Zennie

WHAT???? And I missed this? Damn damn damn damn damn! Double damn! "Zero Tolerance: the politically correct term for zero thought, zero common sense."

Heh. Thanks for the tip. I may not be able to try it this weekend, a major fire just came my way & I may have to work over the weekend. "Zero Tolerance: the politically correct term for zero thought, zero common sense."

Heh. I forgot what being single is like, unless I piss Liz off & wind up sleeping on the couch. It's funny. You get into a relationship and you wish you were single again cuz you don't want the hassles. You're single and you want the companionship. Kind of a lose-lose proposition. "Zero Tolerance: the politically correct term for zero thought, zero common sense."

No those are all good things to think about. I usually hang out in half brakes and wait for some of the faster folks to get down and then try to place myself between the "fast" & "slow" groups. If I go to the carve approach I may just have to do hop-n-pops more often, open higher or land away from the main landing area. I've been toying with the idea of practicing over by the swoop ditch anyway (not in it, just by it). "Zero Tolerance: the politically correct term for zero thought, zero common sense."

Gotta love people who take their laptops to dinner with them. This geek salutes you! "Zero Tolerance: the politically correct term for zero thought, zero common sense."

Hell, do RW with them! Back to the topic, I can't tell you how many times I've been under canopy, or just sitting around daydreaming about skydiving and I just start laughing thinking "Man, this is just the coolest sport in the world. People have no idea what they're missing." I mean, we literally get a view that only birds get. How cool is that?

First choice said it all... because it's fun!

Look (i.e. turn your head & torso) in the opposite direction of the spin. "Zero Tolerance: the politically correct term for zero thought, zero common sense."

Ya know, I could dig up a kazoo & a mouth harp and make you a real nice soundtrack for nothing. "Zero Tolerance: the politically correct term for zero thought, zero common sense."

That was sort of going to be my follow-up... what level of steepness in the carve is optimal. The reason I ask is that I'm seriously considering going to the carve approach. I haven't had anything bad happen in a hard dive yet, but I've seen the results. I'm not planning on going into swoop competitions or anything, so if I lost 10-20 feet because I went to a carve that'd be OK with me. Still, I do like to do a nice swoop. So I figured while I was still not really set in my ways, I'd learn a more forgiving approach, even if it means I may have to work a little more at it up front to dial in the accuracy. "Zero Tolerance: the politically correct term for zero thought, zero common sense."

I wasn't commenting one way or another on the original post. Just pointing to the online incident report (which by the way is a new URL for those of you that follow that site, it's the new DB-powered version). "Zero Tolerance: the politically correct term for zero thought, zero common sense."

www.skydivingfatalities.com It's incident #4. "Zero Tolerance: the politically correct term for zero thought, zero common sense."

BWAHAHAHAHA!!!!! (Sorry Clay) "Zero Tolerance: the politically correct term for zero thought, zero common sense."

Hey man, there's a fish in your ear. Is it a Babelfish perchance? "Zero Tolerance: the politically correct term for zero thought, zero common sense."

I vaguely recall this being discussed in another thread, but I can't seem to turn it up in a search. I know they're a lot more difficult to do, from an accuracy standpoint, but can you generate the same amount of forward speed from a slow gradual carve that you can from a hard front riser dive? Are there any folks in competition using the gradual carve approach? "Zero Tolerance: the politically correct term for zero thought, zero common sense."

Ooo!! Ooo!! My turn to do research! Southern Flying Squirrel ----------------------------------- Length: 8 ½ - 10 inches Weight: 1 ¾ - 3 ½ ounces Human ---------- Length: 61 - 75 inches Weight: 120 - 220 lbs OK the human numbers are rough guesstimates. Me, I'm 5'8" (68 inches) & 160 lbs. Let's add 10 lbs for the wingsuit & no parachute since that's what we're gauging here. For sort of rough wingloading, let's lop off the head and assume a roughly square wing surface. So that's 56"x 56" or 21.8 square feet. That's a wingloading of about 7.8 lbs/sqft. Now let's look at "Rocky". Let's lop off about an inch for 'da head and assume approximately a square wing surface again. That's 9" x 9" or 0.56 square feet. At .22 lbs that gives him a wingloading of .39 lbs/sqft. So yeah, there's definitely a scalability problem here. "Zero Tolerance: the politically correct term for zero thought, zero common sense."

I only met him briefly, but we joked a bit about his glitterball helmet. He seemed like a heckuva nice guy. My condolences to all his friends and family. Blue skies bro! "Zero Tolerance: the politically correct term for zero thought, zero common sense."

Heh. And at an exponentially faster rate. That GeForce 4 card I bought which was the bomb 4 months ago is now obsolete. "Zero Tolerance: the politically correct term for zero thought, zero common sense."

Sorry Ann, I know what this is about too. You know I calls 'em as I sees 'em. I agree with Levin that that remark was way uncool. Let's not air our personal stuff in a public forum. "Zero Tolerance: the politically correct term for zero thought, zero common sense."

Yep. I see what you're talking about. Kinda creepy. Of course, if you're gonna land a suit, you don't need to reach for a hackey. It would be interesting to see the evolution of wingsuits over the years. My guess is the problem you point is a primary factor in current designs. "Zero Tolerance: the politically correct term for zero thought, zero common sense."

These are the sort of specifics I was hoping to get, and they are points well taken. I'm still not as pessimistic. Perhaps another scale to look at are ski jumpers. Without looking at the numbers, I would venture a guess that the vertical and hoizontal speeds that ski jumpers see are within the realm of possibility of what a wingsuit can (or can potentially in the future do). So if a ski jumper can survive his jump, couldn't a wingsuit flier experiencing the same vertical & horizontal fallrates do likewise? "Zero Tolerance: the politically correct term for zero thought, zero common sense."

Just to clarify, what's really being said here is that since the gliding mammal scenario doesn't scale exactly, it cannot be applied in any form in the wingsuit context and thus does not even warrant research. That's a pretty big leap of logic. "Zero Tolerance: the politically correct term for zero thought, zero common sense."

True, but implicit in that statement is that some things do. You'll never know until you try. Geez gang, lighten up a smidge. I'm not saying that if we make a flying squirrel suit we'll be able jump from tree to tree or even land the thing. I'm not even advocating making a flying squirrel suit. All I'm saying is that we have an obvious model in nature that seems to be able to land itself (into vertical structures no less) just fine and maybe it should be studied to try and understand how it does what it does. No things don't usually scale exactly. Early attempts to create flying machines by creating a mechanical "bird" failed miserably. But still, but studying birds, we gained at least a better understanding of the mechanics of flight. That was then applied to eventually create the airplane. Now it may turn out that it isn't possible to land a wingsuit. But if the Wright Brothers had just accepted conventional wisdom that flight was impossible we'd stil be sitting on the ground. I personally think that's where things are heading with wingsuits. No I won't be the one to try it. But if you think the statement in the FAQ is Jari's personal declaration that he'll never try to land a wingsuit then I think you may be reading more into it than I do (sounds like a legal disclaimer to me). "Zero Tolerance: the politically correct term for zero thought, zero common sense."

My personal take is that if something can be done it eventually will be. I personally think landing a wingsuit (not today's technology, necessarily) can be done. However, our Birdman friends might want to take a lesson or two from the Southern Flying Squirrel. Interesting little critters. They'd make a cool pet. Sit back and watch 'em swoop the cat. "Zero Tolerance: the politically correct term for zero thought, zero common sense."

My wife is whuffo. I've been at this about a year & a half and we're still married. The first six month or so were about the roughest. The big thing with her now is the time I spend at the dropzone. So I spend only one weekend day out at the DZ and spend the other with her. She's still not crazy about it, but she's more understanding and tolerant. She comes out to the DZ once in a blue moon and has an OK time. She likes the people at hte DZ, but feels kind of "left out" because we talk skydiving and she doesn't understand a lot of our conversations. "Zero Tolerance: the politically correct term for zero thought, zero common sense."