LukeH

try and pick yourself up a USB - COM adapter on the way. most modern Laptops do not have a COM port. sell a protrack and buy a GPS. enjoy

Can rental in Italy is expensive, not sure about Switzerland. If you are going to the big wall you will need a car. The train in Switzerland is quite expensive. So rent a car in switzerland, between 3-4 people I'd guess it'll work out cheaper, and save yourselves the hassle of trains.

In the developed world we use the metric system. M1.4 would be a thread diameter of 1.4 millimeters, the other measurement (in this case also 1.4) would be the thread length.

Hey Matt, The quality of the interval record mode depends on the model of camera. The older Sony PC cams (e.g. PC101) capture 1/2 second every 30 seconds or something, this stop-start type of interval recording usually looks quite jerky. e.g. http://www.skydivingmovies.com/ver2/pafiledb.php?action=file&id=3089&string=packing%20in%20transit Newer cameras such as the PC350 can capture 1 frame at set intervals of as little as 1 second. This looks much smoother. I'm pretty sure that is what Douggs used with his PC1000 in the videos on http://www.basedreams.com/ . For the longer captures I think he used 1 frame every 8 seconds. Just work out how long you think you are going to record and how long you want the clip to be and figure out your interval between frames. Set the camera to Manual and plug the camera in so you don't run out of battery. Have fun at the Flock and Dock. C-ya P.S. If you have a camera that supports 1 frame capture at reasonable intervals I doubt you will get noticably better results by recording real time and speeding it up after. P.P.S. There isn't a problem with the tape getting up to speed to record on the newer cameras, as far as I can tell the camera captures a few frames (5-10) and then writes them to tape. The write to tape isn't in real time.

Hey George, According to Autoroute: Shortest route - 1,500km 18.5 hours driving Quickest route - 1,750km 16.5 hours driving You are looking at about 200 euro of fuel Both routes go through Denmark and get a ferry to Norway. Fill your car up with beer and food on the way and it'll be well worth it ;-) C-ya

Hey, I'll be around Barcelona and Empuria-brava between these dates, any locals around? -Luke

while you are answering the above post, i'm thinking of buying a piece of string, how much can i expect to pay? i've been in a couple of buildings at night, the security on them was quite low. i would suggest walking around the site a few times late at night without drawing attention to yourself. try and figure out the basics like are there guards, and what kind of patrols do they do. are there dogs? the security of the building will depend on where it is and how secure they think the site perimeter is. sometimes the main building entrances are locked but there is probably another way in, underground carpark, sliding door to individual unit etc... when inside, don't stand in doorways, don't put you hand on the handrail of the stairs, don't make noise. find the stairs and get your ass a few floors up quick smart.

sure it's possible to jump like that, you may even survive. have fun, get someone to video it!

How far can you trevel between 15sec from exit and 120sec from exit? Enter your GPS data here: http://www.trackingderby.com/solorace.php

agreed. poor wording on my part. i wasn't clear in what i was getting at, i was referring to the fact that when people use a GPS on a skydive to measure the distance traveled horizontally V vertically these figures include the effects of wind. and as such DO NOT represent a true GR. as the winds vary in direction and strength at different heights i'd guess it's pretty hard to work out the true GR in this manner. i guess the guys that have done the tunnel testing have some reliable figures!

i think you would be doing pretty well to get 2:1 in a GTi without a helping hand from upper winds. i'd guestimate an average GR from an average pilot to be closer to 1.6:1 the really good guys in the advanced suits talk about 2.5:1 to 3:1, without the help of winds. good trackers can exceed 1:1 without a wingsuit.

-From New Scientist.com US and Canadian skiers get smart armour * 16:52 14 February 2006 * NewScientist.com news service * Will Knight A futuristic flexible material that instantly hardens into armour upon impact will protect US and Canadian skiers from injury on the slalom runs at this year's Winter Olympics. The lightweight bendable material, known as d3o, can be worn under normal ski clothing. It will provide protection for US and Canadian skiers taking part in slalom and giant slalom races in Turin, Italy. Skiers normally have to wear bulky arm and leg guards to protect themselves from poles placed along the slalom run. Skiwear company Spyder, based in Colorado, US, developed racing suits incorporating d3o along the shins and forearms and offered members of the US and Canadian Olympic alpine ski teams the chance to try them out several months ago. "Now they love it and won't ski without it," claims Richard Palmer, CEO of UK-based d3o Labs, which developed the material. Although the exact chemical ingredients of d3o are a commercial secret, Palmer says the material is synthesised by mixing together a viscose fluid and a polymer. Following synthesis, liquid d3o is poured into a mould that matches the shape of the body part it will protect. Brief impact The resulting material exhibits a material property called "strain rate sensitivity". Under normal conditions the molecules within the material are weakly bound and can move past each with ease, making the material flexible. But the shock of sudden deformation causes the chemical bonds to strengthen and the moving molecules to lock, turning the material into a more solid, protective shield. In laboratory testing, d3o-guards provided as much protection as most conventional protective materials, its makers claim. But Phil Green, research director at d3o Labs, says it is difficult to precisely measure the material's properties because the hardening effect only last as long as the impact itself. However, Green believes it may be possible to alter the properties of d3o for new applications. "There are certainly opportunities to dabble with the chemistry and enhance the effect," he told New Scientist. The ultimate goal is "flexible ballistic protection", he says. Another potential application may be sound-proofing. The propagation of sound waves should generate a similar strain to an impact, so it may be feasible to create a material that becomes more sound proof in response to increasing noise. "It could have some very interesting, unexplored properties," Green says. http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn8721 http://www.d3olab.com/

hi, i haven't used a gps to collect data. perhaps the following can give you some indication if you are familiar with the locations: 1) Kerjag exit point 6, my first prodigy jumps where here and after a few jumps i could make it a little past the lighthouse and still pull at 400ft. 2)La Mouse - easily able to fly over the river and well into the next field, pulling 300-400ft 3)ITW - flying to the left I was able to pop over the climbing wall about 2/3 of the way up the ridge clearing the ridge by a reasonable amount (i'm talking reasonable to me, not Loic reasonable!). I would expect much better performance if you have decent upperbody strength (i don't 'cause i'm lazy) and have more jumps on the suit. if you have figures from a GTi, you should be easily able to better them. for skydive flights, i guess the upper winds are going to make meaningful comparisons difficult....

yup, i made about 30 jumps on the Prodigy with Hanwags. i've since put a few jumps on it with my chucks - i don't notice much difference. never seemed to have a problem tensioning the suit with the Hanwags either. must be the luck o the irish 'cause it sure ain't skill did i mention that the Prodigy is a mighty fine Wingsuit. i love it more and more with each use.....

Bluelogger GPS http://www.earthmate.com/prod_bluelogger.asp?p=1 It's just a data logger, no screen. Download the data to PDA or computer via Bluetooth. Can be used with PDA/Laptop etc to give live information. It's small/light/cheap... No i haven't used it in the air.

the trouble all started when Dutch Gold was teaching Tom how to BASE jump. You see Dutchie has this new pilot chute paching method.....

i was refering to a phone just being on. yes it is a lot of data, i'm not sure how long it is stored for, probably varies by country and company. i'd expect that companies will be required to keep this for a minimum period by the state. don't be sorry for being wrong, be sorry for being a hypocrite by chastising someone for not checking their facts when you clearly didn't check yours. a quick google shows that this is possible and has been done in the US. i don't think that the bold letters were the big problem. no point in editing your original post now.

Bull shit. Absolute bullshit. This is not true. You can use their phone with no big brother concerns such as this. Cell phone companies do not have this capability. Stop being paranoid (I thought I was!) or just get your facts straight, or please delete your post! don't get your knickers in a bunch. i know some of the USA's telephone networks are outdated compared to countries that are smaller (easier to upgrade) and/or that installed their networks later. however telephone companies in this part of the world DO have this capability. it HAS been used to prove people were at the scene of a crime and to locate suspects that use "pay as you go" phones (normally don't require registration). by checking which sides of which towers can see a phone the location can be pinpointed fairly easily. you may be leaving digital fingerprints at every tower you visit. so it's not that unreasonable to assume that US companies have or soon will have such capability. when, why and how this would or wouldn't be used is a whole other can of worms, but it IS possible in many countries. if some/all of your providers can't do this currently i would expect that it's on the "homeland security's" to do list. edited to add: aparently US companies can and have used cell phone triangulation, see links below for more info. http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,52396,00.html http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,,sid7_gci753924,00.html http://www.al911.org/wireless/triangulation_location.htm

I think you are being grossly unfair to Leroy (or Thrush as I fondly refer to him). He obviously went to a lot of effort to bring this video to us, not because he needs the attention but because he wanted to share such excellent footage. To read your post anyone would think that he just thinks he is 'bad ass' because he did some jumps from a 150' water tower - just being vain because he made some 'sick' (and by sick I mean totally sweet) jumps. One only has to look at any other thread on the board to see the value of his insights on every subject. (PM sent) Furthermore just take a look at the wealth of information that he has compiled in the info file, it'll save you a good 5 minutes in visiting the CR and PF sites and downloading their documents yourself. Where would you find such devotion to the betterment of BASE! How dare you chastise such helpfulness LeroyDB - Keep up the good work, I love reading your posts, and hearing about every totally rad jump you manage to pull off. Dude you rule!

http://www.cbs.com/primetime/courier/ Looks like some dude dressed all in black is involved too.

i've been trying to buy this too. so can someone with the DVD either post a bitorrent of the ISO or a DVD quality DIVX or similar? very cool that we can do this with permission! thanks.

statistics are ...well ... statistics. on a dataset of < 100 records, they aren't worth much. from this analysis you could also say that a span is 20% more dangerous than a building. you won't get many people agreeing with that unless you start specifying a particular bridge and particular building. if there are 5 times as many cliff jump a year as there are building jumps, that would mean that cliffs are safer than buildings (per 100 jumps) according to the stats... but still too many other factors to draw any useful conclusions... each type of object has it's own very general set of risk factors but so does each particular object and each jump from said object. besides everyone knows that a jump from a 3,000ft cliff is just a skydive right?

nice shot! it's also a perfect example of the position i'm saying you don't want in flight. i've found that rolling my shoulders forward during the early stages of the exit takes me steeper than i would like (as does bending your head down). for a good flight i would also suggest straight legs nice colours for your suit. with this purchase will you own every suit in the PF range?

I really hope this is a troll, but just in case it's not... I have to voice agreement with wildcard451. If you cannot spot, cannot learn to spot and get freaked out by looking at the ground you really should reconsider wingsuit flying but also skydiving in general. It is just a matter of time before you get yourself and other people into serious danger. The big blue sky will save your ass quite a bit but one day your luck will run out. Sorry to be the bad guy, but people like you really scare me. If you don't look out the door you have no idea where you are, then you have no idea if you are flying along jump run or not. Go talk to an instructor at your DZ and get it figured out.

Ah Kris! Now that is a poor excuse to post a blow up of your Avatar. (just kidding), but you assume wrong. i mean more like what i said, my arm is fairly flat along the wing span, the bend is in the leading edge. i suspect a bend like the one in your picture would make the wing act more like a braking device (cupping air) than a wing and make it harder to fly quietly. having said that i'm no aerodynamics expert and have never flown a V1, so perhaps it works well.