lurch

Aside from insulting pretty much every wingsuit pilot she talks to by trying to "Make sure we understand how they work" and making us laugh with her "oh you poor ignorant souls I will educate you" attitude she has added one valuable thing to the thread: She coined a new word: Momentaneously. I'm keeping it, and I'll be using it momentaneously. See? Its one of those interlanguage artifacts thats hard to define across the language gap, like trying to explain the word "fuckface" to a Japanese in nihongo. Even if you're fluent in the language, the sense of it may not get across. I knew a Thai back in school in the Philippines who injured a toe, didn't have a name for it, and coined one on the spot: Fingerlegs. People mocked him for it, but I thought it was funny and awesome as hell. "Injuring your fingerlegs will make you MORE awesome at English which means you can use apostrophes wherever you want to, even with words like 'Nucular' that don't even have an apostrophe yet!" Brought to you by Brawndo The Thirst Mutilator -B Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

DAMN RIGHT! wOOT! Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

I can't stop laughing. This is the best, most obliviously, outrageously comic troll job I've ever seen. My favorite part is where she claims that Tony has been building bigger suits because she told him to. Yes, that must be it, he designed his recent suits in obedience to orders issued by a random flake who called him up on the internet posing as an all knowing authority in the art despite having never actually flown a wingsuit. Who knew she was the real brains behind it all? I'm impressed. This is some really funny shit. -B Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

Actually, do not ignore the above with bucket of salt because what you have displayed here is called an intelligent suit choice process and it is very important and all too rare. The more time you put in on small and midsize suits the better you'll be if and when you ever want to try the big guns. I spent many seasons mastering the old Birdman GTI and S-6 suits. When I finally upgraded to an S-Bird after 6 years of flying I was able to get flights well over 3.5 minutes immediately and up to 4 with practice. It took 2 years of flying THAT to be ready for the Apache scale suits and when I got one of -those-, I was able to use it properly. Now I take flights well over 4 minutes for granted. If thats where you'd like to be someday the path you're on will take you there. I've seen quite a few slow patient pilots who learned the same way and pack similar skillsets. I have yet to see anybody succeed in taking a shortcut by going straight to big suits and be able to fly it well without foundation skills. I -have- seen plenty of birds TRY to make that shortcut... and fail, and require extensive remedial practice just to meet typical performance expectations of lesser suits with it and they never get anywhere near to using their suit to its limits. Usually its a guy with an S or an X who bought it inside his first hundred flights and can't understand why its all he can do to keep up with a pack of R and T birds. Its because he never learned to fly an R or a T bird in the first place. Its like one of those zen riddles. Buy the suit so you can outfly the other guy, and you'll fail. Buy the suit so you can improve yourself, and in time you'll be able to outfly the other guy. Good choice. Thank you for choosing well. The world flock needs as many of you as we can get both for the skills and the example. -B Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

I actually recommend making the suit blank. I looked at all the decorative options and since everybody gets em, to me most of the Tony suits look the same and somewhat generic. I didn't want stripes, flashes or logos. So I ordered both my S-Bird and Rebel in plain blue and white and they both look fantastic. Plus since almost nobody buys the suits with NO decoration, its actually a unique color scheme I haven't seen anyone else use and the suits have a certain "Custom, but can't tell WHY it looks custom" look because its not something added but something deleted and it really makes the suit look elegant and clean. The only decoration is the name badge at the neck. -B Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

Its old, but for me Sabres are the way to go. I put about 450 jumps on a Sabre 2 with a wingsuit. I loved the flat glide but the twists were unpredictable and often. It was well behaved in twists, but I hate twists and it did it a lot. Eventually downsized to a Sabre 135 and flew that canopy to rags. Loved it. Chopped it once due to a wild twist ride, and had twists a lot till I worked out the packjob. Properly packed it simply didn't ever get twists at all, neat, fast, mostly on-heading 4 to 500 foot openings. Nice solid comfy ka-thump every time. When the canopy finally just wore the hell out, it was still opening flawlessly but the fabric was getting so worn I didn't really trust it anymore, started expecting it to blow a cell sometime so I snagged a freshly relined Sabre 120, loading it about 1.6. Love it. Openings are perfect, exactly the same as the 135, my one complaint is the canopy has a very steep glide and doesn't get squat for distance, but by now I'm flying very large wingsuits and I seldom miss the DZ so I really don't need long glide anyway. So long as I know where I am, I use the suit to get where I'm going, it flies better than the canopy does. If what you really want is quick openings and drama-free reliability, Sabre 1 all the way. And these puppies are cheap and plentiful, too. -B Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

Is there gonna be high altitude? I LIKE high altitude... Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

No I haven't, actually. As near as I can understand though, there -is- no difference. I know there were tweaks and variations in wingspan and such between Original Apache, Apache X, and AXRW, all of which are a whole nother class above the X2, the AXRW being the last and best of those- this is the same suit chassis Gary landed, tuned for very low fallrate and slow flight, but good for speed and distance if you drive it hard. I never got to fly any of the earlier versions, every one I encountered was made for much bigger people and wouldn't fit my rig anyway with the handles thing. I customized my own to have external harness/handle just at the handles themselves, pics up somewhere else but now irrelevant since nobody else should need to copy it. My own suit says "Apache XRW" but as near as I can tell its the last of the first preproduction "final" version of that particular suit, and shortly after I got it, Tony told me its name has been formalized as the Rebel. Shortly after that, I heard about the X3 which is the exact same suit but without the hidden harness up top, designed for skydiving. So mine should pretty much be the last of that suit line that needed a custom handle setup and from now on, you wanna get the same suit for skydiving you just get the X3. I think its because handle problem or no handle problem, The Apache rendered the X2 obsolete and anyone who wanted the power had to hack the suit. Funny thing is right now I'm coaching a guy working on his X2 performance, and for the purpose of working your way up to a Rebel or X3 its pretty good. Most of the power without -quite- so psycho of a burble and pressurization, and now the X3 upgrade is really meaningful. Freefall timewise this thing's an easy 4-minute suit and gets me 4:07-4:10 from 12 to 13k and I'm pretty sure I'm nowhere near its limits yet. Distance and G/R with a helluva wind at my back topped out at 3.88, neutral to trivial winds got 3.2 to 3.4ish from a diving comp attack, default cruise without competition boosting tricks is probably closer to 2.7-3.1. Its pretty draggy and the pressurization gives it a bit of a mind of its own, gets bumpy and bouncy if you dive it hard or try to force it to fly fast but its preference for certain angles and speeds can be softened by opening up the airlocks. Closed up it produces effortless floaty cruising but with somewhat restricted range and it tends to get bouncy if driven hard. Open the locks up and it gets a lot more flexible, MUCH faster in feel and top end due to the reduction in drag, the wings don't plump up so much... closed up you can feel the thicker wing holding you back a bit. Open, it tolerates full-on headdown use and any level of dive in between, at the cost of somewhat increased muscle endurance and a slightly higher wingload, but even with all the locks left wide open, this thing's pressurization starts, open, where an S-Bird leaves off, closed. The best hidden feature in the thing is the unreal amount of wingload it takes off the user. I test flew a Manta after getting used to the Rebel... and even with the Manta being smaller the wingload felt like it was gonna tear my arms off at first, I had to redouble the strain just to get the wings level. The Mantas a good suit taken on its own merits, it'd be a great Speed suit, good competitor against an Alien Suit. But The Rebel is slower, bigger, vastly more surface area and is SO much easier to fly. My initial impression of it being nearly impossible to shut down has vanished entirely- Now I don't even notice it, but it does take an even more refined and technically thought-out sort of pull sequence, have to break the tail by bending at the knees and hips before you can scrunch it. I haven't yet tried a solo time cruise with the winglocks left open to see if it actually flies longer that way. It might, if the speedup is worth more in dynamic lift than the increased fatigue factor costs me. Even with a whole season training with the thing theres a lot I don't know about it yet and I'm looking forward to exploring its limits more thoroughly next season. -B Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

Not necessary. An Alti-track can do a playback of the actual jump second-by-second. All this season since I worked out the actual ninja trick for a climb I've been producing bizarre rewind effects on my altimeter. During a typical climb the fallrate display scrolls down to zero and reverses, showing "fallrates" of up to -29 mph. In sync with it, the altitude display slows to a stop, reverses, and shows 100 to 130 feet of regain depending on how fast I was flying. The regain slows, stops, and resumes normal descent in a few seconds. It has been argued that this proves nothing because an altimeter could produce a false reading based on air pressure surges. But when your GPS shows the same damn thing, well... As soon as I got the idea, I started doing it whenever possible at the slightest excuse. See this GPS track for instance. This skydive was exactly as much fun as it looks. Besides, all the quibbling about the gauges is so much noise. The real proof is simply the experience. I'd been accustomed to being able to produce near-zero planeouts in an S-Bird for years at breakoff. When I got my Rebel online, executed the same maneuver, and got a +100 foot recoil out of it, it was dramatic and absolutely unmistakable. Total elevator rollercoaster sensation. You know it when you get it. I landed howling my lungs out, ran around jumping up and down laughing and bouncing off the walls, indulging in outbursts of random slam-dancing and jumping, sticking to, and climbing various random nearby objects due to unendurable surplus of exultant energy, so cranked up for the next half hour I couldn't even speak straight. My friends love it when I get all excited like that. -B Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

To both Matt and Luke... to be clear so I'm not feeding into the same kind of argument we get too much of in here, I wasn't taking a shot at either of you. I understand where both of you are coming from. Matt, I'd take your word regarding photography as gospel because its your specialty and I know precious little about the topic myself. What I'm arguing is, with "looks like a duck, quacks like a duck" video, maybe the simple truth is, yup, its a duck. I've had people insist (not in this thread, in person) that -all- forms of measurement are irrelevant due to inaccuracy, altimeter, GPS, video, you name it... and that despite all evidence its still not happening because they know it can't. ...and Luke, easy, man. No shot at you either. I haven't got a problem with skepticism and requiring evidence, thats healthy and rational. I would like to politely point out however that your way of expressing that position comes off as negative and somewhat scornful. That may not be your intention but thats how it reads, and I'm not the only one who feels that way. There have been a few other threads since you and I were arguing in which I noticed you got the same "jeez man let it go" sort of reaction you already got in here a couple times before I stepped in. I stayed out of those. The reason people keep reacting to you that way is because even if thats not your intention, to be a heckler, clearly thats the way it looks to people or you wouldn't be getting that reaction in the first place. One of these days if I ever run into you in person I'll buy ya a beer and we can debate the topic around a bonfire at some random DZ somewhere till we both pass out laughing, hows that sound?

I've been saying it for six months. The suit can climb if you know how to use it. Easily. With a vengeance. The hecklers will continue to demand GPS data then challenge it and claim its too inaccurate or inapplicable, Claim it isn't and can't be happening, even long after its been filmed to exhaustion at events like these. Give it another couple of years and somebody will have done a similar camera placement at another of these events but laser-verified and dead-level with GPS backup and multi-axis speed and delta-V plotting, captured from 16 different camera angles and STILL the naysayers will pick at it trying to claim that dubious accuracy proves it hasn't really been proven and its an illusion of gravitic interpolation or some wild argument. Despite the fact that the exact same measurement and verification techniques are accepted as gospel when used, in the same speed ranges, but for other applications such as gliders or motorsports. The more uninformed the opinion the more desperately and insistently the uninformed person holding it will cling to it. I've had a couple people come off with a laughably condescending attitude to me about this topic. "Oh but of COURSE you know you're mistaken, right? Wingsuits can't climb its just an illusion" Naturally, not one of them actually flies one of these suits. Then they ask and find I've got 10x the flight time they do, been pulling climbs verified 3 different ways routinely all season, and a seasons' experience competing with a suit they won't even be qualified to try for another few years and they get all red and sputtery and mumble something about going for coffee or a sudden need to make a phone call. I felt embarassed for them, but hey, if you're gonna shoot off your mouth, think it through... In the end analysis done by a growing population of Apache/Rebel/X3 pilots will show exactly what I've been saying all along. Climbs of a range topping out at between 100 and 150 feet, durations of 3 to 5 seconds give or take a couple, and speeds well inside the ranges your average competent pilot takes for granted. And while the naysayers and condescending types continue to tell us that the experiences we've been enjoying have not, in fact, been happening, we'll have been busy honing our skills, mapping out all possible speed combos and getting climbs whenever we damn well please. By the time the hecklers get with the program, quit insistently denying reality and just give it up and accept it, they'll simply be further behind. I've spent a whole season using the climb to access and skim otherwise-unreachable cloudtops routinely. I've taken to deliberately setting my aim low on the side of the cloud well below the summit to enhance the visual effect and get an idea of just how precisely I can direct the climb and subsequent dropoff. I've learned to cut the climb off early to maintain enough speed to stay level and clear the far side of the cloud. If you time it just right you can punch up through the edge of the cloud at an angle... just clip the edge on the way up, then watch the surface drop away, back off before I stall it and fall into the cloud like an idiot. Its a blast. -B Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

Laugh. Its the secret weapon of the light. When the dark side has you beaten down, and everything is lost and hopeless, humanity devoured by its own insanity and taking you with it, Laugh at it. Laughter is like that option in videogames that renders you temporarily invincible. Find a way to poke fun at whatevers bothering you and if you can't beat -it-, you can break its hold on you. -B Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

Ok, I'll admit, they nuked the fridge with that flick, bigtime, and for a kid that grew up with "Temple of doom" I'll admit the franchise took a dive before the end, but at least they didn't take it too seriously. They were riffing on the franchise itself so many ways I was laughing my ass off through the whole thing watching them use the movie to poke fun at itself. That movie was as "meta" as it gets, playing off its own legend to make a good joke. As Indy movies go it was second rate, but the whole point of the Indy franchise to begin with was making a legendary second-rate adventure story based on archetypes of second-rate adventure stories. Which, somehow, became a new definition of "first rate" because Indy is the very definition of action hero, now. Corny or not, the Indy franchise stands apart. I'm still a fan. And I've had some bonafide "Indy moments" myself adventuring in the Philippines when I visited this moonshine distillery hidden in the jungle near Enfanta in New People's Army territory where the communist rebels still rule... If it weren't for Indy movies, I wouldn't have known to eat the swamp snails and wild honey to honor my hosts when they were offered. Thanks to Indy, I did, and my hosts were most pleased. I drank the moonshine, too, it came served in tumblers... those jungle Filipinos party very well indeed... But that, is another story... -B Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

Doc, you fly -wingsuits-, man. I doubt that very much. They may be weird, but can they FLY? Didn't think so. I don't care HOW weird they are, I'd bet they view you as another order of life entirely. You're comfy and familiar in a world they'll never even experience. A world in which if you threw them headfirst, they'd just scream, flail and die in seconds. So far as they're concerned, you're an amateur astronaut. You could have a lot of fun playing that up, you know. I actually look as weird as I am. (maybe its the "squirrel in a dryer" hairdo, I dunno) You don't. You have the potential to be more Ninja than I can ever be, because I look the part, and you look like... a university professor. They'd NEVER see you coming. Now THATS Ninja.

In my day job I'm a humble facility mechanic. I fix industrial robotics, plumbing and assorted technical infrastructure. A few at the job knew I jumped, but no real detail. None of them knew what I REALLY am. In my "real life" in skydiving I'm a career wingsuit pilot, developer, competitor, and teacher. A few weeks ago I took a 2 week vacation to Europe to attend a wingsuit performance competition in Hungary. I ended up taking first place. I didn't think it was THAT big a deal, really, just another comp... But as soon as I got home the media jumped on me, and within days I'd been on TV, interviewed for papers and magazines being called the world wingsuit champion for 2012. When I left the factory I was just the maintenance guy. Before I got back, everyone in the place had seen me suddenly appear in the media as Superman. I'd been hiding it all along. I get back to the factory and everyone knew, and everyone was staring at me with looks of shock and awe. They'd had no idea what their wrench guy REALLY did. I got this attitude like "Who ARE you and what the heck are you doing in this little factory? You don't even need to BE here. Shouldn't you be off getting rich making commercials or something?" The whole "Clark Kent act" just doesn't work on the job anymore, but the benefit is, they're suddenly extra-happy that I'm still willing to work there at all. When I needed another week off to go to the record bigway in Perris, my boss didn't even blink, just signed the form and said "Gonna go be on TV again?"" I said "Maybe, keep your eye on the news again." Its fun living this way. Now they all call me "Rocky" or "the flying squirrel guy". What they don't know is, there are many of us, and I'm just part of a whole army of flying squirrel people... I don't bother trying to explain. -B Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

Oh, you'll never -need- an Apache, but I envy what I'll expect you to be able to do with one. It -IS- a giant drag machine, but that doesn't mean you won't be able to fly it. I'm even lighter than you and I haven't been having any trouble keepin' up, right? Its all in knowing how to load the thing. It'll slow your forward speed some but you can compensate for that and it'll get you double lifty power in return. When you need them, I'll show you ninja tricks. You already saw some at Tiki, the folded wings flocking stuff. There's more. The suit's got a usable range of +178 to -29mph fallrate so far. And I'm already thinking about modifying the thing over the winter. Just a little more material in the right places, maybe... -B Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

Relax. Don't fight it. Embrace it. Get out, wait, get clear, spread your wings, and then relax into them. Repeat the basic moves repeatedly with your instructor on the ground immediately prior. Do precisely as you are taught, and if you were taught well, you'll do fine. Good luck. -B Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

Oh, god, no... Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

This. When I was in my teens I built my own RC cars from wrecks and junk. I tended to build em with oversized Mabuchi motors out of Powerwheels toys and run them on homemade battery packs. At the time the best Sanyo hi-cap ni-cads were in the 1800 maH range for size sub-c standard and most topped out at 1200. I made a 7-cell pack out of size D Sanyos at 4400 maH for endurance... it took the form of a trailer the car towed behind it and it weighed a couple pounds. Electric flying RCs of any kind did not exist and could not. The power density simply did not exist. Fast forward 20 years and I can get a li-po charger pack for my phone that stores 3900 maH fits in my pocket and weighs a few ounces. Disposable flying electric RC toys are now common and even the cheap crap will fly for 7-15 minutes. I just came across another, bigger phone charger, stores 11,000 maH and still fits in a pocket, if somewhat bulky. A couple years ago I fabricated a wearable motorcycle/iron man mobile armor suit kind of deal powered by dual chainsaws. It worked (barely) but I had to set it aside as a crude prototype, no time to continue project. By the time I resume that one it may be cheaper to go electric than internal combustion and would certainly be FAR more elegant. Load it up with li-pos and brushless controllers and away we go. Give it time. Another 20 years and you should be able to buy an electric compact that blows the doors off a Camaro and does 300 miles per charge. The neat thing about sci-fi is, it has a habit of becoming real. Since my childhood, a great deal of it HAS. -B Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

Thats my grandpa! Now I gotta go on a blood vendetta and hunt down his killers! Arrrgh! Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

Oh, yes.

I'd still say Apache XRW/Rebel/X3 series. Helmut still holds the top slot with a flared X1 attack (pure genius, I've been studying that attack for 6 months) but he's also even lighter than me and the track as mentioned doesn't show ultimate flight length or fallrate, just a comp attack.. Only recently did I actually take my Reb out for a few full altitude cruises, ranging from 12,000 to 13,800 feet and pulling around 3,000. 3 flights so far, all 3 easily topping 4 minutes, ranging from 4:07 to 4:10 and a sustained fallrate of well under 30, mostly averaging around 25 mph or a little over, for the entire flight. It can easily be dropped to teens and single digits, but will rebound into the 40's and 50's till airspeed is recovered. No free lunch. Just my $.02 -B Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

I'll have more to say later, right now I'm decompressing from the event, getting ready to go back to my day job and I have little time... That whole thing was BRUTAL. Hot. Violent. Fast. Extreme test of skill, awareness, ability. Wouldn't have it any other way. Most stimulating thing I've done in ages. Did a fair bit of teaching, learned a lot myself, improved the hell out of my timing and targetting skills. Top reviews to the DZ itself. The whole "surface reduced to rubble" thing I could do without, but for something like this, you land on whatever you have to, and we were using FAR more than the DZ itself. I was landing about a mile away damn near every time. Never been to Perris before... holy COW is that place spectacular. Restaurant. Bar. Pool and much much more. Rigging shop that works FAST. I didn't know they MADE dropzones like this one. Redefined my idea of "professional". If you're gonna hold a mega-way, this is the place for it. Outstanding performances by all involved. Made a lot of new friends, and reestablished friendships with old ones. Had the time of my life. Was an honor and privilege to be a part of this. I was one of the last out every time, part of the 4-bird completion team at the tail. A worthy challenge, tested my diving skills bigtime. I had incredible view of the whole thing forming up, and got to see massive improvement as the event progressed. Some seriously badass pilots here, very happy to fly with you ALL. Got no more time now, but DAMN was that an awesome experience and I will be back for more when it happens. Fly safe you guys, -B Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

I'd like to make a suggestion. Time is against us. We do not have time to spend as we have so far, infinitely bickering among ourselves and accomplishing nothing. It takes time to institute new bureaucracy of any sort. We can argue about the creation of a rating all we want. Perhaps we should move forward with that as well but it is a separate issue. The problem is that we have too many people flying wingsuits who do not understand or are not aware of the level of risk they are taking and the physics involved. They are not educating themselves, nor are they putting even the minimum amount of thought into it, actually thinking about, understanding and taking into account the physics and conditions involved. Not all of us need to be forced or led. I flew all sizes of suits for years and kept myself safe by paying attention to what I was doing. I had nobody to teach me. I was learning it by studying the physics and the techniques of the few other birds who existed at the time. Nobody ever needed to warn me about the tail, (they did anyway though, especially the year we had a Caravan, thank you!) I understood the threat from the start and developed ingrained habits to avoid it. It seemed incredibly obvious. Like the consequences of NOT flaring. Especially on low tailed aircraft, I learned to scrunch desperately like my life depended on it, because it does. I am among the lighter weight wingsuit pilots flying the biggest of suits and am more vulnerable to this threat than almost anyone else in the sky. Which is why I'm so aware of it. To me all tails are a guillotine blade I must dodge each and every time. But the pioneer days are over, we exist in mass numbers now and we have made it look too easy and too accessible. Now we have rapidly increasing numbers of people with wingsuits and almost no awareness of what they can actually do. Many of these tailstrikes, including the fatality from '09 who happened to be a close friend of mine, were caused by experienced wingsuiters screwing up. Simply shouting from the rooftops "We have to have a rating" Is not an effective way to address the issue. It is a large, indirect blanket method, typical of bureaucratic police thinking and does nothing to address the fact that many of these strikes are by people already experienced enough that such a rating program would have had no effect on the outcome whatsoever. The '09 fatality. I taught him from first flight myself. Including the hazards of tails. Flew with him his whole wingsuit career. Led by example. He watched me experiment with prototypes that jacked my tailstrike risk 1000fold, watched me successfully deal with it all without incident and STILL he was unaware. He had years of experience. He was repeatedly warned about increasing carelessness by his own crew. And it was still not enough to prevent his death. He let his guard down and it killed him. A concrete, effective action solution is required NOW. Not 6 months from now after half a dozen more tailstrikes and 50,000 pages worth of political maneuvering for status and power within the community only to arrive at an expensive and complex bureaucratic "solution" that does NOTHING to actually STOP this and is guaranteed to provoke instant reflex defiance from every wannabe rebel in the sport, of which we have many. Wingsuiting attracts such people like flies. Any solution must address their existence AND their nature. The creation and mandating of a rating will have no effect on the already well-experienced wingsuit population responsible for half these incidents. I do not argue against a rating. For what its worth, more and more I support the idea of its creation. With mass adoption comes mass stupidity, mass carelessness and mass arrogance and so we get the Miami Tailstrike Contest. What did they think they were doing, a carnival ride where everything's been made safe enough for a drug-addled juvenile to survive it no matter what they do? The complete, oblivious carefree idiocy on display was a symptom of fatal mindlessness growing endemic throughout our community. What we have done so far is not working. When wingsuits were exclusive to the highly aware daring explorer types among us who could take care of themselves we were fine. Now, wingsuits are the new Swooping and we are attracting mass numbers of guys like Sangi (if you don't know, do a search for the tale of his short and brutal career as a "mad skyllz swooper") but now they have the power to take the entire aircraft with them. And with the bullheaded pig-ignorant stupidity of all such types, they will not stop or change course until they actually DO take down a plane. We've been lucky so far. Our luck has just run out. One of the tailstrikes in the last year was by a guy with over 7,000 jumps. I'd have thought surely THAT was enough to prepare the guy and assure his awareness of airflow/gear interaction possibilities but clearly it was not. Experience is no guarantee, and a rating will not touch those who think they already know what they're doing. Including those careless ones who HAVE been trained, take a casual skygod attitude, let down their guard and continue to have tailstrikes anyway. I argue for direct, effective action, NOW. The most effective way to stop this and stop it cold is to get the information out there. By any means necessary. Jam it in everybody's faces. The images Spot put up here are revealing. The sight of bird after bird exiting with wings half-spread is like watching kids tap-dancing on the interstate, oblivious. I want to slap them for waltzing into such a threatening situation with such a cavalier attitude and without taking the trouble to even make THEMSELVES aware of the hazards they're facing... and creating. Point 1: A rating will help but it is not a solution in itself. Creating such rating and declaring "We fixed it, see?" is begging for a fall. What will we do when the experienced but careless birds, unaffected by regulations imposed on newbies, continue to smack tails anyway? Wail "But we FIXED it?" We didn't. It'll look all proper, satisfy the bureaucrats, (for awhile) there'll be all kinds of i's to dot and t's to cross and signatures to collect and people will feel smug and satisfied that they "did something effective" because The System says thats how all things are fixed, and it will, not, actually, stop the tailstrikes. "You have all these rules and you think they'll save you." -The Joker Point 2: It could take years longer before any real consensus or agreement is reached in the community. We don't HAVE years. In the middle of a mal you don't spend time debating what is the best emergency procedure. You ACT. To the best of your knowledge, with whatever you have at hand. Not by some rigid process depicted in a policy manual but by whatever means will ACTUALLY SOLVE THE PROBLEM NOW. A half-effective solution may be worse than no solution at all. After we have a rating, and "we" have collectively notified the insurance industry that "we have policies in place now" and the tailstrikes continue, what then? I have little but contempt for most forms of institutional authority because it only knows one blind, blanket solution to all problems. "People are breaking or ignoring the rules? We'll make even MORE rules, that'll stop em!" Point 3: There is only one way I can think of that can be at least unopposed if not enthusiastically promoted by all, to address this in a concrete manner. A direct information campaign. The procedures we need to propagate and make known are basic and can be depicted on a single sheet. It will be a whole lot easier to get the entire community to agree on a simple set of procedures to post in every aircraft and at every boarding area for addressing exit hazards than an entire rating and its attendant requirements and bureaucracy. Spot already has this handled at his place. He did not wait for the system to solve it for him. While waiting to see how the rating effort turned out, he ACTED DIRECTLY. But his efforts are limited in effect to his sphere of influence. Its a massive help and the most professional operation we've got going that I know of but it is not enough. We have a large assortment of small kingdoms watched over by the birds who founded them but all the spaces in between are unguarded. Miami is proof of that. And a preview of the results. We can no longer count on the intelligence and awareness of the individual birds involved because the filtering mechanism that used to protect us is no longer functioning. Fear and ignorance no longer keep the idiots out. They got the idea this is easy, too many of them ventured over the line without getting bit, and now they're coming for us. We are outnumbered and we cannot win. Not as we are. Take a good look at the "mad skillz" swoop community. How many of them REFUSE to learn till AFTER they shatter their bodies. With years and hundreds of examples to ignore. The danger only encourages them to prove how "mad skillz" they REALLY are and how THEY are the exception they don't NEED canopy skill drills or education because THEY are faster smarter and ahead of all those average guys and so we have a neverending supply of them, new ones to replace the fallen as fast as they can break themselves. Thats us next week. We need a solution that will be noticed and heeded by newbs and veterans alike. The veterans causing half the problem will blow off, ignore and dismiss the rating before its even created because the rules already do not apply to them. I know of two forms of action that are actually effective in addressing such issues. The first is to get the damn info out there. Short. Succinct. Bullet points and one or two cartoon graphics on a simple sign we can post at every boarding area and in every aircraft. A simple image of a wingsuit in midexit with wings tightly scrunched and a "1...2...open" followed by an image of a wingsuit in midexit with wings open, striking the tail, with little cartoon X's over his eyes and a big red X across the image. Get it OUT there. By any means necessary, polite or obnoxious. Jam it in people's faces so thoroughly it cannot be dismissed or ignored. Get the wingsuit waiver made. Its a start. Convince DZOs to institute it of their own free will out of rational self interest. People can argue that it will be ignored and initialed the way the basic waivers we already sign for general jumping are. But they miss the point. The waiver is NOT ignored. Some try to, and try to sue anyway, but everyone who jumps signs one, and everyone who jumps knows what they are signing and WHY. THAT, is what we need to make known...the WHY. There isn't a single skydiver who does not constantly encounter the words "Parachuting is a high risk activity that may result in injury or death" everywhere they look. Its on the waiver. Its written on our canopies. Our rigs. In our manuals. This approach HAS ALREADY WORKED against threats that could have ended skydiving. NOBODY can plead ignorance. That example is the most thorough awareness-saturation campaign that has ever been held by skydivers and it WORKED. THAT is what we must do. Now. The second form of action is simple peer pressure. Talk about it. To everybody. Rehearse. Publicly. Explain what and why. Refer them to the damn signs! Don't wait for one, don't wait for mine, make your own. Explain that this threat exceeds all others that we know of and that anything less than hypervigilance is no longer acceptable Spot teaches 3 seconds' delay. Its thorough and leaves a margin for error including newbies counting at triple speed due to excitement. Some argue that its excessive. Robin argues for just 1 second. I say this is not enough. I could do a rushed "one-count", pop my apache half a second into the exit and still hit the tail. We do not want to bet the future of our sport on a borderline one second wide. We need a commonly known procedure that works even if you screw it up because people WILL. Count on it. At least let us settle on two seconds as a MINIMUM safety standard. To HELL with how it affects building formations. A wasted second after exit makes less difference to us than any other form of skydiver. We HAVE the time. AFTER we're out and clear. If an additional one second delay is enough to prevent a bird from making it into a formation that bird does not in fact know how to exit and fly the hill yet and has no business IN the formation and needs to stick to basic flight practice until they do. This can be taught by rating holders LATER. They need to have the basic survival skills made known to them, unignorably, NOW. THAT, we can do immediately. I'm sure the bickering skygods will make drama and protest whats all the hysteria about, we don't need no waiver, etc... but its existence and the signs everywhere will be causing them to ASK THE QUESTION in spite of themselves and their own attitude. It will force the issue to the front of their minds even against their will, in spite of their best efforts to ignore it or cop an attitude that they're so skilled it doesn't apply to them. Which is the point. Our problem isn't "not enough rules" our problem is "not enough AWARENESS." We can fix THAT much faster than we can make and enforce new rules and new bureaucracy. If we don't stop this now there won't BE any formations. There will be people who rush the "one-count" but making common procedure a mental state of waiting 2 beats means even a half-panicked hyped-up "onetwoopen!" by an overexcited noob still incudes more than the one actual second required to clear the aircraft. A minimum extra margin for error MUST be built into universally known procedure because people will need it, people will use it, and if that margin isn't taught as an inherent part of the procedure this approach will not work. People will obey the peer pressure rules as best they can and hit the tail anyway. I am not going to wait around for the rest of the community to get the picture and come to an agreement either. The necessary minimum action to begin addressing this is clear. To demonstrate by action that I do not think myself any more exempt than anyone else, I shall go first. And I begin acting on this, today. I will be seen demonstrating and practicing proper exit technique by the mockup even if there are no other birds present to see. Some aspiring birds WILL see. And ask. And learn. Which is the point. Anyone with some art skills willing and able to create a custom "public sign style" cartoon image in the nonverbal style used for road signs and public things such as fire exits and wet floors depicting the threat and its solution for prompt release to public domain to help me with this, please contact me immediately. I cannot offer to pay you. All I can offer is that if this works, your work will be seen posted in every Manifest office, aircraft and boarding area in the industry. I've made quite a few friends in this thing. I have deliberately refrained from asking for favors or backup on any issues I could handle myself so that IF I ever needed to call for help for real, that call, would be taken seriously. I'm calling for it now. I need the Cavalry. Even those of you with opposing agendas and even outright interpersonal animosity. Please. Set aside the issues you fight over and work together with me. For this. For US. On just this one thing. Even if you believe it will be ineffective. Indulge me. This is Lurch, and I am calling for your aid. I want more than anything to stop this now before some insurance bureaucrat closes the gates and locks me out of the sky so his shareholders can save a few bucks against the possibility of a risk I myself don't even present because I actually take this seriously. We can't make a rating overnight without wrecking half the community in the process by reflexive defiant opposition but we CAN do THIS and we can do it right now. Jeff. Spot. Scotty. Taya. Ed. Scott Bland. Chuck Blue. All my heroes and friends. Everyone I know. And I mean everyone. At least everyone in the United States. If you fly a wingsuit this involves YOU. Once...just once... I ask us to all pull together in the same direction to accomplish something. All the cynics and jaded birds. Mock me if you must for my silly dramatic idealism but HELP me this one time. Take this request seriously. Just be willing to help post this...when it is made... be willing to help spread the waiver idea. Its not a total solution but its a start and its a lot faster and more direct than a rating. We can't wait around for a rating, we can't wait around for somebody else to "make policy". WE have to make it. NOW. Not by writing it down in some rulebook somewhere but by putting it UP, everywhere. I can do NOTHING alone. I can fix one dropzone... mine. I can have little effect on anything else without a lot of help. I am not going to wait around for an answer. I'm setting off for the DZ now to get started. I'll do whatever I can, today. If you're going to help, do it now, talk about it later. We've lost too much time as it is. -B Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

Giselle, you're so sweet, you make me itch in funny places. We should set up a nest and raise some chicks. Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.