lurch

OMG This is so cool....: "I Scream, You Scream, We All Scream for Lurch." "You Can Do It When You Lurch It." "Tastes Great, Less Lurch." "Making Lurch Taste Better." "Lurch-Lickin' Good." "A Lurch Works Wonders." "Where Do You Want Lurch To Go Today?" "Nothing Acts Faster Than Lurch." "There's no Wrong Way to Eat a Lurch." "Only The Crumbliest Flakiest Lurch." Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

"Choosy mothers choose Lurch" Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

FWIW I have decided that I have made an ass of myself and should stay out of this. Gimme another decade in the sport and a few REAL achievements and maybe I'll have some useful input, but for now, I should know better. Might be asking you for lessons in BASE if I ever meet you, though... -B Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

Billvon is a duck. He can do whatever he wants. Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

Um, TVPB? FYI about Skymonkey.... If you don't know who you are talking to, you might want to find out before crowing "troll." The man you've been trying to mock is one of the most highly regarded wingsuit pilots alive and has led some of the biggest most complex flocks ever assembled. You might consider showing some respect. -Lurch Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

" it's easy to find the best glide by using "the accuracy trick". With wingsuit, you can't use it" Ah, but you CAN, Yuri... It works just fine at 3-5 mile ranges once you get used to the visual jump in scale and the fact that the picture changes more slowly than it does when you use the accuracy trick under canopy. In time you'll pick it out real fast at a glance. When I'm long and low it is especially useful for trimming out for distance. I've set course for home many times after flying wild stuff for 2/3 of the way down, eyeballed my initial arrival spot and seen I was going to come up way short, "laid down", stretched my toes out, dropped my head and hunched my shoulders and watched that "nonmoving spot" go clean across the DZ to the cornfields beyond, and known I was making it home no problem. You don't have to be facedown to fly well, think neck posture like a vulture... Your chin, thumbs and toes should be the lowest points on your body. Feel free to look around. So long as you keep your chin thrust out and down you can turn your head any old way without affecting fallrate. Get used to flying like that and after awhile you can tune your glide ratio on the fly, visually. Being able to "see" your flight plan mentally superimposed over the visual panorama is handy. The long distance flights aren't as quiet as the slow flights, but the speed rush is great. -B Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

Matt? Thanks for posting the avian roadmap... I just found my way to a very similar place. 18 hours later I'm still feeling exultant about it. I keep picturing the sights I just saw and busting up laughing. Guess this is my reward for toughing it out through the really harsh bits of life in the past. I keep thinking I must have died and gone to heaven and never noticed the transition. Life is good. -B Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

That is just really....freakin....sweet.... You're a rich man, no doubt. I just got some most excellent surf myself, wingsuit in a VERY busy sky, incredible visuals in all directions, Tandems spiralling around, miles below... Came down howling and laughing. Wealth is more than just money. Wealth is living the dream, whatever yours may be. I'm living my dream of absolute freedom, and although I don't have a lot of money, I'm a very, very wealthy man. Cause I've got all the sky I want. And I'm very, very happy about that. Cheers! -B Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

Matt? Hate to say it but you just got one-upped. Your pic was totally awesome. His was better. Literally breathtaking. Took one look, brain processed image, took deep breath and said, Wowwwwwwwww..........! Theres a kind of drawn-to-infinity sense of elation I get when I see stuff like that, and those pics induce it very strongly. When people ask me why I fly I should just show them these pics... Amazing. Absolutely, positively, jaw-droppingly incredible. Would give a year's pay to fly through my monitor to go be there, right now. Oh hell... time to run out to the DZ and see if theres a load going up.... probly won't look as glorious as THAT, but I'll take whatever the sky gives me. I'm just cool like that. Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

Thanks, Matt. I look at that image, feel wind and think "Home". Beautiful. -B Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

I want to offer a big Congratulations to Steve Harrington and Darius11 for their first wingsuit flights! You both flew awesome, guys. Steve was the most rock-steady first flight I've seen, and staying with Darius was WILD... He started off in a spiral and when he got the suit levelled out and locked in a heading he was the fastest-moving human being I have ever seen. Flying with you guys ROCKED! Darius, Steve, we'll fly again soon, guys. Welcome to the flock. Casualty list: I ripped an armwing by bashing my elbow while exiting the CASA with Steve And A small bird of the feathered kind and unknown vintage was the first fatality of the Boogie, shortly followed by the CASA itself, which had accidentally ingested the bird up the intake in the left engine. Major major thanks go to the pilots for getting everyone down safe after losing an engine on takeoff... as I understand it, that is pretty much the worst-case scenario, and I only figured out what was happening when the CASA pulled up back at the gate and started discharging a bucket of friends packing unjumped gear and all the onlookers myself included started asking "what the hell...?" and I heard someone say that now they could smell it... Nothing says SKILLS quite like a pilot successfully bringing down a fully loaded plane after blowing an engine right when it was needed the most. Thank you. -PEACE! Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

Cold. I've lived in Manila and Sacramento and was comfortable in neither location. Every time I return to my beloved climate in New Hampshire and wander outside in crispy clear comfy brisk 55 degree weather, I feel like "HMMMM!" (picture a big smug happy hum) Air tastes MUCH better lightly chilled... I even enjoy those super-subarctic -25 days, if there aren't too many of them. Theres something very stimulating about standing outside in a giant bearlike megatrenchcoat with just your face exposed, comfortable in an environment so hostile it'd kill a naked man in 30 minutes flat. Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

If you think I may be indulging in a little satire or bashing self-glorified poverty culture by invoking every gangster-ghetto stereotype I can fit into a single incredible run-on sentence, you're probably right. But I'm also accurate. Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

I have. It blows. Pick your neighborhood carefully. I've spent a significant portion of my adult life as an itinerant technical freak and road-nomad and have lived in a 1984 Ford Tempo, an '83 AMC eagle 2-door hatchback and a wide variety of one-room slum studios. In winter I found the nails sticking out of my window useful as additional freezer space since it was impossible to fit enough food in a freezer the size and shape of a lunchbox. Come home, stack the room-temp groceries in the corner, hang the frozen stuff out the window.... Expect chisel-marks on your doorframe, drunken hopeless neighbors occasionally assaulting you at random, loud "boomer" cars at all hours of the night and screaming family dramas from the type of people who try to fit an extended family of 36 plus a large dog in a stinking apartment roughly the same size as the average suburban backyard toolshed while the family breadwinner who can't afford enough space for his offspring without stacking them 5-deep cruises with his homies drinking 40's in a honda civic he can somehow afford to load down with chrome fender strips, neon ground effects, oversize chrome rims, useless spoilers designed in the shape of ass-backward bull's horns, stickers that say "powered by" or "type R" and those incredibly irritating 5 inch mufflers designed to piss off the largest numbers of people with the least effort. Hey, you asked. -B Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

"WSCFDRJVDS is Deals, LSD is WSCJVDSFDR Better than the alternative." Really? I think you haven't studied the issue in sufficient depth, because if you had you would know that Creation occurs via opposites. Singularity is the death math of religious/academic Godism. Earth Opposites should split apart - and cascade molten lava upon God Worshippers, for they are the evil on Earth. If god is your father, your mother is a whore. Opposite Creation vs evil god entity. He who speaks, preaches, teaches, condones or practices SINGULARITY - an evil that equates DEATH by cancellation of universal OPPOSITES - hemispheres, sexes, seasons, races, temperatures, marriages and divided cell (the human Cubic who rotates a 4 corner stage family rotating metamorphic lifetime) - should have their evil lying tongue cut out. Educators are lying bastards. -1 x -1= +1 is WRONG, it is academic stupidity and is evil. The educated stupid should acknowledge the natural antipodes of+1 x +1 = +1and -1 x -1 = -1 exist as plus and minus values of opposite creation - depicted by opposite sexes and opposite hemispheres. Entity is death worship - for it cancels opposites. Anyone who has studied the writings of Dr. Gene Ray would be familiar with this argument. www.timecube.com -B Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

"don't be dissing the Hanwags" Apologies, 980, apologies. Having not worn them anyway all I can do is judge them by appearances. I will certainly acknowledge they're a different class of boot than Cats so pitting them against each other is like Corvette Versus Porsche. Corvettes kick ass, but against a Porsche they look crude and unrefined by comparison. As for the near-zero-mph haystack thing, perhaps Jeb Jari Loic Robi Chuck Perry or Scott would be better choices for that... they only have a zillion times my experience in the art and I'd like to helpfully suggest that they would be better-qualified for on-demand haystack-thumping than myself. Call me a chicken if you will, but at least I'll remain a LIVE chicken. Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

"No, but they are powder blue, and say "FLY" on the side, making them look devastatingly gay." Ok I scoped out the Hanwags and although I dislike negativity, those boots are just trying WAAAY too hard. My Cats are a lot uglier, but likely more durable for 1/3 the cost and without the "boutique chic" attached to them. Yuri, mind if I offer a suggestion/prediction? Try this again from full altitude a few times and post the results. I think you may find what you've managed is an admirably perfect planeout, but if you hold it too long you'll drop like a brick. Reason I'm being specific here is it occurred to me if you try this on a base jump and don't see the stall coming you may not make the distance you need at a critical time and place, or may find yourself being surprised by a sudden lack of drive when you need it most and expected it to be there. I've done this to myself both on high speed exits and at around 7000 feet during prolonged efforts to fly at below minimum flying speeds. What I got was the equivalent to a midflight still-air exit, suddenly wobbled, flailed, and pitched over head down, having achieved near-zero airspeed in all directions, with the inevitable outcome of simply dropping out of the sky till I had enough airspeed back to resume flying. Try it somewhere up high and not too far from the dz where its safe and you won't land out if you don't get the flight range you expect, and be prepared to deploy early but only -after- you recover and start to fly again, since opening canopy during a fully developed stallout could be messy. I hope you're flying a nonelliptical canopy that will forgive unstable openings... you are, right? If not, you're severely stacking the odds against yourself. The place for these sort of experiments is way up high where theres room to recover without pushing the hard deck. Its fun!

"I am flying. Like NEO in the MAtrix or SUPERMAN. Just flying." *ahem* Have you tried wingsuit? Its for real... Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

Thanks... I always lug around a 3 megapixel digicam so when I see cool stuff like that I can keep it. I like living in a world that presents me with sights like this all the time and I like to think if we paid more attention to stuff like that and less to bitching and controlling each other's behavior we might be able to improve the place a bit. Just my .02$ Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

Hmmm... nope. Can't argue with any of that. But what exactly is so special about Hanwags anyway? Why Hanwags specifically? I figured my own experience with Caterpillar boots was exempt from Robi's evaluation of "crap" because they aren't rigid. Cats are my combat-stompers of choice because they're both totally bulletproof and easy to run in with plenty of ankle support but plenty of flex to them, although whether or not their weight and trim effects actually help still was subjective and open to debate and verification. But what makes Hanwags a self-suggesting enough choice that they've been done before anyway? Now I'm REALLY baffled, and inquiring minds want to know. (starts googling Hanwags in fulfillment of role as Principal Investigator of Mystery of Clown Shoes...) Do they have little wings on em or something? Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

Well spoken, sir.

The tongue in cheek sarcasm and mild flaming would be more amusing if it weren't also utterly predictable. I AM wondering though when everyone gets bored with hacking on Yuri for his efforts to try a different approach, will anyone have actually offered any positive suggestions? Just a thought... Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

These pics. THIS is the world -I- see. Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

Fear Factory: album: Transgression "540,000 Degrees Fahrenheit" Witness a blinding light, Sudden bright light from a blast Pulsing radiation moving through cracks under skin Feel the fire in the wind Deadly kiss of scorching sands Not a prayer of hope or redemption in your eyes Hell exploded on this earth to take all thats alive Standing at the face of death Terror stealing your last breath Watch the firestorm incinerate you into ash! All that you know burns away into dust So many lives So many inocent Burn! Every particle returns to its natural form Ashes into ashes blown away just like the dust Heaven burning with the sky Hell is not the reason why Feel the firestorm melting your spirit into glass! All that you know burns away into dust So many lives So many innocent Burn! So many lives So many innocent All that you know burns away into dust So many lives So many innocent So many lives So many innocent [repeat] Burn! Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

Yuri, its also occurred to me it might be neither mass nor balance, exactly, but trim. If I'm using the term correctly. Adding the boots makes your toes longer. Thus pulling the entire suit, body, wings and all, a little further down on your body relative to your center of mass. The suit fits different then, a little tighter across the tops of the shoulders, collar is pulled lower on the neck and forced open a bit more, top of the zipper might be half an inch lower relative to collarbones than it usually is and the trailing edges of the wings are a bit further back than normal, thus paradoxically shifting your weight forward. The clown shoes will give the answer. If the clown shoes do better than weights or boots, there we have it, its suit fit making the difference. Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.