The111

You certainly won't get yelled at for flying a kite (when jumping is on hold!) on a windy day. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

One of the first things I noticed about my Optik Illusion was how that pin can move around very easily. I check it on every jump, right before I put the helmet on. It is almost always part of the way out, and rotated at a weird angle, so I push it back in all the way and rotate it the way I want. But I am confident that once I put it on my head it stays pretty stationary... I think most of the movement occurs on the ground when I take the helmet off and swivel the strap around. Impressive that you were able to collect all the hardware on the plane and put it back together. Even in my room it took me a while to find all the hardware when I did a test cutaway. Glad you didn't lose your lid.

My method for aligning my ringsight: Take my TV and put it in front of the window. Stand in front of it, with my camera hooked up to the AV in, in record mode. Helmet on my head. Aim the ringsight out the window at something far away, look down at TV with my eyes (not moving my head) and observe where camera is centered. Move ringsight until it is aligned with camera. If I were mounting a box for the first time, I could gaffer's tape it to the side of the helmet BEFORE drilling holes, and use a similar approach to get it to a location I like. Then mark it and drill. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

I thought it was the skate and chug? I agree about at least one attempt on the diamond. At the very least, take 9 or 16 REALLY GOOD flyers (or 25, if we have that many) and make a nice diamond. I have never seen a picture of a "perfect" formation larger than a 4-way diamond. It is nice that our bigway wedges allow the lower experienced to chase from behind (hell, I am in the DeLand 2004 bigway picture chasing from behind, way out of my slot ), and it sucks to have to exclude anybody. But if you look at RW or FF record attempts, they make predetermined formations with the BEST flyers they can find. We can do "everbody" wedges all day Saturday. But if we want a nice picture (COVER SHOT!) with everyone in their slots, we need to do at least 1 or 2 dives that may not be as big as the wedges, but are guaranteed to be super-tight, with no stragglers. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

That's true. What you could do, is spend your next 50 jumps planning out exactly how to drill those holes. Why do you need holes in your helmet now if you're not going to mount anything to it yet? I've heard it before... www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Puke on a wingsuit... it's been done. Am I the first? www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Way to go, you polyglot. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Do you know if anything like this is available to fit a Royal Lens? www.WingsuitPhotos.com

The Ball Revamped series is great. http://www.jmtb02.com/games.php I beat Ball Revamped II and III a long time ago. Apparently there is a IV now. I don't have time to get involved with that one today! www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Hmm, that is a good deal, better than my tried and true pricegrabber.com method. How do you get it? Even on Dell.com I can't arrive at that price... but I also see no 20% thing anywhere... www.WingsuitPhotos.com

ATMOFLOCKI! I like. Or is it flockmonauti? www.WingsuitPhotos.com

What was total price after shipping and everything, using the online deal? www.WingsuitPhotos.com

James, are you aware of the HC3 which is about to come out? www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Again, I don't know exactly who it was. It is narrowed down to 2-3 people, which means nothing. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Headdown is possible, I know that much. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

1-Voodew1 (TX) 2-Professor (TX) 3-FlyinBob (TX) 4-Buried (IL) 5-The111 (LOCAL!) 6-Skyflyingbecca (FL) 7-Moonglo (TX) 8-Luminous (TX) 9-unclecharlie95 (ITALIA) 10-Base733 (UT) 11-nathaniel(IL) 12-HELMUT (Tatooween) 13-OmarPR (LOCAL) 14-RobertPecnik(CROATIA) 15-Purple Mike(Earth) 16-Costyn (NL) (very likely) 17-Matt (GA) 18-Joni (NE) 19-Yuri (Russia-USA) 20-Lifewithoutanet (CA/CO, USA) 21-badenhop (Lodi) 22-Mike Steen (UT) 23-EmLo (Local) 24-DaMan (Local) 25- Rob Jones (Local) 26-Scott Bland (Local) 27-Chris Ware (Local) 28-Scotty Burns (Local) 29-Jeff Nebelkopf (Local) 30-Mike (Local) 31-Paul Mazillo (Local) 32-Scary Perry (Local) 33-Mark (normis) Cochran (Local) 34-Manny (Local) 35-Lurch? (NH) 36-Mudbug(TX) 37-Murphy (AZ) 38-Harry Parker 39-Pendragon (U.K.) 40-980 (Canada) 41-RkyMtnHgh (FL) 42-MarkM (FL) 43-SkymonkeyONE (NC) 44-Ian (?) 45-Aaron (?) 46-Medusa (FL) 47-Danny (Puerto Rico) 48-Kevin Keenan (FL) www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Even if they took way too long, they would not "cause the danger of landing out" for anybody after them. Everybody else can (and should) still spot, and everybody else can still ask for a go around if need be. What if there was a 747 flying under the plane that only they could see? What if the guy you pushed was being told by somebody outside that his chest strap was undone (and you could not hear or see this)? I still don't think it's ever justified to push a person out of an airplane (except in emergency, which your case was not). It is the jumper's choice. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

We didn't know exactly who pushed, and could only narrow it down to about 3 people who all jokingly avoided the issue when we brought it up with them. Lesson learned, don't ever sit in front of those people. Would have been pointless to try to involve any "authorities", S&TA, whatever. I am not very violent either, no matter how mad I get. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Point taken.

Two weeks ago something happened that infuriated me. A freeflier push my girlfriend and I out the door as soon as the greenlight came on. We were not past the spot yet, the winds were high, and we were almost forced to land off in very undesirable conditions. I almost posted about it here but decided against it. Then I read this post and had to reply. What do you think? www.WingsuitPhotos.com

NOT FUNNY AT ALL. Especially considering the "haze". It is every skydiver's right to make a conscious decision to exit the plane based on the spot, if they want. Two weeks ago my girlfriend and I were doing a 2-way belly and we were first out. The winds were high and she is lightly windloaded. I told her on the ground, we can not get out of the airplane until we are sure we are upwind of the spot. When the greenlight came on, we were still slightly downwind of the spot. I climbed halfway out but held up my hand telling her to wait. After 10 seconds or so, some hotshot freeflier pushed her out the door past me, so I exited with her. She BARELY made it back to the LZ. Even at a 1.5WL I almost didn't make it back. There were NO OUTS downwind of the LZ. The freeflier who pushed her was under the assumption that we were wasting his time (and screwing his spot) because we made him wait 10 seconds. Well guess what? I had my head out the door, not him, and I could see that the winds had our groundspeed at a CRAWL. Our ten seconds in the door had virtually no affect on his spot (or the rest of the plane's) due to the ridiculously low groundspeed, and the fact that the greenlight came on too early and NOBODY should have been getting out yet. Landing off, in high winds, in some places (places with lots of trees, powerlines, roads and houses) can hurt seriously or kill. It is NOT FUNNY to push somebody out of the plane, especially if they are first out and you cannot see the spot. At worst, it is extremely dangerous. At best, it is RUDE. Stop laughing. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

On an Optik Illusion (different than the Optik), the mounting surface is actually fairly big. I wish it was a full rectangle instead of the trapezoid it is, but it is still big enough to do what you describe (vert still + vid). In fact, I did that exact thing on my OI just last week. Pictures here. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Nice work Scott. 45-way anybody?

I am happy with my new 350D (XT) because of how small and light it is, but I am also happy that prices are falling on everything and maybe in a couple years I'll upgrade to something bigger, heavier, and cheaper. I got it for around $800 and within a week it was available for more than $50 less... prices are indeed dropping. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

CD's are digital. www.WingsuitPhotos.com