The111

How about we put one of each in the same plane? www.WingsuitPhotos.com

You think that's true now, but wait until you see blood dripping down the gutter. Hang around in this sport long enough and you WILL lose a friend. The lanes don't care how good you think you are, and that ball is HARD. I know, can you BELIEVE they sell beer in some bowling alleys?! They're just asking for trouble. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

If the straddle bench is slippery it is very hard to keep a good posture while sitting sideways (because of the plane's flight angle). I have a screwed up lower back, and if I spend a whole day sitting sideways on a slippery Caravan straddle bench, with my slippery tail deflector underneath me, my back often hurts at the end of the day just from the plane rides. :( www.WingsuitPhotos.com

You safety nazis obviously don't understand that some people progress faster than others. So what if he wants a 14lb ball with 50 lines? I was bowling 16lb with 25 lines! You just can't accept that some of us are fast learners! I haven't hurt myself in the previous lines, so why shouldn't I be able to progress? Right? Or are you all forgetting about the personal freedoms and thrill seeking attitudes that attracted us to bowling in the first place?! EDIT: This thread cracks me up. There are so many places to take this joke... First bowler sets the pattern direction BSR's (bowling safety regulations) Talk to your family about what not to do if you die bowling Bowling barefoot The list goes on and on... www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Maybe if you looked at the ground and not him he'd flinch less. (I know what you mean) www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Luckily for me, I think those (fries and coke) are both gross! (skinny boy eating a huge burger right now - NOT shitty fast food though) www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Thanks for the clarification. I guess maybe it sounds believable now. You're probably right that fear (or lack thereof) has a lot to do with initial freefall preformance. I've seen newbies (non-jumpers) get in the wind tunnel and fly pretty good the first time, since it's not as scary as a real skydive. I'll let this thread get back on topic now. I have nothing to contribute as far as that goes, I went through AFF like a normal person.

I already ruined that color. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Nothing until you started wearing it! www.WingsuitPhotos.com

They must have a lot of trust in the intelligence of their customers if they think a MOVIE is necessary to show how to press 2 buttons at the same time. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

I wouldn't want my grippers covered in dirt or duct tape. Don't like orange I take it? www.WingsuitPhotos.com

There is some orange trim it looks like, from these pics at least. Just a little. http://www.bird-man.com/?n=News&id=741 www.WingsuitPhotos.com

It has nothing to do with *you* having to to prove anything. People aren't doubting you, they don't even know you. We just know that freefall skills aren't natural, and I've never heard of anyone learning that fast... I was also under the impression that the whole level of freefall skills was lower back then which would make your feat even more unbelievable. Does hang gliding help freefall skills? I honestly know nothing about it. Are you flying your body at all or just the wing? www.WingsuitPhotos.com

A 7-point 4-way with 60 seconds of freefall experience? I find that hard to believe... www.WingsuitPhotos.com

When I was a lab instructor in college I gave the cute girls BETTER instruction. I'd do the same if I was a skydiving instructor probably. (NOT implying I'd half-ass it with the dudes) www.WingsuitPhotos.com

I'm sorry you got hurt, and I'm sorry the comments on here are rubbing you the wrong way, but please hear me out. A large part of your attitude comes through in your posts online. This is true for any poster. The attitude that I (and others) are picking up on is reluctance to admit your own blame. You spent a gigantic paragraph blaming others for your mistakes on a case by case basis. Were you taught to flare? Were you taught to not land on taxiways? I have seen many people ask why you landed on a taxiway and didn't flare, and I have not seen you respond to one of them. I have seen defense after defense after defense as to how competent you were to be jumping whatever gear setup you were, and as to how other jumpers misled you. More important even than the fact that you haven't tried to explain your actions, is that you haven't even commented on them. I have yet to see you even talk about the jump itself. Instead of a paragraph of blame placing, just say this one little sentence - "I landed on a taxiway and didn't flare". If you can get that far, the next step is to ask yourself why. The only learned lesson you've posted so far is "never jump barefoot no matter what", which is honestly not the right thing to be focusing on. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

They are sharp. Very sharp. Be careful. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

In every mishap there are usually multiple parties responsible. The best attitude is to recognize and try to change your OWN part in that responsibility, since that is the only part you have control over. Pointing out all the mistakes others made will not make you safer, nor will it absolve you of your own mistakes. The only car wreck I ever got in was someone running a red light (that had been red for 10 solid seconds!) and broadsiding me as I followed a constant stream of traffic through a green arrow. You know what my biggest regret is about that day? I didn't look toward the oncoming traffic! I assumed the oncoming traffic would have stopped long ago (most of it did, except for my new collision buddy). No lawyer in America would find me guilty in that collision (and that is a pretty ambitious claim!), the guy who hit me was 110% in the wrong, but the only thing that matters to me was what I did wrong (which I could easily argue, legally, logically, was nothing). I failed to prevent it from happening. I FUCKED UP. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

I was walking into a bowling alley with friends and joked I needed to make sure not to hurt myself because I had to jump the next day. I then looked up on the wall and, no shit, saw a giant sign that read something to the effect of " BOWLING IS A STRENUOUS PHYSICAL ACTIVITY WHERE INJURY CAN BE SUSTAINED. BOWL AT YOUR OWN RISK." What's next, waivers? The sad thing is, that's not too unbelievable... What's even worse, is I did hurt myself. Well, mildly I guess. I bowled a few games and one of my shins hurt the next day (like shin splints from running) from stopping so hard on that foot every time I threw my ball (assuming "threw my ball" is the proper lingo). www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Look what I found by Googling the lyrics... http://www.surf-republic.com/hymne/band_reardon.htm www.WingsuitPhotos.com

I think the market share argument is irrelevant. To take it a step further, if only 1 person in the world bought and used OS X, and that person also frequented skydivingmovies.com, that would mean 100% of OS X users are going to skydivingmovies.com, and therefore are the most prevalent. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

My guess is it's a static (1-point) flock that from the ground looks like a big blot of ink. Maybe even 0-point (non slot specific) so everybody just flies along in a big blob. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

I'm not sure in what context you mean. How can you use the word "arousal" to answer the poster's question? In fact, I'm honestly not sure how arousal fits into a skydive unless I'm misunderstanding the word or the context. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Biggest tip = relax. Geez, I used to (and still do) hate it when people told me that! Other than that, practice makes perfect. All cliched, but true. Flying on the hill is pretty much the same as normal freefall, just a little more subterminal and a little less vertical. :) You'll figure it out. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

A week ago I was doing some flocking and one of the video guys, who exited well after the rest of the flock, showed me on his video how he "did a move" to get down to the flock fast. The move was a steep carving 360. It was certainly effective, but I started wondering how safe it was. I'll admit I've done the same thing on small (3-4) flocks when I know where everybody is. I've also played with steep, sharp S-turns back and forth to get down. They feel a bit safer in some ways since you keep a mostly forward perspective (and are never flying in the OPPOSITE direction as the flock), but on the other hand, I'd rather have 5 people all doing a 360 in the same airspace than 5 people doing zoomy sashays in the same airspace. While sashays may not turn you 180 to the flock, two people turned 90 to the flock are 180 to each other, and less likely to see each other since they're both focusing on the flock. The obvious concern is a head-on collision. Or even a 90 degree collision. Or even less, or more. But obviously headon would be disastrous, I'm not even going to try to speculate how bad collisions at various degrees of incidence would be, but I think it would be safe to assume that most of them can kill you (like most things in this sport). For me, these S-turns seem to be the most efficient way to get down (although I am no good at steep straight dives and I'd guess a steep dive could be VERY efficient), but as I said before, I only feel safe doing them on small flocks where I KNOW everyone is well below me. If a bunch of people on a large way were all thinking "I'm near the top, I am pretty clear to carve down to the bottom", they could very easily sashay into each others' airspaces (and faces). Anybody else ever thought along these lines before? www.WingsuitPhotos.com