The111

If your home DZ is really Pepperell, you are surrounded by wingsuit instructors! Talk to them. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Wild speculation, but I'd like to think they'd set up their tests such that the camera buffer is the limiting factor in the chain (i.e. by choosing a card faster than necessary). Not sure there is a definitive answer out there to prove that now, but after release it will probably be easy to find a third party website running such tests also. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Holy crap that SL1 sounds awesome! I wonder if it has the same sensor and image quality as the T5i? I am ok with a framerate hit, but not sure about quality. I see photographers all the time complaining that the Rebel series is "too small"... but for both of my biggest photography interests (skydiving and backpacking), a small camera is a huge plus! I'm already on the verge of replacing my CX100 with an action camera for most jumps. If I do a SL1 next to that, my head might feel like a head again instead of a bowling ball. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Can you elaborate on that last sentence? I am not sure if there's a typo in there or what, but it makes no sense to me as written. A while ago I read something along the lines of "after pulling my cut away the RSL pulled my reserve pin before I pulled my reserve handle but next time I have a malfunction I'm going to pull my reserve handle sooner to beat my RSL". They didn't understand why this was a bad idea (in most cases) ... I have not looked at a RSL up close in a long time, so I don't know precisely how they are implemented on most rigs, but I just looked at my wife's Wings with an RSL, and on that system, the handles can be pulled in either order with no problems (other than the obvious out of sequence cutaway/deployment). If the reserve pin has been pulled before the cutaway is complete, then the RSL will simply not pull it, but the main will continue to release as intended (again, ignoring the fact that you might be releasing it into a reserve due to the whole out of order thing). What exactly are you referring to? www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Can you elaborate on that last sentence? I am not sure if there's a typo in there or what, but it makes no sense to me as written. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

http://www.bird-man.com/airzone/news-events/ !!! www.WingsuitPhotos.com

That's the same conclusion I came to.

Somewhat on topic... I noticed on my G3 that the velcro tabs on the shoulder zips (not present on my previous PF suit) are at the "bottom end" of the zipper... i.e. the end where you first assemble the zipper when zipping it up. So they don't actually prevent the zippers from coming "slightly undone" somewhere over the course of plane ride, freefall, deployment, etc. Not that the slight unzip really bothers me that much... if anything it is probably a good thing to allow it to unzip a bit when stressed, rather than stress a seam somewhere. If harness fit is not perfect, this is kind of equivalent to "skipping two tabs" on an older style suit. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

No RSL. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

So you threw before the video starts? Am I correct that at 0:06 when your feet swing up that was the end of your deployment? Seems like an awful long snivel... longer than 6 seconds by some unspecified amount? Good clean chop. If I didn't jump cameras I would be all over a Skyhook. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

At this point we are second-guessing what was in the jumper's head. I think Monkey's point was that assuming the jumper had no intentions of trying to untwist the canopy (and the video seems to support this), then he had no reason to unzip. We're all in agreement: the only reason you unzip is if you plan on flying the canopy above your head. The reason it was noteworthy in this video was because he wasted a LOT of valuable time/altitude unzipping, and then never did even attempt to untwist the lines. He could have saved all that time and chopped while still zipped. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

+111 Any decent FFC teaches you that if your canopy is not flyable, you cut it away just like you would without a wingsuit. The wing cutaways never come into play until you are ready to grab some toggle. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Agreed. Quite happy with my metal handle, even though I've never used the one on this rig. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

5 lbs should not make a difference. I've fluctuated as much as 30lbs in weight and all my wingsuits still fit. But I order them a bit baggy on purpose. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Also, the day after I made my last post, I tried all the same stuff again and there were no problems. I wasn't sure if the bug had been fixed already, or if this was just another fluke which will make it harder to identify. Sounds like the latter. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

No, I did not see the 'NEW' on this post. I've seen the issue happen in multiple forums, though I just did a quick experiment and clicked on many unread threads in the bonfire, and for every one I got the 'NEW' indicator. Then I went to general skydiving and clicked on several unread threads, and did not get the indicator for any of them. Same for this forum here, which would explain my first sentence in this post. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

I'm seeing it too. Usually it scrolls to the first unread post, and that post has a "new" marking next to it. Now it just opens at the beginning of the thread, and if I scroll to the end, the new posts do not have the marking. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Pretty much the main thing on my mind ever since the first post in this thread. If this thing ever takes off, I fear for the pilot. Even if it doesn't take off, I can still envision a spectacular crash just in these ground runs. The picture in the first post is terrifying to look at (were it not photoshopped). He is just begging to break both wrists and probably his neck too. What is up with that arm position? Anyone who's been in freefall will recognize it would probably be impossible to hold your arms like that while moving at the speeds needs to takeoff/land this crazy thing, besides being unsafe and incredibly un-aerodynamic. Seriously, question for the OP: what is the reason the pilot is holding his arms forward like that? What does he imagine it is doing for him? Not only will his wrists break, they'll make the whole crazy contraption flip forwards when they do. As far as I can tell, there is absolutely no reason for a human being to want to take off and land from solid ground in a belly down head first position at really high speeds. What is the appeal? Birds don't do that. The flight is the cool part anyway, and we already have a dozen ways of doing that. Why not just use one of the already established takeoff/landing methods? This one does not look like it will ever be safe or accessible. What's the point? JetMan has been flying something like this for years and I am pretty sure he wouldn't dream of trying a takeoff/landing like this... www.WingsuitPhotos.com

This is why I suggested playing in the ocean. You will quickly realize your assumptions here are wrong. Water below the surface is doing things very different than the water ON the surface. This is part of what makes waves so cool. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

i think this comment is reasonable "This is retarded. You can do the same damn thing with fins on your feet." Whether or not it's retarded is open for debate. But you cannot do the same thing with fins on your feet. You may be able to have the same level of control (i.e. move from point A to point B), but that is like saying because I can fly my parachute 5 miles from 13,000 feet, then flying a wingsuit 5 miles from 13,000 feet is "doing the same thing." It is not. Nobody can glide underwater as flat as that guy, without wearing a similar suit or apparatus. Finning along the same path he glides down is not even close to the same thing, anymore than me jogging next to you on a bike downhill is the same thing. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

It's not just a moment. I grew up near the ocean and bodysurfing was something everybody did. Just like regular surfing, the quality of the wave make a huge difference. In most waves, you can't get a very long ride without adding a bit of push with your arms or legs. But with a more hydrodynamic shape, and a perfect wave with a perfect break, you could go forever. It is certainly much longer than a moment, even 5-10 seconds in crappy waves is easy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DXiLzkyZWQ The experience feels much more like being pulled than it does like being pushed. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Put a ball on the table. Blow on it from behind. It will roll forward, despite the fact that the static air mass in front of it is causing drag that is slowing it down. This is neither magic nor confusing. Now try the same thing with something the exact same mass and volume as that ball, but a cube instead of a sphere. It will probably not move, and if it does it will move much slower. A wave is a moving mass of water. If the conditions are right for a given object (meaning the size/mass/volume/shape/orientation of said object), the wave will carry the object either on top of it or inside it. Surfers and subsurfers exploit these conditions respectively to ride the top or the inside of the wave. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

A swell will pass under seaweed. A breaking wave will not. Why do you think beaches are covered in seaweed and driftwood? Go play in the ocean and figure it out.

He's riding a wave. It pushes him. There is no "current" pushing on his face. There is indeed drag from the fluid surrounding him, but there is a greater push from the wave. Dolphins have been doing this forever. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

I answered this same Q in the Youtube comments, though with far less detail. Freedivers are not neutral in water, or more accurately they are neutral at one point only. If you go in a very deep freshwater pool and hold your breath, you will most likely float with some positive buoyancy force. If you begin diving down on this same breath, your mass will remain constant but your volume will decrease as the water pressure increases and causes your lungs, soft tissue, etc to literally shrink and your positive buoyancy to decrease. Before very long you will pass through your neutral buoyancy point, and from there you will sink (no longer needing to swim or fin), becoming increasingly negatively buoyant the deeper you go. Adding neoprene or weight will increase/decrease the depth of your neutral buoyancy point, respectively. The diver in the video is without a doubt far below his neutral buoyancy point for all the shots. EDIT: The subsurfing guy, on the other hand (in the pic above) is held down by the very same hydro forces he is riding. It's why his "track" appears so steep... it's closer to angle flying since he is using the forces generated to hold himself under. www.WingsuitPhotos.com