hjumper33

This is just a crappy screen grab from a gopro, but it made me think even more of a cool way to show a wingsuit flying up. Maybe diving at a tethered balloon and flaring, or flying under a big bridge. The opening was definitely interesting on this one, basically wound up being able to see a split second of the ground behind me, but still nice and soft. Anyone got any other interesting ideas to show this concept?

Flying really close to stuff without your arms back and at full glide is a really good way to die. Having a lot of reserve if you wind up low is mandatory for anyone who wants to terrain fly. I remember Jhonnys frustration with big suits just a few years ago, and his inability to feel like he was in control of them. Put a thousand jumps on them, and hes one of the best pilots in the world. I remember taking Noah Banson out when we first had X1s, and showing him how to dive the suit and make it go fast. Add a couple thousands jumps again, now hes also one of the best around. The moral of the story is the more you fly, the better you are, but no one wants to put in any time anymore. I love my big suits, and I also cant wait to get a swift and start skydiving again and playing around in the sky, because thats also fun. And also, my colugo and aura dont exactly handle like shit ;) I do love that we are back to arguing constantly in the wingsuit forum, its gotten a bit dull for the last couple of years. But what do I know, im average at best, and no one will even sell me a classic!

Is that original birdman for sale?

You buy a lot of suits and never fly them ;)

Auras are much easier to fly dynamically in my opinion when compared to apache based suits. Pressurization is the strongest of any suit ive ever flown including apaches, not that apaches have bad pressurization in any way. The surface area of the apache is larger which would probably make it float more and perform better near stall speed. That being said, I recently did a 4400 ft base jump where my average speed, including the start, was 28.2 mph. Ive found that the forward speed on the Aura is similar to the original apaches and faster than the current X3/Rebel generation. Both seem to be made out of similar parapack like material, but who knows, theyre probably slightly different. I think the aura is the best all around suit ive ever flown bar none. I guess if you just want it for skydiving and floating around, take your pick, but to me the aura has the most range for what I want to do, which is long wingsuit base flights. Ive done two skydives on it, and probably will never skydive it again.

So, this is all well and good, but someone please sell me their classic!

Ive posted a couple times in the classifieds and no one has responded, so does anyone know someone who has a classic laying around. Ive got some fun projects id like to do with one. Someone had a black and green one for 6'1 on here a while ago which would be ideal. Remember when people were flying 3:1 in classics, and then people could fly 3:1 in a V1, and then there was hard GPS evidence that we could fly 3:1 in a v4, and then apaches came out and people were flying 3:1, and now with my Aura, I look at my distances and im just slightly over...3:1.

Lots of fun trying to flock with a bunch of the best proximity guys in the world. Brand wars aside, at the end of the day, wingsuits are some of the coolest weirdest things humans have come up with. https://vimeo.com/75670606

If you overlay them youll notice that the Aura is quite a bit smaller than an Apache as well. Im my opinion, way way way easier to handle too, especially in tight turns and dives.

I usually stay out of these types of things, but Ill just throw my own experience out there in relation to wingsuit base, because theres plenty of people who read this forum that got into wingsuiting to start base jumping. I had 400 skydives before I ever did a base jump. I had 200 wingsuit skydives before I ever considered a wingsuit base jump. I did my first full two seasons of wingsuit base on a phantom before moving to a V3 for two seasons before moving to larger suits I now fly. I cant even imagine how people would think of starting wingsuit base jumping in a large suit. But ive only been around for a little while and am a generally average wingsuit pilot, so what do I know.

Ive always wondered about the giant suit in skydiving people. What exactly are you looking to do with it. I find most suits that are larger pretty difficult to keep in a flock (much less so with my colugo, but i still am flying it at like 20%) and pure distance and float jumps can get pretty boring. Aura flys in the same speed and float class as an apache, has the same zipper system, and an easier pull with way easier to use escape sleeves. I dont think the apache is a bad suit in any way, hell I put like 100 skydives and 150 BASE jumps on one, I just think overall the Aura is better performing suit.

...Aura

Day of relaxing in the middle of a long base trip to add some more thoughts. Ive been flying my colugo all over europe, and I can honestly without and bias say that this is the best wingsuit ive ever flown without a doubt. Ease of use, amazing agility for size, great glide (tip, try pushing your grippers slightly forward and see what happens). Id say im a pretty average wingsuit pilot, and ive been having so much fun its unreal. I also am really liking flaring out before pull, and then slightly dripping my knees to slow the suit a lot and then pitching.

I wrote a long response, but I think im going to just delete it and say, nope, no reason that wouldnt totally work, go for it.

I always did before I had my D license. Once youre able to sign your own logbook, the purpose seems fairly defeated as I could just make up anything I wanted.

I agree with the logbook thing. I haven't logged a jump in 5 years. Even if I had my most recent logbook, it wouldn't have my ffc on it. I thought that was kind of the point of getting a d license so you could vouche for yourself. Should I make a fake log book for travel purposes just to make people feel better? If I have to be totally honest, some of the wingsuit ban at Lodi has to do with BASE jumping. NorCal is quite a hub, and a lot of climber, para glider, or other type base jumpers try out their new suits there before taking them to other local sites. A fair few of these jumpers don't have a ton of skydives and feel like they can kind of slip under the radar, especially on a slower weekday when not all the higher up wingsuiters who normally regulate are there.

Yup those were the old rules which started after a brief ban maybe 2-3 years ago when a few visiting jumpers had off landings and bill got sick of it. Since then, you were supposed to have a sticker on your 3 rings showing that youd gone through wingsuit training and could jump there. The last straw recently was a couple of cutaways, one by a fairly inexperienced wingsuit pilot in a large suit, one by a wingsuit jumper flying a small main. Both landed on the airport. Bill was also one of the first people to ban the apache with the inside harness. Im just glad I got my colugo decently dialed in before the ban :(

That poster was of the old rules. The added on "unless you're bill" shows that the complete ban is still in place until bill says otherwise. I'm not super hopeful at the moment. Sucks because some amazing wingsuiting has been done there over the years.

I love me a good sabre 1. I just roll the crap out of them when im not wingsuiting, and they seem to open fine. if anyone has an old 120 or 107, im always in the market.

Depends on the line twists. Should fly generally straight in twists, but if you wind up with really asymmetrical risers, then it can spin you into the ground like crazy. Youll be pulling quite high on your first few wingsuit jumps anyway, should have time to deal with problems should they occur.

A nice brazilian guy make a readout video that I then overlaid on the video. I should make another one some day, happy that people are enjoying it two years later.

Im definitely to a point where im much more dangerous out of a wingsuit ;) Got too used to my 3.5 alarm going off and taking 15 more seconds

Anyone have any review or comments on the viper? I know there are some being flown out there.

4th base jump on a squirrel and second on my actual suit and I flew the same line I flew in my old apache to the same landing. Not saying it glides the exact same or better, just seems quite similar already without a ton of experience. Lau had a great review. Im excited to learn this suit more and more.

So update, I was able to recover the files using a recovery program, but now only about 1/4 of them open and play. The rest come up in quicktime as just a dark soundless file the proper length of the original video. Suggestions?