The111

Being proud of your identity is human nature, and it's something that people say. I'm not sure how that could be surprising or confusing. Look: https://www.google.com/search?q=%22i+am+proud+of+who+i+am%22 www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Sure, the structure of an aircraft affects its aerodynamic properties, to the extent that if the aircraft crumples or breaks in half it cannot fly. But directly structure is an entirely different goal than aerodynamics. A simple analogy: Imagine you put a much more powerful engine in your car, and now when you accelerate as fast as you can, the extra torque causes your axles to break. You then install a much stronger axle which can handle the torque generated by the new engine. Does this mean that the axle "affects your car's power" or is part of the engine? The wing's structure is only there to help the wing keep its shape. It is the shape that determines how it flies. The only point I was making originally is that if you take a wing which is "low-performance" and therefore suitable for WS opening (i.e. square), and then add cross-brace it, you are not turning it into a high-performance wing that is unsuitable for WS opening. Cross-bracing does not imply high performance. High-performance 7-cells often need cross-bracing to handle the loads generated by those wings, I'd imagine low-performance 5-cells also need cross-bracing, and that maybe the net pack volume of 5 cells + cross-bracing is less than 7 cells without cross-bracing, which is how they're able to make the canopy pack smaller and still perform ok. That's a total guess though. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Oh yes, it will. You are welcome to try but i wouldn't recommend it unless you want to know what a terminal opening with no slider would feel like. I can believe that cross-bracing would effect opening speed. In terms of stability/reliability (i.e. on-heading) though, I wouldn't think it would have much of an effect when compared to wing shape and aspect ratio, other than the fact that faster openings usually are admittedly somewhat more reliable. But then again, aerodynamics has often been a science where the unexpected happens. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

No. Planform describes the outer surface of the wing. It dictates the wing's aerodynamic properties. Bracing describes the internal structure of a wing. It dictates the wing's mechanical properties. Take a Spectre and cross-brace the hell out of it, and you're not going to change the way it opens or its suitability for WS deployments. It's just going to pack up a lot bigger. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

I hear x-brace have opening character not good for wingsuit or BASE, yes? Is true or not? Slater Opening characteristics are most likely determined by planform, not bracing. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

While that may be true in some limited context, I don't think it's true in general. I am not familiar with every current suit in the PF lineup, and I'm even less familiar with the Squirrel products, but even within the PF brand they do not use the same zipper system on every suit. Regardless of who makes the suit, I prefer the style of zipper on the PF Phantom/Ghost to this new style that requires some sort of extra attachment to hold the zipper in place. To be honest I actually miss the old laceup systems from BirdMan and first gen PF stuff.

Skydiving rules/guidelines/best practice are not established through good points and logic; they are established through observation of history, and they are written in blood. This is true for all aviation disciplines and neatly enough even a lot of aeronautical sciences. Sure logic and critical thinking have their place, but reality and experience trump all, and experience often disprove assumptions held by extremely intelligent people. The irony is that if you're still around and jumping in 10 years, you'll be on the other side of the fence saying "even if I have excellent points and a logical flow, you younger jumpers will shoot me down because you are stuck in your decision to do what you want." Challenge: survey 50 real people with 5k+ jumps on your question. My guess is all 50 will vote the same; I'd be extremely surprised if even one supported your position. After that, ask yourself which of the following is true: (1) every single jumper with 5k+ jumps (i.e. the most experienced and talented jumpers in existence) is illogical and stuck in the past (2) it is possible that they know something you don't, that can only be revealed to you through experience (not hard thinking and logic) Believing choice (1) above is probably the most illogical thought you could have. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Who was it helping before the degradation? www.WingsuitPhotos.com

It's true, no matter how much logic you use, you will not change the opinions of those with decades of experience with respect to long-standing guidelines that have been written with blood. And you don't sound like a kindergartner, you sound more like a teenager arguing that he should be able to legally drive at 14. And maybe that teenager is a genius, and very logical. But again you're right: no matter how much logic he used to argue his case, he would not get any adults around him to pat him on the back and give him the keys to a car and a driver license. The adults would tell him to wait two more years like everybody else, and if the kid was as smart as he thought he was, he would listen. All of which again begs the question of what you hope to accomplish with this post. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Do you also post on cop forums that you think speed limits are a good thing, but you will probably break them safely? What on earth do you hope to accomplish with this post? www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Any time you dive or flare in a skydive (regardless of suit) you are not at terminal, no matter when you exited the plane. Not really related to OP's use of the word, but worth pointing out. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

+3 www.WingsuitPhotos.com

I am legitimately confused as to what your professional resume has to do with your future skydiving progression. The whole sweeping floors thing too. I mean, I did see a movie once where a kid waxed an old man's floors in exchange for karate lessons (can't remember the name), but I don't know any old guys like that in wingsuiting. Who knows though, maybe Tony needs a floor sweeper. Also it's very unlikely that there is a package deal out there offering precisely what you need in exchange for precisely $3000 and one motorcycle. Althought I have heard that most DZ's do trade jumps for dollars, and people in need of a motorcycle will trade dollars for motorcycles, but you might want to try a motorcycle board for that trade.

Same thing with Liquid Sky in the freefly world, although they admittedly serve a higher volume than probably any BASE or WS mfr. They have very long wait times, and tons of people lined up to wait. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Yes S1 and S3 had it. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

As with any science, that is true. That there are unknowns remaining is unrelated to the fact that what is known, is known.

There is no need to "find out," it's already known in the field of aerodynamics for a very very long time. Weight does not affect absolute glide ratio. It does affect speed. Therefore it does affect relative glide ratio (which is influenced by speed). Of course with humans weight delta is usually accompanied by size delta, so that admittedly makes the situation less straightforward. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Waiting sucks for sure. But supply and demand mismatch happens everywhere. I can't count how many times I've seen major international auto manufacturers (Toyota, Honda) unable to supply a new car fast enough to meet consumer demand, the end result being people wait 6+ months for the car they want, or pay 20% above MSRP. Hell I remember for almost two years it was next to impossible to buy the Nintendo Wii. I know wingsuit manufacturing is a very different scale than cars or even electronics, so it is not intended to be a perfect comparison. But in general, waiting is something we needy human consumers have to suffer through every now and then, to get what we want. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Finally got some of these installed. Haven't jumped it yet but they make it extremely difficult to pull slider past. So much so that I was able to do it on the ground but felt like I was tearing up the slink hats at the stitching. And when I pushed the slider back up, it actually inverted all the slink hats. Will see how this plays out in the air. Maybe it's so tight on mine because I have Dacron lines. Worth a try still, but I feel like those covers are going to fall apart in a couple dozen jumps with how much strain I was putting on them. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

I thought about this some more, and you bringing up the Access made me realize that it is true that before Jeff, nobody had attempted to implement (or maybe even imagined feasible) an escape sleeve with a general purpose wingsuit (which neither the Access nor Prodigy were). So, hopefully we can all find some common ground to agree on there.

We can discuss both the concept and the implementation, and we are now. But it's pretty clear my first response was to the words "initially conceived the concept." Jeff was not the first to conceive of the idea. I'm not sure who was. I haven't tried many suits with escape sleeves so I can't say who does it best, but I know some are better than others. I made no such claim. I only pointed out that the Prodigy existed in 2005. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Jeff innovated a hell of a lot: check Jeff's suits are very different from the Prodigy: check Jeff initially conceived the idea of reaching toggles in a zipped up wingsuit? (i.e. the exact text I was responding to) nope That's not disagreement, it's a simple fact. Making sure correct facts are posted in a thread that many around the world will read for years to come is a good way to use a forum.

Serious question, what if you are doing acrobatics that put you in a "hunched over" position (similar to seated in plane)? What if you pendulum under canopy during line stretch, and pull your knees into your chest or again in some other way create a "hunched over" position? What if you chop from a spinner and tumble for a sec before pulling silver, and get hunched over while tumbling? The Phoenix-Fly Prodigy came out in... 2005? Jeff started making wingsuit prototypes in 2006. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

To make discussion easier (grommet being the bridle grommet on dbag): Regular bag rotation while packing is called "grommet to reserve tray" "Not rotating" as you describe above is called "grommet to BOC" Also there is "grommet to pin" where you only rotate the bag 90 degrees (and smash it to make it fit) If you search on those terms you'll find tons of discussion on this from a decade ago. More to the point, there is a problem with grommet to BOC packing style on some rigs. If the rig has hard corners, they resist bag motion in the BOC direction, and when the bridle pulls from the reserve side, the resistance causes the bag to rotate (CCW in the image below) as it comes off your back. This rotation is part of the design of the rig, I've discussed it with more than one H/C designer. If the bag is packed grommet to BOC (not pictured, but you can imagine), when bridle pulls from BOC direction it is just pull the bag even harder into these corners, without the lever arm that it normally gets to initiate rotation. This leads to hesitation for bag to leave container, best case the bag breaks free and spins into twists since it probably leaves unevenly, worst case you get PC in tow. This is why most people who pack this way get the "dynamic corners" or "cut corners" (search either of those phrases) mod done on their rigs. However, none of that is necessary at all. Put a long bridle on any normal rig, pack normally, deploy right, and your opening will be fine, guaranteed.

This entire discussion (i.e. "how to safely jump a wingsuit that might swallow your handles") is insane to me. If I have a wingsuit that swallows my handles, I am not going to skydive with that wingsuit, end of discussion. Not sure how anybody could conclude otherwise. Cutaways can be scary enough with your handles actually accessible, I'd prefer not to die because my handles were inside my shirt. The suggested workarounds don't really make the situation any less dire. What you're proposing with the carabiner (and please correct me if I'm misunderstanding, preferably with a picture) would rely on the fragile zipper tabs not breaking. Again, it is a no-brainer to me that my reserve parachute system has to be reliable in all situations, and could not have such a weak link as a flimsy zipper pull. www.WingsuitPhotos.com