The111

Had to cutaway from my 14th WS jump due to spiralling linetwists, even on a Spectre 170 loaded @ 1.1. I learned: 1) Will get mods done to my gear immediately and pack grommet to BOC once I get fully cut corners (though I don't think these twists were due to my gear, this is still a nice thing to get done). 2) Next jump will be all practice pulls. From up high I will practice locking my knees together, getting both hands on my BOC, and just falling stable like that for several seconds at a time, ending with a practice toss and observing how symmetric it is. In my 14 jumps I have had 10 PERFECT openings and a few with many twists. 3) I will unzip faster, but not so fast I mess up the opening... I'm thinking as soon as I feel mostly seated up I will start unzipping (comments welcome). The worst thing about these twists I got: it started off as about 4-5 when I was fully seated, but I could tell the harness was shifted which meant this could start turning... and for a few seconds I was just "freewheeling" on the axis of the linetwists, i.e. adding several twists for a total of a hell of a lot, and the whole time I was sitting there freewheeling I was getting my zippers undone and by the time I could grab my risers the gentle turn was already starting and was a moderate spiral within five more seconds, and I chose not to fight it and cut before it became a hard spiral. I feel if I had my zippers undone in time to stop that "freewheeling" from adding the extra twists this could have turned out different. I think the most important of all of the above is probably #2. Anyway, I took a second or two after the chop to get belly to relative wind and then I fired my reserve. The opening was so hard I HEARD every vertebrae in my back crack. I'm still hurting but I think I'll be ok. My only idea to explain this (besides shit happens) is my arm wings were collapsed (because I was unzipped and had hands on handles) but my leg wing wasn't. In my two second freefall I may have gone into a headdown (to relative wind) dive, prior to reserve opening. Should I have crossed my legs (or at least closed them) while initiating EP's? I would think two seconds of freefall would not provide enough acceleration to inflate a suit wing very much, but my spiralling canopy may have tossed me sideways with a moderate airspeed to begin with... I guess better safe than sorry so next time (knock on wood) I'll close my leg wing as I'm grabbing my handles. I had never really thought of this situation before. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Off topic, the reserve opening was so hard that I HEARD every single one of my vertebrae crack. I was on the verge of passing out for a sec and that is when the handles slipped out of my hands. I remember looking down through tunnel vision watching my handles drop away. I am pretty sure that the fact that the RSL is still on the velcro IS definitive proof it didn't pull the pin. It never moved. What tell-tale kink? Care to explain? When I fired the reserve on the ground in my rigger's loft, there was no kink created in the cable... www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Thanks Kris, it's in the tub. :) My lines are Microline... will be ok? They're already wet anyway is how I figure it. I could ask my rigger to check trim maybe (or learn how to do myself?). www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Last night had a chop from a WS jump. I was spiralling hard under canopy, look down, hand on red and silver, pulled red. I got flung from the spin, I had no idea what my orientation-to-earth was, but I knew the relative wind was at my back so I kept my thumb in the D handle, arched hard and one second later was belly to relative wind, THEN I pulled silver. Later that night I started thinking about how silly it was to wait 1 second since I had an RSL. But the more I thought about it, it really felt like my reserve did not fire when the main lifted away, only when I pulled silver. AND I have another piece of evidence to back that idea up. I am not sure if this is true of all RSL's, but at my last repack I noticed the following when I did my drills on the ground. If I pull red, silver on ground, the main risers obviously do not lift away and pull the pin. Silver pulls the pin, but the handle stops moving after about 6 inches, because of the design of the RSL/pin (the pin is actually connected to the RSL, the silver cable only has a hole at the end that the the pin goes through - the reserve cable stops moving when the pin hits the end of the reserve cable housing sideways, it gets jammed, but the pin has been pulled so it's ok). In the air this would not happen as the RSL would pull the pin out of the hole at the end of the cable, and if you did pull the cable, though you would not be pulling your pin (it already was), the cable would move freely as far as you wanted to pull it. Hope all that makes sense. Anyway, on this jump I noticed the reserve handle stop moving at 6 inches, I thought nothing of it at the time because it seemed familiar (from my last drill @ repack), but on the ground I realized that meant the RSL had not pulled the pin. The final piece of evidence: I just started washing my canopy and when washing the risers noticed the empty RSL ring. So I ran into my room and looked at the container. Sure enough, the RSL was still stowed perfect all along the velcro, and the shackle was wide open. I ALWAYS have it attached, I've never detached it for anything. Now I'm not sure what's normal here, maybe it somehow is supposed to come unshackled after it pulls the pin (which I'm pretty sure it didn't pull the pin), but in my mind, logic would dictate that it would stay on the risers and be found with the canopy. Hell, I know it didn't pull the pin since it never even came off its velcro! They say you can beat an RSL if you're hella fast, but that's not the case, I waited 1 second between handles. And I know the RSL never moved! The shackle somehow came wide open, and the only explanation I can think of, which I'm sure someone else will offer up, is that it was never closed to begin with. I honestly can't say I checked closely on that specific jump to see if it was hooked up - the RSL is not that important to me and is not part of my gear check on each jump - I jump like it's not there. But I have never disconnected it and have never noticed it "accidentally" disconnected. I tried hooking it up to a ring on the ground and pulling on the ring... the shackle stays closed nice and strong like it should. I'm stumped... any ideas? One more weird piece of info. I managed to drop both my handles because I was on the verge of passing out from the amount of pain my reserve opening caused. The fact that I dropped the silver handle means somehow that "jam" I described that causes it to stop moving must have cleared. I distinctly remember the cable getting stuck on the jump, and I remember dropping it, but I don't remember it coming unstuck. Maybe the opening shock was so hard it shook the pin and allowed the cable to keep moving. The pin is still floating around under the reserve flap attached the end of the still stowed RSL. In retrospect, I'm glad it didn't work (but curious why). I thought so much about how I was back to relative wind when I first cutaway, and I'm glad the reserve didn't fire in that situation. Now that I've proven to myself that I can do my EP's right and stay calm under pressure I'm considering getting rid of the RSL... the only reason I had it was I didn't trust myself to stay calm and do the EP's right. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Last night I chopped at sunset. Spent all day searching for canopy. Finally found it floating in waist deep swamp. Retrieved, happy ending. I also managed to save a muck-stuck cow's life in the process, but that is another story. The swamp was very muddy though, so there is some dirt on the canopy, lines, risers, toggles, bag, PC, etc. I'm about to dump the whole thing in a bathtub full of cold water and swish it around gently, drain, and repeat until the water comes out clean. If anyone can think of a reason why I shouldn't do this (i.e. it will harm my shit), let me know now. I asked at the DZ and people seemed to think it would be ok, especially by the logic that the stuff is already still wet with the muddy water, so I want to get it in the tub before it dries so it only got wet "once". Not planning on using any detergent yet, I'm hoping the dirt will come off with just water. One of the toggles was kind of black. Question which can be answered not-so-immediately: how should I dry canopy? I'm guessing hang it, although there's nowhere for me to do that except my shower curtain I guess. Thanks in advance for your help!

Yeh, I was nice, I even turned off my headlights when I pulled into your driveway. Though I did consider honking the horn for good measure... www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Woody's was Sunday night before we dropped Macca back at your house... www.WingsuitPhotos.com

A lot of people feel that Neil Young was one of the true forefathers of indie rock, and I have to agree with this. Just go listen to any Built to Spill CD after listening to a lot of Young. Hell, and I thought all this *before* I heard their cover of Cortez the Killer, amazing song, amazing cover, btw. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Well I hate to admit it but I have all of Jawbreaker's (and JTB as well) stuff in mp3's which I obtained at no cost to myself. I got it all in one fell swoop several years ago, so no, I had no idea Dear You was hard to find, since they were all simple for me to find. It is their best album IMO though. Same for almost all of Modest Mouse's albums. I have no delusions that this type of mp3 use is unethical and basically theft, but I do it because I can. I know where to find what I'm looking for so I'll probably have no problem finding their new CD but I appreciate the offer and I'll let you know if I need to take you up on it.

Wow. That's all I have to say. This is by far one of the best movies I've seen in my life. I left the theatre teary-eyed and I'm still getting over it. I found the following on some website about skydiving a long time ago: I have wanted to try to get in words why I skydive, and it seems to me it has to do somehow with both sadness and love. How is that? The more we allow ourselves to love, the sadder the leaving. We can't allow ourselves to love too much, then; and it's hard to love too much with one's spirit blowing lightly in the wind. There is a sense as one grows older that pridefulness and excessive ego are misplaced-- there is a tendency towards humility, in the face of knowing how much of what we do is vanity. Skydiving is three things: It is a submission after years of willfulness; it is wholly absorbing, and therefore distracting from our cares; and it is the rational, peaceful contemplation of death, and eternity made less fearsome. As skydivers, we can feel less deeply the anguish of knowing the impermanence of love, and of those we love. Skydiving celebrates life's impermanence with a brilliant brightness, floods it with a blinding light. Ultimately, it reminds us that life is very fragile, but very brave. I've always loved that passage, especially the part in bold about celebrating life's impermanence, and those of you who have seen the movie can probably agree with me that this is one of the central themes to the film. It's a theme I've always needed help with - relationships and life in general I always want to be perfect and last forever. That's not the way it works though and the only way we can be happy is to embrace what we have now. If you haven't seen this yet, and you enjoy a movie that will make you think rather than simply entertain, do yourself a favor and watch this ASAP. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Fuck yeah Modest Mouse owns. I'll check it out soon, I'm really not in the mood right now since I just saw the best movie I've ever seen in my life and don't want to remove that from my head. I dig the Jawbreaker quote in your sig too.

WTF? LOL, it was my idea. We were almost at Checker's and I said, "woa a Woody's! Those are only available at select locations!" So we went. I swear to god I went to one down south once that was really good. Anyway, this one wasn't too bad, and we did make friends with some nice rednecks who invited us to a redneck bar and told us we needed to listen to Hank Williams more. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

I realize that it's not always black and white and "better" is too simple of an adjective to use use sometimes... That said, your posts and a few others made me wonder - is the MTR2 "better" (better glide angle, longer flights) than BM's S3? www.WingsuitPhotos.com

I know a few people who have the theory that cardiovascular exercise combats the negative effects of smoking. One is in his 50's and smokes several packs a week as well as drinks like a fish. But he has no "smoker's cough" and he is very physically fit. He also runs 5 miles a day and works out. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

I still don't understand a thing - the original post is very ambiguous. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

There's a link with pic in his original post... www.WingsuitPhotos.com

I realize that Bird-Man was not the first to successfully design and fly a safe, functional wingsuit, but as far as I know they were the first to bring it to the market for everyone to try, i.e. make it a commercial product. Why don't they have a patent or something? Correct me if I'm wrong, but the other two companies that are selling wingsuits didn't come along until after Bird-Man's success, right? I was just browsing through their sites and one of their manuals has sections lifted verbatim from the Bird-Man flight manual (unless I have it backwards and Bird-Man lifted theirs). Something about that doesn't seem right to me... Curious what comments others have on this topic... I always assumed that Bird-Man was responsible for the majority of wingsuit sales in the world (a small number to begin with), but now I'm curious. Maybe there was some sort of patent already standing from some prior wingsuit designer preventing Jari from patenting Bird-Man wingsuits? Or maybe he just doesn't care to stop the competition since in the end it might help further the ultimate goal: better suits and technology for human flight. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

A pretty rhetorical question if you ask me... www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Sounds like a big maybe.

You left out my favorites. The fifth one is the best, it captures the moment just before I got the wind knocked out of me. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

I have been told by a few of the best flyers that I know that duration does equate to distance. Anybody care to comment? www.WingsuitPhotos.com

I found one other post on here about S3 fit and the general consensus was that a suit that is too tight is not a good thing. I just got a new GTi, it was a demo but I was the first person to jump it and it seemed to fit good so I bought it. I have noticed in the air though that when I point my toes the booties/legs get very tight and I can't quite point my toes all the way, it has the effect of making me a little stiffer than I want to be since I am muscling against this tightness to try to point my toes. I tried it out on the ground, and if I am wearing the suit and try to stand on my tiptoes, it gets very tight from the booties all the way to the shoulder. Is this too tight? Opinions welcome.

Besides the fact that the unit system used in the USA is highly inefficient, the term "weight" as used by most people is actually a reference to mass. The pressure on your canopy is a function of the force and area, as you stated. Force depends on where you are flying the canopy (earth, most likely), and how you are flying it (static or dynamic). The term "wingloading" as used by skydivers is exit weight (mass) per wing area. If you want to know the force on the wing, and you're flying straight above the earth, multiply your WL by the earth's gravitational acceleration. If you're generating "g's" by turning or diving, multiply by that factor as well. Mass can "work like this", and pounds as you are thinking is probably a measure of mass (although there is also a pound-force, part of the inefficiency of our unit system). www.WingsuitPhotos.com

I'm no POP but I'm quite close to Lake Wales and STILL haven't been there, have been wanting to go for months but things keep coming up each weekend. Nothing planned this weekend so maybe I'll see you there. Will have my new GTi with me of course. :) www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Yeh, after 4 years of having to do all of my engineering homework in both unit systems, I *much* prefer metric and would gladly support the USA switching to it. Don't think it will happen though. www.WingsuitPhotos.com