Pendragon

Sebastian had quite a few wingsuiters last year for the Invasion; not sure who's down for organising this year? Besides, with all those guys from Chicago, I'm sure it will feel like home for you! Unfortunately, we're at home this christmas (spent too much money on DIY house renovations)... -- BASE #1182 Muff #3573 PFI #52; UK WSI #13

My memories of Nagambie are rather blurry, mainly because the days were short / nights were long and the drinking in town legendary... -- BASE #1182 Muff #3573 PFI #52; UK WSI #13

...and I would add that the OP's turn is probably rushed. Start higher and slow everything down. Although the xfire2 does have a reputation to recover more abruptly, this is probably only noticable at lower wing loadings: I don't find the effect pronounced at all (I jump a 109 @ 1.8). Slowing things down should help; starting lower and increasing the speed of rotation should be avoided. -- BASE #1182 Muff #3573 PFI #52; UK WSI #13

I'd just change the question from: 5. What are the most critical items to include in your gear check when wingsuiting? to: 5. Which of the following are critical to perform as part of your flight line check when wingsuiting? Obviously they all are... but the question doesn't imply anything or lead the reader. Glad to see someone is making an effort!

Actually, on a wingsuit big-way, the base is getting away from you as it is tracking across the sky, not going straight down. As to getting out of an aircraft fast, we have literally made thousands of jumps from Otters in the last week, the a full load of wingsuit jumpers getting out in around 7-8 seconds, without the pilots throttling back. Not that your idea is a bad one, simple care and attention can avoid the prospect of a wingsuit tail strike - they are not simply "accidents waiting to happen." -- BASE #1182 Muff #3573 PFI #52; UK WSI #13

Can only reiterate what Omnia and Lurch already said. Great place, and it helped having Dan BC on the ground coordinating. Thanks to all the Perris staff for having us! -- BASE #1182 Muff #3573 PFI #52; UK WSI #13

Aside from a list of names (I can't remember everyone's!) We were trying to get a vertical fall-rate of around 65mph. Suits used varied from phantom 2s (Rolf Brombach was in his) through Vampires, Blades and bigger Tony suits, as well as a significant contingent of S-Fly suits - so quite varied! If anything, the really big suits were more of a hinderance for this. The greatest altitude we got was around 13,500ft. Because high clouds, I think we only actually got 13,000ft on our record jump. All break-offs began from 5,500ft in stages, with the formation initially breaking into 5 chunks before further separating again from 4,500ft (and again at 3,500ft for the very front 9-way diamond). -- BASE #1182 Muff #3573 PFI #52; UK WSI #13

Guiness criteria are a bit more relaxed than the FAI; I guess the difficulty is that no-one has ever really defined what a formation of "aircraft" are - for example, we see the Red Arrows / Blue Angels fly in "formation" although I don't believe anyone has set any criteria for what consititutes that beyond what looks good! Anyway, a number of FAI judges have agreed (with the Guiness book's consent) that we have fulfilled their criteria for our 100-way yesterday. We're currently doing 99-ways to make the prettiest, most regular formation we can! I'm sure someone will keep everyone updated. It's quite exciting.

I was hoping to meet some of those guys. Where are you DSE? It's been great jumping with so many talented and safe wingsuit pilots; something none of us get the opportunity to do very often.

Is that something you learned at Oxford? Oh very bloody funny... oh, I just shouted that at you across the table. -- BASE #1182 Muff #3573 PFI #52; UK WSI #13

I'm a bit unsure if I can mention that it's been fun "sheep-dogging" you in polite company! -- BASE #1182 Muff #3573 PFI #52; UK WSI #13

The BPA as an organisation doesn't set any rules regarding wing loading once off student status; it's up to the Club Chief Instructor to be happy with you jumping with the canopy - and they do pay a considerable amount of attention to that. However, high performance landings - defined as anything to accelerate the canopy beyond its normal flying speed to land - cannot be conducted unsupervised until you have been through training and been given a suitable endorsement on your licence. What I don't like about broad-brush wingloading-based rules for canopy choice are: 1. They can be too generous to small, lighter jumpers / too harsh on big heavy guys (it's not just wingloading; absolute size makes a difference) 2. Jump #s do not take into account prior experience (I was a hang and paraglider pilot before I jumped) and ability levels (I've also seen jumpers with 700+ skydives that would not be safe on anything more aggressive than a 7-cell canopy @ 1.2 lbs/sq ft doing straight-in approaches) 3. As could be seen in Germany and Austria with paragliders under the DHV system, once you reach a certain threshold in experience and become entitled to use a higher performance canopy, the decision to migrate to the higher perforance planform is often taken with scant regard for the pilot's own ability 4. Progress is usually not smooth, with jumps in performance being common (I think of my own downsize history - got to a 150 @ 1.4 relatively quickly; did hundreds of jumps on that before going through a 129 fairly quickly to a 109, which I had for several hundred. before trying crossbraced) Consequently, I'm not in favour of implementing a hard "jump number"-based system of rules for downsizing, rather empowering those club operators to make appropriate choices given abililty. -- BASE #1182 Muff #3573 PFI #52; UK WSI #13

Note that microline shrinks with heat. Given that the control lines brush against the guide rings as you steer, shrinkage in the brake lines is always more acute - it's not just the action of the slider (which is worst for the control lines as they're more likely to be on the outside of the line bundle and in contact with the slider gromits). Consequently these may need to be replaced / toggle position changed to maintain the original settings even after only 150 jumps. I would strongly advise against doing this; it will fundamentally alter the feel and action of your toggles on the canopy, which could be dangerous. You should be really experienced before experimenting with this kind of modification; personally I question whether it's really needed (you can certainly do without it). Regardless, if you wish to investigate doing this modification, get proper advice from someone on the DZ, preferably an advanced rigger, who knows what they're doing. -- BASE #1182 Muff #3573 PFI #52; UK WSI #13

I'm over in Sebastian right now (wife likes the beach). I'll be in Z-Hills this Friday for a day trip though. -- BASE #1182 Muff #3573 PFI #52; UK WSI #13

I was already a hang glider pilot (this had captured my imagination when I was 7 and saw them on the Dunstable Downs, just north of London) and came across wingsuits at the Coupe Icare festivale in France, which looked to me a lot like pocket hang gliders! I'd always fancied skydiving, but this gave me the impoteus to start with the goal of wingsuit BASE at the end, which I managed 7 years after I first had the idea. -- BASE #1182 Muff #3573 PFI #52; UK WSI #13

Just trying to take this a little further... With the added 3", you're pulling down on the risers 3" more. If you start a HP turn using a double-front technique, you are therefore affecting the trim of the canopy by 3" more. That should translate into more speed as you start the turn / dive. The steeper trim should affect the speed that you can generate in the turn / dive. This is meant mostly as a question to those with experience with this technique on longer risers. Maybe I'm behind the curve, but I just prefer to start with one riser and add the 2nd riser and harness input as needed during the turn. But I could see where the longer risers could provide more potential speed due to the pilot's ability to affect the trim. The reason for starting on double fronts and letting one up slowly is to achieve the equivalent of a flat turn on toggles; that is a controlled slow turn to start. In essence the ideal is to accelerate the rate of turn as you turn to provide constant force, and not allow the canopy to recover prematurely. I (like many) find this easier to achieve using this technique. It's harder to start a slow controlled turn using just one riser as it's easy to put too much input in too early. Given the above, I don't think this has anything to do with trim; rather longer risers just provide the pilot the ability to put more force into the turn, which generates more speed. -- BASE #1182 Muff #3573 PFI #52; UK WSI #13

I think what Gerhard meant is that bungee collapsible PCs are prohibited - in the UK they're certainly strongly discouraged - but those collapsibile PCs with kill-lines are permitted. I don't think it has ever been a requirement to use a collapsible PC anywhere in Europe AFAIK. -- BASE #1182 Muff #3573 PFI #52; UK WSI #13

Hey Matt, So how did you score on the "Big 5 personality inventory" then? -- BASE #1182 Muff #3573 PFI #52; UK WSI #13

Actually, we have a surprising number of wingsuiters down at Headcorn, of varying abilities. I guess you won't have a car; given that you can travel to Headcorn in 50 mins on the train from London Bridge / Charing Cross, and either walk (it's not that far) or call for a ride to the DZ, it's definitely the easiest. Richard -- BASE #1182 Muff #3573 PFI #52; UK WSI #13

...although from the video, it looks as if there isn't much bottom end and the wing loses lift quicky in the plane out - or is that not a fair assessment? -- BASE #1182 Muff #3573 PFI #52; UK WSI #13

I'm sure someone has probably D-bagged one... but in line with paragliders, their line sets and trim would not make any speedwing I can think of suitable for higher speed deployments. -- BASE #1182 Muff #3573 PFI #52; UK WSI #13

The first time I went to the Holiday Boogie at Skydive Arizona I did 117 jumps in just under 3 weeks. The boogie rate was pretty good too; I think it was $15/jump back then. Went back to my home DZ here in the UK a few weeks later. They'd wondered where I'd been given that I only had 120 or so jumps the last time they saw me 2 months prior; now I had >300 total and 40 odd jumps on a wingsuit... I was actually between two jobs and decided to spend the cash. However, I could have saved a bit doing my own packing. -- BASE #1182 Muff #3573 PFI #52; UK WSI #13

Looks good; I'm gutted I didn't make it over. We'll have to catch up another time! -- BASE #1182 Muff #3573 PFI #52; UK WSI #13

Just to clear something up: Spin: rotation around an axis that lies "inside" the wing area. Often induced by stalling out the wing during a turn (easiest to do on wingsuits with correspondingly large armwings and smaller leg wings) Spiral: rotation around an axis that lies outside of the wing Wingsuit spins (as you've found out!) can be quite fast. Whilst what you did was great in terms of recovery, we generally teach the "balling up" method as usually spins are induced by pilot error in flight and balling up stops the wingsuit pilot from keeping their "propeller" like position. Many people who try to counteract the spin tend to make it worse. However, you develop your own ways of dealing with these things, and no one way is probably right for everyone, and many wingsuit pilots probably react and correct faster than they really think about it. Ultimately, you've been through it and got out of it - which isn't a bad thing! -- BASE #1182 Muff #3573 PFI #52; UK WSI #13

Possibly going off topic, but why do you say that? This way provides better vertical separation, a greater likelihood of landing order following exit order (thereby reducing the potential for conflict under canopy), and flat fliers can easily leave a gap (which usually happens in the context of most 4-way teams taking a little extra time setting up in the door) to account for their greater freefall drift. -- BASE #1182 Muff #3573 PFI #52; UK WSI #13