Trae

You're insprirational mate. prediction: Some-one's gunna make a movie about you.

Shot skydiving at Kjerag.......wish I was there. When are those rich Norgies going to build a tunnel-elevator and cliff-balconied resort at that amazing place ?

on the issue of snag points on modern camera helmets. Some look like accidents waiting to happen . The helmet pictured looks about as snag free as poss. Not sure what brand but nice effort at reducing snag points.

in reply to "Pic of a canopy flying with both control lines cut. Fuck that! " just a few thoughts; If you have a line-over on your reserve we're back to square one. You may have to cut the lines . IMO the flyoff toggles may be useful on the reserve in this situation. Perhaps extra bulk and complication is not worth having for some people. Perhaps to others the option of quickly releasing the reserves control lines is a viable option. OK so the canopy flies like a dog but this would usually be better than spinning in . Line overs aren't always control line-overs so some cutting of offending lines may be a necessary EP just perhaps not on your main. During the line over mal I had I only thought of chopping not even considering cutting the lines .I'm glad I haven't had to cut any line-overs off my reserve rides as yet. The fly-off toggles used in BASEjumping have been improved over time and today appear to be a fairly well refined product when set up and used properly. After seeing some base line-overs there is definitely a place for them. Perhaps one day such an item, further refined , will be attached without question to ram-air reserves.

in reply to "To those of you with more experience, that have been following these forums much longer than I: Does it seem like there is an unusually high number of incidents as of late? And if so, what is going on? " ........................................................ Eg.. in the 80's the statistics were way higher approx 50 fatalities a year from memory. Lots of no pulls and COD-Impact. IMHO now the prominent COD is simply excessive speed. Its as if skydivers have forgotton how to cruise. Even the reserves have to be tiny and go faster. The DZ's also seemed to have shrunk. Looks a bit silly from some points of view .. kinda counter productive survival tactics. Whats going on ? Mass delusion? IMHO skydiving has mutated into an extreme sport where all the behaviour HAS to be extreme. It used to be just a fun thing to do .....now its 'AWESOME' and full of awesomites whom insist on driving faster.... IMO quite unecessarily. AS to the number of incidents you may just be getting a ringside view that others are missing. I went for years with not even seeing a serious injury. Then it seemed like everyone was getting badly hurt or dead. ( that was ZP arriving.) Then Base jumping skydivers started disappearing . More recently I've noticed the disappearance of a proportionally high number of wingsuiting Base jumpers. One thing I do find interesting is the apparent flurry of incidents sometimes. Sure this can be put down to the summer months in the northern hemisphere however these flurries sometimes feel more like a collective madness that keeps pushing until some-one gets hurt. Then everyone backs off until it builds up... again. I've experienced this in groups of jumpers eg boogies where things can sometimes reach a crescendo until something breaks. This may be occurring on a larger scale creating waves of safety consciousness replaced in phases by the need for speed until.....oops - TOO fast . So what is going on may be , just perhaps, two opposing forces 'Safety v's Pushing the Envelope' managing to work together albeit with some casualties along the way.

Just curious as to what kind of recurrency jumps to expect when I can finally come back to the sport. ..................... Can I recommend you do some solos first . It is such a nice feeling after a layoff to meet the sky alone again first up. You can construct your own recurrency dives focusing on whatever skills you want . Dumping high if poss gets you reacquainted with your canopy and the aerial environment.

in reply to "what's the fastest packjob you've seen or done that was jumped (and worked)? Start to finish packjobs only." ................................ Would have to be the "Plane Scared" CRW team guys packing during a training camp . One guy in particular made it look easy. Under a minute easy. This was a total trash pack . The lines were merely coiled into the bottom of the container and the canopy stuffed in on top . We called it the 'Coil Of Death '. Dumping out the door VERY close to each other and OK openings cause they kept doing it and won at the 1st world meet as well.

If this could STOL and had jets instead of props I want one.

in reply to "You have been duped, it is obvious and you are in denial! " ......................... It just seems SO obvious that the whole thing was a set -up. Controlled demolition with multiple red herrings attached. People are so dumb they don't realise steel doesn't burn or melt in an open fire. There must have been a blast furnace in those buildings somewhere. The apocalyptic horse has long bolted and is running free enjoying its wars and huge incomes from arms deals and other unaccountable sources, fooling all us dumbies as usual.. Peace president Obama presides happily over increased warfare in Afganistan. Business as usual. Who got all the financial advantage from this? Perhaps the same people who own the largest industrial complexes on the planet ... just perhaps. For me the unanswered/unanswerable questions are :- Why did the steel get shipped overseas (china and india) so quickly before examination ? Capitalism? Why so many reports of explosions in the buildings before collapse? Imagination? Why prior knowledge (of collapses) was demonstrated by various officials and newsreports.? Bad timing? Has any-one noticed how amateurish just about every other terrorist attack appears compared to 911 ? Even the psycho pro's that carried out this operation made many mistakes as is typical in any warped military operation. The beauty of the whole thing is how it didn't really matter. The brainwashed minions willingly helped their masters. All this happened more than 8years ago. Since then the people who did this have planned and carried out many more attacks against humanity. The current one appears to be bio-warfare experiments against eastern european countries. Bit of insecticide followed by another engineered flu epidemic. Nice combination eh? Forced vaccinations anyone? Especially if you're black, poor , african or asian these shots will be made freely available to you. Just line up and take it. What could be easier than tricking and poisoning us stupid humans? Its just the things rulers do.

in reply to "Any ideas, guys? " ...... It might be advantageous to build the gripped formations while flying in semi shut down ie sort of half way to tracking the suit. Once the formation had secure enough grips and was flying OK the formation could be opened out gradually to full stretch for more performance. WS's with smaller, less twitchy arm and leg wings might be more suitable for attempting docked formation flying . Perhaps a purposely detuned WS could be made available if the idea of docked flight really catches on. What other formations could be built with knee grips? With enough talent and the right gear some sort of spinning circle might be poss. Drag-outs anyone?

Can any-one confirm the work being done in the US creating the electric wingsuit? OK sounds a bit laughable (just like elctric model aircraft used to seem implausible) but apparently such a thing exists I'm supposing it is feasible with lightweight batteries and ducted fan propulsion. Such an electric unit would be aircraft friendly as opposed to jets and rockets The ducted fan could be located between the ankles/calves as part of the leg wing , with the feet resting/pushing on pegs on the outer rim of the duct and the batteries located around CG. It'd be nice and heavy with todays battery tech but with ultra lightweight batteries could this idea go anywhere.?

in reply to "By flying your wingsuit in these updrafts you can significantly improve your gliding performance. How do you find and stay in updrafts? One way would be to exploit cloud streets. Another would be to use the ridge lift formed on the upwind side of cliffs on windy days. " ........................................ Wide legged wingsuits probably have an advantage with doing this. As to catching updraughts :-some wingsuiters in the BASE community do this flying back from the no.1 exit point on Smelly to Lysebotn. In good steady wind conditions there is an updraught in places from the cliffs along the flightpath. If the cliffs have warmed up in the sun more updraught from thermals . Using these updraughts some wingsuiters make the trip to the camping ground with ease . Of course others splash short in less favourable conditions. There must be a place on this planet with the combination of steep (soft) slopes or cliffs and steady high winds where it may be feasible to one day soar a wingsuit or at least do an extended ridge run on the updraught. Has any-one ever tried kiting a (wide-legged )wingsuit ?

in reply to "The WinTec WBT-201 or the QStarz BT-Q1300 are much better options" .............................................. Do these units come with their own 3D imaging program? or do they need to interact with other programs to output in 3D eg with Google earth?

in reply to"So the trend seems to be - the video guy gets free slots on jumps - then if you want a picture you have to pay for it How does this make sense at all? " .................................................... The best stills I have I paid for over and above any slot fees. A professional freelance photographer took them without my knowledge and sold them to me after showing them to me. My friends and family are still enjoying them . Video taken of countless events are collecting dust somewhere. You pays for what yous gets. .

in reply to :"..working on a name." ........................................ chasing those moments of thrust it could be called simply the 'Thrust" OR the "THRUSTOR" free suit if name picked up?????

'Cool wing suit videos used to pop up all the time - now nothing ' Bored, dis-satisfied with skydiving flockin'? Get thy flock or thyself to Kjerag and flock the rock . Guaranteed non-boredom.

Hey Pedro, Check the 'FlyBirdman' website, its from the good old days ( a few years ago ). when wingsuiters were still dreamers and there's a design section too !

Does the risk eventually catch up to everyone?' ...................... Eventually the answer must be yes. Somethings eventually gunna get ya. If the risk is always present then it will always be there waiting for the slightest slip-up. Last time I checked NO-ONE is perfect. Skydiving is playing the risk-minimisation game perhaps moreso than risk-elimination. Some pretty hefty, never before activated , combination-cluster-phucks are brewing away right now just waiting for the perfect environment to express their brutal lessons to the over confident and in-experienced . Complacency ie self delusional over -confidence , has long been the foe of exremish sports like skydiving. thinking that the risks you take will never get you is merely delusional thought. If it can get you it will, often after luring you into a nice cosy sense of safety and self satisfaction. Xtreme sports can be seen like a huge mouse trap with us as the mice. The experienced survivors nibbling away at the bait VERY slowly while the newbies think they can eat it all at once.

Is it all for some booty?" ........................ DZ booty boys are groundhogs. For them the action is on the ground not in the air. Thankfully most people go skydiving just for the fun of it and would even do it especially if booty didn't exist.

in reply to "how much extra care I need to make this jump.' ..................................... all the advice here sounds spot on. Just to add if you feel like doing things in stages perhaps try to do your first nite -wingsuit on a close to full moon where you're less likely to get disorientated. Then later do one in the pitch dark . just to emphasise .. REALLY watch out for high openers and stay well off the dead-drop flight-line

The safest landings I've ever done are when no-one else is in the air , gliding down in no hurry to get to the ground , gently turning into the wind at a couple hundred feet , letting the canopy fly like its designed at full drive , flaring perfectly and having ZERO airspeed when my feet eventually touch the ground. Every other landing has been dangerous

These "wow they're so good " canopies and their pilots are responsible for perhaps the most grief skydivers and their families have ever suffered. Never in the field of human endeavour have so many people hurt themselves for so little reason. What are they like to fly ????? They are obviously just too much fun. Take your time getting there buddy and you might just get there.

in reply to "I think I've talked to you a few times on here. You say you are a new wingsuiter and your profile indicates you just started skydiving. And yet on your homepage you caustically attack Birdman in a rather exaggerated way. If you have a problem with them, you should talk to them in person-why publically flame them? Birdman practically invented wingsuit flying and the best teams in the world fly Birdman. The majority of people who fly wingsuits have respect for Birdman. I have a read a few of your posts that were trying to push people away from Birdman. Try not have such a loud mouth about things you may not know everything about. " ..................................................... Try not to .........puke. Birdman practically invented wingsuits?????? This just shows a complete disregard of history. as far as I can recall BM was the original company selling the first COMMERCIALLY available wingsuit before the company split into BM and Phoenix Fly. The creative genius going with Phoenix and the copy-cat social-butterflies staying as Birdman. I'm happy with my wingsuits from Birdman AND PhoenixFly but that doesn't blind me to a few things. The guys still running Phoenix are the ones that invented their thing if any-one did. From the outside it looks like BM just ran off with some-one elses design...and from my point of view BM have provided very little in the way of original innovation since the split. Still their suits fly almost as good as some. (gasp..... opinions) Hanging with a BM flock is very different from flying with a Phoenix Fly crew. The BM flocks might be a little friendlier but the Phoenix Fly flocks get up and GO ! It just seems like the PhoenixFliers are more about the actual flying and use their wingsuiting a little bit less as a social tool at the bar. haven't experienced a Tony flock yet but I'm sure it has it's own flavour as well. It's a fantastic thing that Tony Suits are continueing to provide innovation and advancement not just rehashing and forcefeeding some-one else design. Wingsuit wars ?? let 'em fight it out ...what a storm in a teacup that'd be.

In reply to "I am a new IAD JM .......yesterday while gearing up a load of 1st jump students I was hit with the "has anyone ever died here?" question.....it caught me completely off guard!!!! " ...................................... ? Your reaction has got me wondering if you yourself have dealt with these death issues on a personal basis. 140 jumps is pretty well bugger all these days and you're teaching people? The fact that this question threw you is worrying. Yep you've struck a nerve. Are we breeding instructors that are afraid of dying when they go jumping ? I REALLY hate seeing instructors that are scared shitless in the air. They are NOT on the job. Blustery frightened sensory overloaded TM's are similarly simply pathetic. Every one of your little fears will be magnified, multiplied and blow torched onto the fears of your students. The last thing you would want to do as a responsible instructor is to gloss over the cold hard facts that our beautiful sport kills people ..especially people who are prone to freeze or become hesitant when the shyte gets flying. Some instructors can be too mother hennish protecting their students from serious realities. If you're not telling them the truth then what are you doing in our sport.?

in reply to "Landing on your butt?? Is this possible?" .................. yep . is it desirable ....nup. Many tandem masters will say they do it every day no problems. what a lot of TM's never have to experience is the pain and discomfort their passengers can have after a butt slide . especially if the ground is not perfectly smooth .You see it's the passenger whats taking most of the landing loads. I've heard TM's talk about letting the passenger take the hit and that this is an advantage The adrenalin of a first jump experiece can hide the dull ache in the butt till later when the post jump alchohol wears off. personally i'm a bit sick of watching TMs break every landing rule in the book, late toggle hooks , sliding in on their passengers butts, down-wind landings so they can slide down their slippery slope... Some TMs avoid jumping after the grass had dried out cause it hinders their slide...too much friction. Every long term butt slider I've met has broken their tail bone doing it . You can guarantee they've broken many of their passengers as well. It looks unprofessional and it probably is but hey every does it so it must be cool in reply to " Do you need special protection or equipment to do this? " .................... Now this would be a mighty fine idea if you plan on doing a lot of butt sliding even though some people do come better equipped that others to soak up all their butt sliding impacts. little tip .....learn how to do a perfect PLF . they're fun if done right and can save your ass outside skydiving world as well ... unlike any butt slide i've seen.