city. When I'm certain of the dates I'll stop by here again to confirm my pitiful failure to attend. Ok, Vote: if I hadda attend one or the other but not both, which would I be more useful at and have more fun: FnD 4.0, or Puerto Rico? -B Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

Justin was showing that pic around on his phone at the dz today. Yuri's mathematically proven suckness is now famous. Game on. -B Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

That. Is way. Too. Cool. You're gonna have a badass helmet. I just don't understand the ways of Chuck, though. My S-6's decals were a bit flaky and peeling at the edges, and I was constantly and unsuccessfully fighting him off cause he kept sneaking up on me and plucking my decals off. By the end of FnD 3.0 my blue and white suit with big red decals was just plain blue and white. Meanwhile, he's busy encouraging other birds to go get decals! Whats up with that? -B Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

Somebody call Darius. Anybody who's met him knows hes a pretty big guy, casual guess between 270-290. I ran him through a FFC a year or so ago, then we went up. He dropped straight down for a few seconds in a strange sort of flat-spiral, not a spin, really, just sorta hunting for a heading and building up vertical speed. To stay with him I was forced to gradually go into a fullblown head-down. Then, when he stopped rotating he got a solid handle on his heading, levelled off, kicked his wings in like nitrous, and took off toward the horizon so fast all I could do at first was hang there and gape at him like "what the fuck..." Jumptown's field is one of those big triangular airports about a mile across. I have him on video crossing that airfield in less than ten seconds. I gave up on linear pursuit, kept an eye on him and cut the corner across one part of the triangle to intercept so I wouldn't lose him entirely, managed to video him through his opening. For awhile he was by far the fastest moving human being I have ever seen. He hit horizontal speeds in an old Birdman GTI that some people couldn't hit straight down in one of those latex suits off the Racer poster while carrying an anvil. It was one of the most impressive first flights I've seen to date. If you guys built a big bird way you'd leave shockwaves that'd set off car alarms for a 10 mile radius. I wanna see that. You guys should come on up here and hang out. -B Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

WTF, what is it with my friends damaging themselves lately? Perry on fire, Justin's sinuses, Eric pounding with even more enthusiasm than I did, your shoulder, Shane biffing, Reed sick, Jeff nearly busting both ankles, Gray Mike getting kicked in the head... All of you, quit that shit! Besides, you'd need that rotator cuff, kinds of diving we do, anyway. Stuffing yourself through holes in wrecks, lotta heavy lifting, frequent use of doubles, side mounts, mixed gases brought from home. Which cuff was it? Can you still go bowling or what? Roll ball, BANG! Pins everywhere. B Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

Um, Steve, while you're off in Puerto Rico enjoying YET another wingsuit boogie I'll be off scubaing in the Philippines, right about... Here. Meeting some lifeforms even weirder than those at my customary hangouts. Last time I wound up out there I had some Indiana Jones shit going on like you wouldn't believe... Riding a cessna over the crater of Pinatubo on my way to fly suit over whats left of Clark airbase, Diving wrecks in Subic, and riding a dugout canoe through nipa swamps in search of a jungle moonshine distillery where the locals make this AWESOME nuclear white lightning. My dad has been out there for almost 30 years and knows THE coolest places to go. Its the one party I'd skip a bird event for. -B Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

Steve, I still can't believe you missed an event this awesome for, what was that, a wedding? You've given the rest of the flock ammo to hit back with next time you go off about our failure to coordinate the color scheme of our flocks. Now that I think of it, I still haven't heard Rick's excuse, might even be worse than yours... -Tweet. Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

Hey... Loved the youtube vid... can you tell me what was the music you put in there? I'd go to considerable lengths to find somewhere to download it if I knew its name or where to find more of it... Its good! -B Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

Ok... Arrive Orlando 12:35 pm Thursday 10/4.... Departing Orlando 11:35 am Monday 10/8... Its the departing on time that has me mildly worried, I don't mind waiting a bit for pickup, but its a bit much to ask that I be guaranteed delivered to the airport a good 2 hours prior, means whoever provides the ride has to be willing to pick me up @zhills at 8, 8:30 am at the latest, figuring its gonna be a solid hour to 90 minute drive to get there. Still, I don't have the rental worked out yet so if anyone can help out, I'll happily throw down on gas and extra for your trouble. Anyone? -B Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

I resemble that remark, you overrated featherduster. Hell, in 99 I did Nashua, NH to Sacramento CA in 4 days flat including the downtime for hitchhiking to a junkyard in fucking Iowa 57 miles east of Des Moines after a cooling system failure in a beat to shit armor plated 4x4 '83 AMC SX4 with one busted shock, mismatched mud tires and no rear hatch glass left me dead in a rest area off I-80. It was fucking awesome, not to mention excruciating. You all didn't think anyone as weird as I am wouldn't have a doublesize bucket of road warrior stories did ya? That said, with a bit of help from a friend arranging a rental at the far end, I may be flying down after all. For some reason its insanely cheap to fly into orlando, but the 80 mile drive from there to zhills rules out hitching a lift with arriving or departing birds. This puts the trip just barely cheaper than driving, so suddenly the tradeoff is worth it again. One way or another I'm getting there... bumperdragging on a skateboard behind a southbound transcontinental semi if I have to... Anybody wanna place bets on whether I've actually done that? -B Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

ok i got the time off from work its on gonna drive down figure i can do it in a day and a half tops if im lazy anybody think were gonna get high altitude this time or what hey you two quit that its contagious Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.