The111

Hmm, I don't smile enough either, and not just while skydiving. I haven't jumped much lately but I watched the SkyVenture Challenge several weeks ago and if you ever see Juliana fly you will never forget her smile. After seeing that I swore to myself I was going to start smiling like that, I'm almost positive it would make you relax and fly better, in addition to looking better and enjoying yourself more. There was also this crazy little Japanese lady named Mitsumi I jumped with at DeLand because she barely spoke English and had no one to jump with. Turns out she was an awesome flier with 500+ sit jumps, and - get this - NO SIT DOCKS. I kept trying to dock with her and she'd give me her crazy trademark grin and dart away. On the ground I asked her why she didn't dock with me and she said, in very broken English, that she didn't know how. Anyway, moral of the story - when I saw her crazy grin during the jump I couldn't help but laugh myself and it DID make me fly better. So if you ever see a tiny little Japanese woman walking around with some crazy looking Da Kine freefly pants and a crazy shirt with 100's of little polar bears on it, that's Mitsumi - say hi for me and then make a jump with her. And FUCKING SMILE! www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Is it too morbidly inappropriate to admit that I laughed when I pictured two large flocks running head on into each other? Seriously - safety's important. But come on, picture it - that shit's funny. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Congrats. :) What canopy did you use, out of curiosity? www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Why? If a single piece gave significant speed gains in initiating the turn, it would be far more valuable than maintaining the ability to do a front (very rare) or rear (the place of which would be taken by the Bryan cord--my new name for this device) riser turn. Well, I don't know the relative usefulness of rear-riser turns and "Bryan-cord" turns, but obviously my statement was based on the assumption that you'd still want to be able to do each unique turn in different situations. I was just pointing out the obvious - that if the cord is too short you are giving up single rear-riser turns. Whether or not that's a bad thing, I'm not qualified to answer, since I'm a shitty canopy pilot and not a BASE jumper. :) www.WingsuitPhotos.com

You've probably already thought of this, but the connecting piece would have to be long enough that it was still slack when doing "single" (front or rear only) riser turns. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Now THAT'S funny. In all seriousness, Faber's posts are my absolute favorite to read. My wery favorite. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

A brand new flier? That's pretty impressive. How far? www.WingsuitPhotos.com

I'm sure most BASE jumpers trust each other to be honest, but have you considered removing the description of the gear (except for where it was found) and asking the owner to describe it to you? www.WingsuitPhotos.com

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http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=983886#983886 www.WingsuitPhotos.com

What's with the big pair of crop circle boobies? www.WingsuitPhotos.com

I hurt my back pretty bad on a really hard reserve opening 2 months ago. My lower back was so tweaked it hurt REALLY BAD to bend over and get in and out of a chair. I didn't even consider jumping like that. It's not 100% better now, but I'd say it's 90%. I jumped last weekend with no problem. It may be weeks or months before this last little bit heals up, but basically I waited to get mostly back to normal, good enough that I can go to the gym, lift heavy weights, run, jump off of high things and land hard, etc... I'm pretty much myself again. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Are there any manufacturers that would even endorse packing grommet to pin? I'm pretty sure RWS endorses the cut corner mod and when one of their riggers did the mod for me he said packing grommet to BOC would be ok. But I'm obviously not doing that again. Though I am planning on doing grommet to pin. Care to elaborate? Why would someone pack like that for a non-WS jump? www.WingsuitPhotos.com

I don't get it... www.WingsuitPhotos.com

That was an awesome story. :) www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Wouldn't it have been cooler to walk away if he determined breaking a window was his only was to exit? Breaking something and paying for it is better than nothing, but it's still not leaving it as you found it. Not criticizing per se, since I don't know all the details... just thinking out loud. If walking down presented a significant risk of getting busted, I could see breaking the window justified. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Yeh it had that effect on me too. :) I'd seen the first one before, very awesome stuff, especially the slo-mo aerials with the Metallica cover playing... from 7:17-7:37 is like one of my favorite video moments ever, in any parachuting video I've seen. Also after that when he lands in a city street and the taxi driver asks him if he's ok and where he came from. "The sky, man!" The second one I'd never seen though. Very cool shit. Questions about that one: How did he get away with jumping n broad daylight? I won't comment on...since I don't know how France looks upon those kinds of things but I know USA is notorious for being strict about them... When he was flying next to the plane was he wearing a WS? Hard to tell but from the glide angle (which was also hard to tell without a still reference) I think he was. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Hmm .. again the same type of question I had. My issue was not wanting to wait I decided to ring up the source give them my weight, height and build and ask 'do you have a new GTI lying around that would fit me'. The answer was 'Yes' and As it happens Yari is about my size,weight build. As a bonus I had the man himself "Yari" model it for me. This baby is now all mine and I got a stock discount to boot schweet How long ago did you get that? I jumped a demo that looked just like that on my second WS jump about 2.5 months ago. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

It's nice to see someone with so much time in the sport still sound so enthusiastic about jumping. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

It's a REALLY bad fit for my rig if I do that. Though I've done it a few times before, it was hard as hell to close the container and looked like crap. Though I guess "effort to close" and appearance should not be more important than a safe deployment. Now that my corners are cut it's even harder to close normally... I'm not even sure how hard it will be to get the bag in there all frankestein (grommet to pin) now. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

I made a post months ago about bag orientation. I had to take 8 weeks off due to a back injury, and during that time I got my corners cut and got a long bridle. This weekend I jumped for the first time (no wingsuit yet). On the first jump I did a hop n pop, and I had packed the bag rotated a full 180 (grommet to BOC). I opened up to a million linetwists (no fun and superbad deja vu since that's what happened on my last jump two months ago where I hurt myself) but fortunately it flew straight and I kicked out of them. Our very own Rdutch watched my deployment from the plane and said I looked good but he could see the bag rotating as soon as it left the container. Any ideas what happened? I've heard it said not to pack grommet to BOC *unless* your corners are cut very low. Well, my seams were cut all the way to the end and then sewn back up 1" (less than one third of the original seam length). I'll post a pic when I get home if necessary. So I would think this is low enough, and I would also think that since it was a freefall and not a BM jump, the bag wouldn't have as much a chance of hanging up on those tiny corners that are left (the bag's leaving "up" instead of "back"). But obviously the bag did hang up on those corners (or something). I packed it normal (line stows to BOC) again on my next jump and got the kind of perfectly on heading opening I expect from my Spectre. :) So I'm pretty sure I don't want to pack grommet to BOC again. Those linetwists were no fun. But I will start jumping the suit again soon and am still undecided how I will pack for that. I've had very knowledgeable BM pilots tell me they don't rotate their bag at all, and I've had very gear-knowledgeable folks tell me that the Vector 3 was designed to have the lines sit in the BOC and have the bag fit in best that way, and I kind of agree, it seemed like a really ghetto fit when I had it rotated and it seemed wrong to have my lines all up against the reserve tray. But I also see that no matter how much you shut down your suit before pull, you will still have some forward motion meaning your bag will get pulled back, in which case it makes sense to have the bridle attachment point closest to the direction of extraction. As usual, I'm torn... I've been through all these issues a million times before (in my mind and on these boards), so if you're as sick of the redundancy as I am, feel free to ignore or flame me. Otherwise feel free to offer up thoughts. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Everybody says this, but I have read the bios of some pro swoopers with 5k+ jumps and zero cutaways. Luck? www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Umm, wtf? www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Umm, so if both canopies on the first harness mal, do they have to slip out of that harness so the "underneath" harness isn't covered up? Or am I missing something? www.WingsuitPhotos.com

From your "peel, peel, punch, punch" description it doesn't sound like you hesitated in between your handles. What are people's thoughts on this? I had a cutaway 8 weeks ago from spinning linetwists on a Spectre 170 (I'm sure not nearly as dramatic as yours, but still seemed scary to me). As soon as I chopped I felt really unstable so I arched hard and pulled silver 2 seconds later once I felt somewhat "belly to relative wind". I ended up with a hard whiplash inducing opening, but that was because I had a wingsuit on and left my legwing open in those two seconds before silver, sending myself headlow. I've read a few descriptions lately of cutaways from spinning tiny Velocities. Most of these descriptions imply that the handles were pulled back to back with no pause. Does that scare anyone? I realize the risk with waiting "2 seconds"... you could wait too long, among other things, which is one reason for an RSL. But many people who jump pocket rockets say they don't want an RSL because they don't want their reserve coming out IMMEDIATELY after cutaway. But then if they pull their handles back to back they are effectively creating the same situation. I guess I'm wondering how serious of a risk there is of your reserve spinning up if you deploy it right after a fast spinning mal. Being a newbie wingsuit jumper who hasn't perfected his deployments yet, and aspiring to jump high performance canopies in the very distant future, I forsee having to cutaway from linetwists again sometime. I'm still trying to figure out whether I should "punch punch" or "punch wait wait punch". www.WingsuitPhotos.com