The111

Omar is the same size as you and he demoed the same Acro I did at Flock n Dock 1.5 a couple weeks ago. I'm 4 inches taller so I guess it was a bit long on him, but he still liked it. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Wait, you can jump without a wingsuit? Seriously, I have made 10 jumps without a suit in the past year. And I really have never tried backtracking for performance (only at breakoff to check airspace), but one of these days I will. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Cute, but Wendy beat you to it, word for word even. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Sure you're technical. Soul surfers care about surfing well, they just don't care about competition/acclaim. You may not like analyzing every tiny body movement you make when you fly, but it's certainly highly technical flying, even if you use instinct more than thought. I think we all fly on instinct eventually, but since I'm over-analytical, whenever I learn something new, I try to think my way into it rather than just feel it out. That's how my "right-side-up" progression went, and now I'm starting over with upside down. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Thanks for the picture and the explanations. Not to sound like an arm-chair quarterback when I'm the one asking for help, but I actually know, in my head, what the optimal position looks like, I just can't make it happen, yet. So I just wanted to see if anyone could offer a fresh perspective based on the pics I posted, knowing full well what is wrong with the position, just curious how I can more easily fix it. But I'm getting closer with each jump. The thing that usually happens is when I try to arch at the chest, look up/forward (forward meaning in direction of flight) and open my legwing fully, I end up going headdown. However, there are many variables involved in this balancing act, which eventually will become reflex, and my guess is I'm trying to arch too much. Exactly this same thing happened when learning to fly slow on my belly (leave the criticisms of slow flight goals out of this ). I couldn't get below 50mph for a long time. People always said "dearch at the hips" and every time I tried, it sent me headdown. Turned out I was dearching too much. I finally found the balance point, and can now hit mid/upper 30's. So I'm sure all I need is a couple dozen more jumps (slow learner) before I find that perfect balance point. I've accidentally hit it a few times now and felt my leg wing stretched completely tight. But I can't hit it every time, just like I couldn't hit slow belly flight every time when I first learned. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

So what you're saying is never trust a deaf skydiver? Maybe I'd like that. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Kris, I am centered in the pic if you couldn't tell, but I guess it's not extremely obvious. But then again somebody getting my card probably wouldn't know me well enough to recognize me there anyway. Lisa, you knew me when I had only a few skydives... I've had the rating for a few months but when someone this weekend asked me if I had a card I realized I was slacking and needed to fix that...

I scored a 32... www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Updated to add myself and Scary Perry.

Gee, I wonder who that was? Yup, I made a few jumps with Mike and filmed that 7 way, we all had a blast! I think I know who you were, I met quite a few of you deaf guys before the end of the weekend, and my friends and I concluded that your way of communication is definitely the way to go on a loud crowded airplane - we want to learn!

Which design do you like better? www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Contact BirdMan, Jari is from Finland!

Jarno's avatar looks like a pretty good example (bigger version Jarno? ), and I'll have to agree with what he said - it is definitely hard on the arms, in my S3 at least. I worked on it some more this weekend and was doing good but getting exhausted and unable to hold my arms out all the way. It was this way right side up though when I first got the S3, and after a couple dozen jumps I got used to it, so I'll just keep on flying and get used to it upside down too. :) www.WingsuitPhotos.com

You really think so? Looking at how our country has reacted to 9/11 and other things, I guess it's not as unbelievable as it sounds to me. How about this one? Last week at Zhills I was doing some solo backfly jumps in my wingsuit. I cleared my airspace at 13k in the door, and while on my back I could see the runways so was aware of my heading. I flew on my back until 6k where I rolled back over... nobody else on the load was pulling above 4k, and I was way off jumprun so I was fine in that regard. However, when I rolled back over I saw a glider flying in the general area I was headed, probably at about 3k. I thought about buzzing him but it was too low for my tastes so I flew away and pulled. I guess in my situation you could argue I shouldn't have flown on my back for so long, and it's true that if I had been right side up I would have seen him a bit sooner and certainly been able to avoid him in my wingsuit. But nobody could see that glider from the door (it was small, white, and at 3k feet, nearly invisible when I was close to it), and a normal freefaller wouldn't have had much way to avoid it if he had seen it 3 seconds before impact. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

If it was supporting you during deployment, it would need to support more than your weight. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

I like the exit shot with Perry lurking in the background. EDIT: Wait a sec, didn't Perry video that 4-way? I'm basing this on the first clip where it is POV from someone in an orange suit. But that exit shot I commented on, he is helmetless. Where's the camera? Is this another one of your conspiracies James?! www.WingsuitPhotos.com

GOOGLE GOOGLE www.WingsuitPhotos.com

That is weird. Perhaps your camera is sending your PC a virus and the SP2 firewall is blocking it. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

I've only captured video from my new HC90 a couple times now. But I am using Pinnacle also (XP SP2), and have had problems getting the capture to initiate once or twice, and a reboot has fixed it. My firewire cable is also screwy... when I hook up to people's cameras the connection is often not made unless you push the end in really firmly... I got a super cheap cable from WalMart. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

I've always wondered about something about the term "on your back" with regards to spinning linetwists. If you are spinning (spiralling) so hard that you are laid out horizontal, couldn't you be on your belly too? Not really on your belly, but belly to earth. Or if you were "on" your back but decided to start kicking out, wouldn't you be alternating from belly to back every half twist? Or is there some physical phenomenon that causes the jumper/harness to always orient back to earth during a hard linetwist spiral? www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Chuck, are you meaning to say there's a disadvantage to "only" helmet mounting it? I'm trying to think of what the advantages are to a hand mount, and I honestly can't say, although I'll admit it sure looks cool. To me it almost seems limiting, since your sighting method is down your arm, which means you can only shoot pics from above and in front of the subject. Correct me if I'm wrong. You need your arm (hand) to fly, so there are only so many ways you could move the camera, even if you didn't have to use your arm as a sight (which limits those few possible directions of aiming to one). Your head can swivel in many directions and is less related (very little) to your flying. One thing good about Perry is he is a great acrobatic/backflyer and can get shots from any angle/location, above or below. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

One thing I noticed on my flatspins (and other "shit hits the fan" moments in skydiving) is temporal distortion. I struggled with one flatspin for what seemed like 10 seconds or so and was starting to get worried just before I righted myself. Upon reviewing the video, the "10 seconds" was actually just under 2 seconds. Rocket: so you were able to recover. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

The same thing was said about the V1 when people first started jumping it (and is still said by some), but I have seen skilled pilots fly it with very slow (forwards) flocks. I'm pretty sure any suit can be slown down quite a bit by some combination of leg inputs, you just have to figure them out. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Wow, that is scary Mark! I'm pretty sure only the newer BirdMan suits (Firebird, PHI, S3-S) have the newer cutaway handle design. I am curious to see how the tabs ("partly") made it so you couldn't cutaway. You'll have to show me next time we meet up. I've always wondered what people meant by an unrecoverable flatspin, since I had never experienced a really bad one, but fortunately (I think?) this weekend I finally got the chance. I had to do a bunch of solo jumps on Saturday due to certain unnamed (OMAR, JEFF) Z-flockers not showing up @ LW as planned. I got bored on these solos and started doing really hard multiple barrel rolls and eventually got myself into a couple fast flatspins. I simply balled up as I had heard you should, waited for the rotations to slow down, and then opened wings and started flying again. No offense to you Mark, but it is my opinion that people who think their spin was unrecoverable, even after trying balling up, did not ball up long enough. NOTE: initially after balling up, your spin speed will actually INCREASE due to rotational inertia. However, if you hold the "ball" long enough (a couple seconds) the speed will slow back down and without wings the spin will not sustain itself. The first really bad one I got in, I opened wings too soon after balling up, and it just started spinning again, so I pulled my stuff in and waited a bit longer. In my mind an unrecoverable spin would be one where inertia pins your arms and legs OUT and you physically CAN'T ball up. I don't know if that is possible, but if it is, the concept is terrfying since you would not be able to touch ANYTHING (hackey, wing cutaways, emergency handles), which would imply you're going in. However, most people who have told me they were in an "unrecoverable flatspin" either (a) cutaway wings (or tried like you say you did) or (b) pulled their hackey (like you did). Well guess what, both (a) and (b) require pulling an arm (or both) all the way in, so I would think if you can pull your arms in to grab handles or hackey, you can pull them in to ball up all the same. Correct me if I'm wrong, someone. On the topic of the Gravitron: Saskia - I think it is quite different from an eagle in execution since there is such a large "carve" component to it due to the forward speed we free-flockers have. An eagle is done about a small fixed radius, while we as birds are carving all over the sky (around a large radius) while maintaining proximity and changing our orientation. I just got back from a long weekend of popping many aerobatic cherries, and at sunset today I tried my first Gravitron with Omar. It went pretty well although I stupidly recorded over my video, but maybe if I get a chance I will post Omar's. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

I'll let Omar correct my definition if it is lacking, but: That's an Omar-copyrighted name for the 2-way "free-flocking" transition that can be seen in the vid from 6:40-6:45 (and other places) where two flyers, face to face (one back one belly) complete half backloop and front loop carves, going through a headdown orientation in the process, and come out with their positions and heading reversed. Proximity should be maintained through the maneuver I think, right Omar? www.WingsuitPhotos.com