The111

Frowns for safety? www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Post the landing! I'm most curious to see how big the field looks on final approach, below 1000ft. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Z stands for zipper. P2z is updated version of P2 with zipper attachments to your harness (rather than traditional cables) which are much nicer and faster for hooking up your suit. It also might have a slightly different wing profile than P2, but is basically the same suit. I think the P2z is standard now anyway, but it can't hurt to ask for it. Definitely what you want. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

It's really hard for me to comment on the shoulder stuff, but in general, I will answer about the suits. First, get a Phantom2. Then, get a Phantom2. In conclusion, get a Phantom2. SUCH a great suit. It has LESS shoulder pressure than most comparably sized suits I've flown. But I haven't flown a Prodigy2. Though the old Prodigy with its single skin arm actually had quite a bit of arm pressure (but that was of course due to the single skin thing). www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Thats my plan. Considering the beach landing area is only 1 mile away, I dont see any reason not to do 5 beach jumps a day. Heres a 1 minute video of the 4 hours I spent on the roller today. You can see its already been cleared and we are working on the conditioning. The place was abandoned for 20yrs+ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SN_Bl7Z6Ih8 Aww, I was hoping it would be the whole 4 hours compressed to 1 minute timelapse. What are you making, the pad for the tent? That field is going to get VERY muddy if it rains, and all that mud will get tracked into the tent. On the plus side, maybe you will find some drugs left over from the cartels and get rich! www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Every year I've been to PR boogie in Arecibo, the wind is always coming from west east. I hope it's the same here. If it was somehow north or south (unlikely, I think), there could be nasty turbulence from all those trees surrounding the narrow landing area. I'd rather land on the beach every time! 2-3 beach jumps a day is better than 5 airport jumps. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Woa, that was pretty insane. I don't know much about paragliding, but tell me that's not just "normal" for the sport. Some of the downhill ski stuff was nuts, one point I thought the guy was gonna clip his skis on the rocks. And then another part where the guy mal'd his canopy??? www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Disregarding snag concerns, the further you are away from someone when you dock on them (or an extension of them), the more you will disturb them. It's simple leverage. If you can't dock on somebody's ankle without messing up their control, it will be even worse when you dock on a several inch long extender coming off their ankle. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Very prescient thing to say. I had a big party at my house the other night and a lot of skydivers came, mostly not wingsuit flyers, although one of them (who was on the 108 FF record) does fly a WS sometimes and enjoys it. They all think the grid is silly... and interestingly enough that conversation led into discussion of the long lost Atmospheric Dolphin as well. LOL. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

But you are advocating using one thing for sightlines and a completely different thing for measuring. Which means that if the formation was dived 100% as planned (heads lined up) it would already be less than perfect by your measuring criteria (unless everyone was the same height). A dive that is 100% as planned should be perfect by whatever criteria you use. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Exactly. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Actually it is terribly different... the key being that when people line up in formation, they use their heads for visual references, not their rigs. So if a giant and midget were in the same formation and lined up their heads perfectly, their rigs would be WAY out of line. For that reason I agree the heads should be used for "dotting." www.WingsuitPhotos.com

You're confusing me with somebody else, just as you are confusing the air with the ground. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

All of your questions have been answered, and the facts have been addressed, multiple times in this thread by billvon, kallend, myself, and others. Please read the whole thing if you haven't yet. I know it's long. You are mistaken in your ideas. A plane does not climb faster into the wind. A plane takes OFF faster in a shorter distance into the wind, because planes take off from the ground. Once you are in the air the ground ceases to exist for all intents and purposes. And I've always hated the "appeal to authority" approach too, so I'll give you a point for calling that out. But I'm also taking a point away, for the fact that in the very same post, you made your own appeal to authority (quote from a pilot). www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Here is something for you to consider that might help you understand. You think he doesn't understand that. I know he doesn't understand it. He called an airplane in flight a "fixed object." Do you think that is true? If that were true, all skydivers would be BASE jumpers. He also perceives a canopy in flight as a fixed object, fueling his belief he can somehow get "pushed" from behind when flying downwind. We spend a lot of time on these forums encouraging new jumpers to listen to the more experienced regarding things like downsizing, swooping, etc, and we get frustrated when they don't, citing their own fallacious reasoning for why the rules don't apply to them. Those of us who have spent most of our lives studying physics and aerodynamics get similarly frustrated when someone cites anecdotal perceptions/observations as proof that the most basic rules of relative motion are invalid. I applaud Bill for being more patient than me in his responses/explanations. I should probably duck out before I lose any more sanity. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Here is something for you to consider that might help you understand. Imagine a GIANT airplane flying through the sky. I mean huge. Like 100 miles tall and 100 miles wide. Heck, it's just a giant flying cube made of a thick metal shell. And inside the cube, it's empty. Well, not quite empty. It's full of air. Now, the cube is moving above the ground at 50mph from east to west. All the air inside of the cube is perfectly still, just like the air inside an airplane, right? Since that's all the cube is, is a big airplane. Now, all of a sudden, magically, the cube disappears, only everything that was inside it is still there, and is still moving at 50mph from east to west, like the cube was. What would you call that giant block of air moving through the sky with no metal shell around it? You'd call it WIND. Now, if there was a canopy flying around inside the giant metal cube (since there is a lot of space inside there, it's so big)... when the cube disappeared, would the canopy pilot even know? The walls of the cube were mile and miles away before they disappeared! Now, when the walls still existed, he was flying in non-moving air, right? But all of a sudden the walls disappeared, and now he is flying in moving air? Wrong. Everything is always in motion, and he was always flying in moving air. Whether there are metal walls around you in close proximity (airplane body) or far away (magic metal cube), the air is still moving. When you are flying your canopy on a "no wind" day, you're flying in moving air. Because the whole damn earth is moving. It's rotating about its own axis and orbiting the sun. Everything you have said above is true. But it is equally true on a no wind day as it is on a 50mph wind day. It's true if you're flying your canopy inside of a giant metal cube which is moving over the ground, both before and after that cube magically disappears. The reference frame you keep repeating is that of someone tied to the ground while kiting a canopy. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

I'm pretty sure I too have managed to alienate friends on both sides of the battle, with my refusal to take sides even though I kind of agree with certain points being made on BOTH sides. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Ok, I looked at Phalanx pic. And I agree it could be done with wingsuits and knee docks. But again, it only has one dimension of "connectedness." Even with RW guys, you wouldn't build a 25, 50, or 100 way like that. You need to build shapes with multiple directions of reinforcement, which is what I keep saying won't be possible in a wingsuit AND knee docks. It's geometrically possible with ankle docks, but not possible to fly it. I'd love to be proven wrong. I spent an hour in Photoshop last night moving around Scott and his clone army, and I could not make it work with knee docks, and I don't believe ankle docked formations are possible with wingsuits as we know them. I don't quite understand your description of open wedge with "link across the back." www.WingsuitPhotos.com

I am not sure I know what you mean by all 3 of those (pictures would help, even a hand sketch), but I have acknowledge that a multi-linked formation is possible only with ankle docks, which I don't see as being sustainable, because our ankles are WAY too important in our stability (fallrate and fwd speed), even moreso than RW guys who have a tough time with ankle docks. I think knee docks are more viable, but then you run into the problem of it being geometrically impossible to have a multi-linked formation with only knee docks. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

The problem with taking knee docks is that you will never be able to build anything other than a line or a V, both of which do not have multiple "degrees of support"... i.e. somebody who is holding onto more than one other person at a time. Imagine a bigway RW or freefly in a line or a V... they would not have the formation stability, this is why they always form rings or rings with interconnects. See the first attachment for a picture of WHY you can't build interconnected formation with knee docks. It's not physically possible without lying on the ass of the guy in front of you, and you'd ruin his ability to use his tailwing. See the second picture for something that is at least geometrically possible, using all ankle docks... but in this case it would be way too sensitive to fly with all ankles being constrained. I understand all of the hesitation about unlinked formations, but I would like to see proof from SOMEONE that it is possible to build a linked formation other than a V or a line... something with multiple degrees of support or interconnects. I don't see how it's possible. Try shapes other than diamonds. I have... but I still cannot find a solution. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Read my post here, see if this helps. http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=3301619;search_string=battery;#3301619 www.WingsuitPhotos.com

I'm guessing this is the one they mean by "compressed." http://www.matthoover.com/gallery/skydiving-photos/2007-03/2007-03_p83.html#navbar I don't have any shots from directly above, though. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

We have. It's the same in every example given, without or without wind. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

I can't repeat the same point any more, but you need to go BACK to Physics 101 and study relative reference frames. Bill's post above about the earth's rotation is a good one. You're missing a very fundamental concept, and when it clicks for you, you'll see the problem with what you're saying. The air doesn't know it's moving. For all intents and purposes, it's NOT moving. The only reason we think it's moving is because we live on the ground. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Again, you don't fly in wind. Wind only exists on the ground. Wind is not "oncoming" in the airmass. It is only oncoming to people on the ground. When you are in the airmass, you ARE the wind. www.WingsuitPhotos.com