The111

It's not so much about looks as it is efficiency... I think if you fly with two asymmetries that cancel each other out you are flying inefficient. For example if you cannot get your legs centered to fly straight so you overcompensate with one arm... you may be able to go straight, maneuver, and fly a slot, but you are basically flying TWO built in turns in opposite directions to go straight. Jari told me this is common in newbies and that I should combat it by learning to be aware of every body part... www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Thanks for the replies! I see what both you guys are saying, and I agree. But what struck me as uncanny was that out of the 60 or so pictures I have, I am either in a pretty good position, or in what I called the "bad" position with my feet offset to the left. And anytime I've ever felt problems on solos it feels like my right foot is too far to the center (offset to the left of where it should be). I did not see one picture of the 60 where the "foot offset" was in the *opposite* direction (right leg spread further than left). So while I agree that the pictures don't tell too much since I was not flying a solo straight line, I think they tell me that I have a slight bias towards assymetry in one direction, which is good to know and sort of what I expected. This is going to sound crazy but it makes sense to me because the left side of my body has always been dominant and the right side has always been weak. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

This post is sort of me thinking out loud about my flight issues... if anyone wants to comment feel free (free coaching for me!). It may be a long post. :) I want to correct any bad habits I have now before I get them too ingrained in me. I haven't received any formal coaching since my first jump nor have I seen pictures of myself until now. I've done 70 jumps... lots of solos and 2-3 ways. At the beginning I was really struggling with a "built-in turn" (to the right) and when I pointed my toes the left foot would be stopped by the suit tension while the right one was still loose. I knew that was some sort of asymmetry and somehow I worked it out. After a couple dozen jumps I could fly straight and relative to other people (a slot) but I was always worried that I possibly had fixed one assymetry by stacking another one on top of it so that they cancelled each other out (Jari had warned me of newbies doing this). I was now feeling the suit tension equally on both legs when I pointed my toes, but still had one funny problem, that still happens every once in a while even now. When I max out or am tired sometimes I feel the pressure under my right leg/foot get very small and it feels like the leg just wants to totally fall down and under the left leg, as if my legs are trying to initiate a barrel roll. I think maybe now I can explain that. After this weekend I got the opportunity to see many pictures of myself from above. There were quite a few where I was pretty close to symmetrical, like the one I picked for my avatar. The only thing that looked asymmetrical on the good ones was my hands, because I keep my left hand tilted in more because of the alti. But there were also several where there was an obvious assymetry in my lower body. Attached is a picture with 10 "bad" body positions and 1 "good" (?) one. On the "bad" ones, it kind of makes sense why I sometimes feel the feeling I described above where it feels like my right leg wants to tuck/fold under. It is clear that the right foot is too close to what should be the center of the wing... it is not out away from my body's "centerline" as much as the left. There are 3 possibilities I can come up with as to what I am doing wrong: 1) Twisted hips (about axis from head to toe) - problem at hip/waist joint 2) Tilted hips (about axis through belly button) - problem at hip/waist joint 3) Right leg is simply not spread out as much as left leg - problem at joint between thigh and pelvis, whatever the hell you call that joint :) (picture drawn to show difference between 2 & 3... I can't draw 1)

From my perspective (last out of Porter), it was a bit crazy to see a huge blurry stream of bodies flying by the window of the Porter and know it was my turn to fling myself into that stream... At one point I said to Perry, "hey look the pilots are flocking too... they're doing plane RW". He said "I don't want to look" (this is Scary Perry we're talking about). After that the Porter did an abrupt maneuver and it seriously looked like we were about to fly up the Van's ass. Scary fun. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

He landed under a parachute. The parachute slowed his descent. Anyone who would call that landing "without a parachute" is wrong. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

I don't see any pictures?? EDIT: Nevermind, I found them... www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Sounds almost too good to be true. Pull altitude? www.WingsuitPhotos.com

See attached pic. I'm one of the few who actually routes the ends of my cables into those little "keepers" at the end. But this one just popped right through I guess. Yes, I know it's no big deal. I'm just wondering what most people do with their slack. I could just leave it hang out like this, or I could stow it inside the wing, but I feel like inside the wing the end of the cable might fuck up the fine mesh on the inlet somehow. I don't want to see that mesh tear or anything... www.WingsuitPhotos.com

I'm not a BASE jumper (yet), and I hope I'm not going too far off topic with this post, but I'm curious how important terminal freefall body skills are. Is there any place in the BASE environment that you can safely experience terminal freefall for the first time? I'm under the impression (though I could be very wrong) that the only terminal BASE jumps you can do are within close proximity to a wall that you run a high risk of backing into if you either don't know (a) how to exit properly and (b) how to control your body in both sub-terminal and terminal freefall. The only places I can think of to learn freefall skills safely are skydiving and wind tunnels. Not trying to say I know anything here. Just spitting out my current perception and begging anybody to correct me if I'm wrong. Terminal BASE jumps (with a WS) are one of my ultimate goals in the sport of parachuting. :) www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Thanks, Dave. I uploaded the file here. Please forgive the double extension. :) It was originally called base.wmv but I renamed it to 26.8m.wmv.wmv. Not sure if it is on your site anywhere else with a different name... www.WingsuitPhotos.com

I have the video on my hard drive. It is 1.2MB. You need a bigger hard drive. :) I do not know where I got it from. I tried to upload it to skydivingmovies.com but can't with the browser I have here at work. If someone wants to post it, PM me and I can email it to you. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Can't be sure I have the right airport, but I used Mapquest and Terraserver to make these pictures. Looks to be about 7 miles (8.5 by road) from the Marco Island Radisson to the "Marco Island Executive Airport" (actually located in Naples). YES, I have too much time on my hands. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Well I just had my first taste of a beach boogie at the Keys, and there is definitely nothing more beautiful than flying a wingsuit over the coast and landing your parachute on beach sand. I will be there. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Maybe he shouldn't be grabbing the bridle. But it is agreed, Perry is one of the good guys. And scary. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Yes, I know the issues are different. I'm just pointing out the Neptune still isn't perfect. My Pro-Track never pre-registers deployment. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

I have the latest updates and it still acts up sometimes. Out of my last 10 jumps I pulled at 13000 once (0 second freefall) and at 8000 once (less than a minute of freefall which doesn't sound right even if I had pulled at 8). www.WingsuitPhotos.com

No offense to my new friend from Sweden if he is reading this... just looking to see what other people think. :) I met and jumped with a guy this weekend who showed me an amazing flight time on his Neptune. On one of his recent solos it logged 245 seconds from 14,500ft. He admitted it was possibly a bug, saying he usually got 180-200 seconds. So... does anyone think this is humanly possible? I'm guessing he was slightly over 6', maybe 170lbs? I could be way off though. Suit was S3. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

I have an S3 coming in very soon and figured I should try some acrobatics in my GTI since that's about the only aspect of it I haven't tried yet. I figured I should experience instability in my GTI before unexpectedly experiencing it in a much bigger suit. Front flip - easy, first try. Barrel rolls - a few went as planned, a few I ended up spinning on my back but got out of it within a few seconds. Back flying - I must be doing something wrong. I only tried this on one jump but I felt like I was head down and SCREAMING (Neptune said 140mph later for that part of the jump, and my arms zippers were half undone when I opened). I kept thinking to myself that if I was head down then I must need to extend my arm wings more but I swear they were out as far as I could get them. It was not fun at all, the material in the wings was flapping like MAD and I started feeling sick from all the lurching (I didn't get very stable). I don't really have an urge to try backflying again, but I'm curious - is it something I should consider a prerequisite before moving onto the S3? Keep in mind that while I didn't find a good backflying position, I seem to be able to get OUT of any position, even what seemed like a moderate spin on my back, pretty easily... I noticed in another thread that one person found his S3 much easier to backfly than his Classic (saying the Classic wanted to dive, which is what I think I am experiencing)... while another person said exactly the opposite (Classic easier than S3). Couldn't find any references to a GTI. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Good thinking on the leg wing...

Just out of curiosity, did you intentionally close your leg wing in these "few seconds"? I did the same thing you describe on my WS chop (WS #14 for me), but left my leg wing wide open during the few seconds, which must have sent me a bit headdown, because my reserve opening was so hard that I couldn't see for 10 seconds and didn't jump for 4 months. My lower back is still screwed up. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Thanks for the answers guys, that's pretty much what I expected to hear... www.WingsuitPhotos.com

My Vector 3 has worked fine for me on my 60 or so WS jumps. I have a long bridle and my corners are cut 2/3 of the way down. I pack "almost" grommet to pin (I rotate the bag about 45 degrees from normal). I used to get line twists sometimes but have gone probably 15 jumps without them now so I think it has a lot to do with me and not the gear. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

So I've been in the sport for a bit now and I've heard a million times that low toggle turns are bad, and I know that swoopers use risers, not toggles, to initiate their HP turns. I have not tried HP landings yet, but I have done front riser dives up high and felt the immense flare power available during plane off. I have also, on landing, done toggle turns (90's and 180's) slightly lower than I probably should have, low enough that I was not quite entirely back to steady state flight when it was time to flare. I was still able to flare and stand up my landing... and I actually got a long surf out of it (by my non-swooper standards) that was actually quite fun. Now, I'm not by any means trying to argue and say that since I can pull it off, and it is fun, that I should keep doing low toggle 180's to speed up my landings. I am however curious why these are unsafe compared to riser carves. My guess is you don't have nearly as much flare power available to dig yourself out of the corner (not that you should be digging, but the option to dig is your margin of error, and margin of error is a good thing). Like I said, from the front riser dives I've done up high, I've felt (inertially, in my stomach) the immense flare power available after the dive and during plane-off. I don't feel nearly as strong of a force during transition back to level flight after a toggle turn. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

I know nothing, but I have heard that a skilled pilot can get a pretty decent swoop out of a Sabre2. Is the same true for a Pilot? Maybe this is the performance difference being referred to... www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Agreed, I'm a huge fan and this was a phenomenal email. I also just got my DVD set in the mail yesterday. Waiting to see what kinda computer he gets next week... www.WingsuitPhotos.com