mccordia

Though performance should never be a higher goal then the intended target of a jump (flying a formation) I definitely agree that a lot of flocks could use more speed. People flying with their legs on their but is nice, but its a bit useless flying 1000 euro suits if we're getting performance most trackers without a wingsuit could match.. But as skills improve, so will the glideratios and freefall times (yeayea..L/D and FF time, not linked...flocking gay...settle down Yuri!) Would make a nice variation on the current glide ratio competitions. Who can fly a tight 4 way (+ video) with the best glideratio JC FlyLikeBrick I'm an Athlete?

My compliments on the well thought out seperation...definitely think this is a more then excelent starting point for what could and should become standard on bigways in terms of thought and dicipline that went into creating it...! JC FlyLikeBrick I'm an Athlete?

Which one? When you jump with them, its usualy the canopy thats on a direct (deliberate) collision course, heading for your canopy directly after opening... You can recognise him by the pullup cords hanging out of the back of his rig JC FlyLikeBrick I'm an Athlete?

FlyLikeBrick has a .com adres, and the coaching is for free there I think thats the most competitive rate you can get the FU numbers sound cool..how much does one cost Keep the .org spirit...keep it free and available for everyone! Joking aside..great work...its good seeing this stuff being pushed more and more everywhere.. Good education and training are the key to seeing this dicipline grow and grow! JC FlyLikeBrick I'm an Athlete?

The wingsuit only seems to be the means of aiming here....technicaly, such a ramp could be 'landed' by a normal freefaller, as the 45 degree descent angle is something a good tracker can match...you wouldnt even need a wingsuit... Not that it wouldnt be an incredible feat to pull off...but it just looks like the worlds biggest 'slip and slide' Picking a lesser/flatter angle/slope (at a glide-ratio that means the wingsuit has to truly be 'flown' to 'hit' it) would turn it into something more realistic, if landing the wingsuit is really what the planning is... Choosing a cheeper helicopter then a Dauphin (and renting it instead of buying it) would probably bring the cost down a bit as well.. Still...big balls if he goes through with this... JC FlyLikeBrick I'm an Athlete?

Im strictly AGAINST selling drugs....DONT do it..as it will spoil my market...;-) JC FlyLikeBrick I'm an Athlete?

Sounds like my type of initiation ritual! hmmm.... JC FlyLikeBrick I'm an Athlete?

Would be an ideal tool to practice frontloops! Bet you could do em reaaaally quick, without loss of altitude! JC FlyLikeBrick I'm an Athlete?

I also completely second that.... Its not about not WANTING to jump with people. Its putting them on dives suitable for their experience level. If you feel bad about not having them fly with you, then quit the bigway and join them on the smaller dive. JC FlyLikeBrick I'm an Athlete?

I think people need to see the difference from cutting someone for 'not meeting the formation goals', or cutting someone for 'safety'. There is a huge set of flying skills that comes into flying a bigway, excluding being able to fly within 30 cms of where you need to be (though that would be nice if you intend to build a formation). Being able to do a diciplined exit, approach, formation and seperation/pull. Speaking from my own experience. It takes a lot of jumps to develop the sense of what you can do in the air, in terms of dive/swoop/stop/seperation, and developing the awereness of where other people are. You guys may all be superman, but even at 500 or so wingsuitjumps, I still miss a lot of what happens all around me in a bigway formation during build/flight/seperation. And thats while flying purely on instinct and looking around like a hawk on acid looking for prey. You see a lot, react to some things, ignore others. But someone still busy trying to figure out how to fly a wingsuit (which I still am, and definitely was up to at least 100 or so wingsuit jumps) is not going to get all that. And if there are no structured plans for seperation, and people dont have the skills to follow plans ('tracking' away in formation, following a leader in a cloud of other flyers) they should be there..as its an accident waiting to happen... Flying a 10 way people quite often come down having only seen 2 people. Whats the use of there being 50 more people in the sky if its not completely safe for your current skill level? If we could be more honest about our own, and other peoples skills and performance, we would learn and develop soo much quicker. Coming down and telling eachother in a debrief what to work on, change and update. Instead of just saying "great jump..lets do it again and have everyone try and be in his slot" (not talking about any of the FnD organising, just wingsuits in general) or even for unplanned fun flocks...try and see what can be improved..be it speed, accuracy, body position..help eachother get better at what they do.. Individual attention based on what you do can be hard. But if its a good debrief, it will be positive attention. And not a negative slap on the hand (as a lot of people seem to fear). Being honest about your own skills, and accepting limits on what to do, and what not to do (yet)...its hard..but its the right thing to do if we want to keep it safe. And looking at yourself..most people will agree that its not smart....but they will disagree when they see a bigway organised that everyone wants to be part off... As you dont want to miss anything.... Its only going to take one case of 'luck run out' to get someone in the hospital or worse..and perhaps a lot of new rules for wingsuit formation flying at DZs or even bans for being dangerous...far fetched...maybe.....I hope so.. Smaller formations and tighter flying.....wish we could focus on that... JC FlyLikeBrick I'm an Athlete?

Faster and easier are linked to your experience with a program.. Depending on what you do with it, and how often you use it... JC FlyLikeBrick I'm an Athlete?

Could you point out 1 person who sayd that? I havent been on 400 ways, nor do I think anyone sucks who has not been one ANY RW dive. What I dont understand, is why some people want to completely ignore lessons learnt in the past by 'that other dicipline'. I truly believe a lot of the wingsuit bigways we've have had in the past, trusted on 'dumb luck' a bit in terms of exit, build and breakoff/opening. The An72 boogie in germany is a good example. Its the 2nd big wingsuit event there. And on a few dives the bag of luck ran out...and people got SERIOUSLY hurt...and trust me...it sucks te see your buddy on the floor loosing conciousness because of the pain...and it sucks even worse when you realise it was faulty planning and chaos in the sky with people having to perform outside their skills envelope that caused it... I think you're missing the point.. 'Leave no bird behind' is a mental state... Its about taking a few lesser flyers under your wing, and setting up a dive for them thats fun, and maybe even teaches them some new things. Its about having an open and fun event. Making sure everyone has his own challenges in the jumps they do, and has a lot fun doing so.. But mostly about making sure everyone is doing that within their own skills/safety envelope. Its not about throwing them in the biggest possible group just for bragging rights, and potentialy hurt or kill themselves or others. Funerals are no fun to be at... The word LOOSE and BIGWAY dont go together.. The words DICIPLINED and SLOT SPECIFIC are what you want and need, if hurting or killing someone is not what you want.. Its not about wantig to exclude people...its about SAFETY.. I may be crushing some souls here, but trust me...Im 100% about fun, and enjoying things. Not excluding people. But what I wish a lot of people could see, is that a bigway is nothing more but a safe 4 way, flying of a few people next to you. But this time with a whole lot of extra people thrown into the mix. Bragging rights about being in a bigway exit almost seem to be more important then safety... If trying to make it a safer dicipline means some people cant be on certain big dives, because they dont have the skills to safely perform, then we should trust on dumb luck to be safe. If I see a less experienced person wanting to be in a bigway, who shouldnt be there, Id rather take myself off the bigway and set up a nice 2 to 4 way, and give him some proper experience flying. Without a ton of extra people to distract.. Im not saying everyone should be doing 4 ways, but try and see that a bigway group at an event, doesnt mean there wont be A LOT of other good dives organised. Maybe not the biggest ever. But if we keep throwing every wingsuit pilot we have into a bigway, we soon need to start planning 400 ways, as we're growing in numbers incredibly fast. I see a lot of people rebelling against organised/planned dives, with people who have the skills to BE on that dive. NO SINGLE JUMP should be performed outside of your own skills envelope. The more jumps you do..the bigger your skills will grow...the bigger your jumps will get...it works this way in every dicipline...you start solo..and work your way up into groups....be it CRW, RW, FF, WS or Sex.. Ignoring safety just to have fun may work for a short while..but at some point we will hit a wall, and end up at somebodies hospital bed, or worse funeral.. Almost everyone flying a wingsuit has some 'fun' story about a near miss to tell as an example....it sadly happens sometimes.... Anything we can do to prevent this from devloping into a story about 'the time two people got hurt/killed when they hit eachother' flying a wingsuit, should be done... A lot of the stuff Ive posted here is also in an article I wrote for our website.. http://flylikebrick.com/articles/flb_wingsuit_formation_flight.pdf Just for the record(1)...Im commenting on safety..and not on anyones organising, and certainly ANYTHING but attacking scott bland...There's a few organisers I admire for their thinking, setup and organising-skills, and he is definitely one of those... And for the record(2)...Im well known here in Holland for promoting stickers saying "RW is OK, just really GAY" and make fun of everyone who walks around in one of those silly action-figure RW suits. RW is NOT my dicipline. Ive done 200 or so RW dives when I started jumping (nothing over a 15 way) Then switched to wingsuits and never looked back. But that doesnt take away from my admiration for the planning, safety and setup of their bigway dives, and knowing that some RW skills WOULD help some people a lot in their formation flying when it comes to wingsuits. But NOBODY is saying you need to be a skygod or RW king to be on wingsuit bigways. And as for skygods...its an attitude, not a skill level...Having a group of highly skilled people jumps together when trying something big and potentialy dangerous doesnt automaticly turn them into skygods... Its when people start believing their own (online?) image of greatness, and then end up being a big letdown in person, be it in skills or personality, that I would define them a skygod... We start life with a full bag of luck, and an empty bag of experience.. As we go through life, we use up bits of our luck and slowly fill up our bag of experience. The trick is to have enough experience when our bag of luck runs out... Please lets all try and set bruised egos aside, and start thinking about safety... JC FlyLikeBrick I'm an Athlete?

If we come up with a working plan for a breakoff, I will make a 3D animated version of it. Showing different groups in colours. And I will upload the video for everyone so it can be used for briefings...(untill we come up with a modified version) JC FlyLikeBrick I'm an Athlete?

What I propose is getting some people in here that have been on the 399 (RW) way (Like Scott, Robi and quite a few others) and listen to what they did on those dives..As hardly anyone in wingsuits has any experience with anything higher then a 50 way (exits). I know the exclusion of a 180 means there is less space to cover at breakoff. But having people fly a bit more diciplined at breakoff as well as in the dive/formation before that, is sure a lot better then the potential injuries or near misses that may occur by doing 180s in the formation. There is little experience in organising such big dives in terms of breakoff at the moment. But we just need to look at whats dangerous, and how to come up with a good plan to avoid that. If 6000 ft is the proposed (3 stage) breakoff, you could have a first group of people left and right, in the back of the formation follow their sector captain (the person they are already using as their base/reference in the formation) during the initial slow bank/turn, and then follow him/her to about 4500. By then they have peeled away from the formation such a distance, they can seperate to solos for opening at 3K. At that point, you could even have people going over 90 degrees, as they are soo far off to the side of the formation, there shouldnt be anyone behind there. This first group should be flying as lazy as they can (in terms of fallrate and forward speed) so they are also technicaly 'dropping out' of the formation. The 2nd wave of flyers, plitting off at say 5500/5000 ft could just pick a 45 degree heading left/right, following their sector captains. You could even choose to devide this group in one that flies fast/far, and one that puts less effort into it. So you get people shooting out sideways. And the last lead group (20 or so) will be quite ahead of the rest at that point, so they can just do their normal breakoff. Maybe again deviding it into 'flyers' and 'fallers'. So some people shoot off in the distance, other nearly go back into freefall. Having each 'wave' towards one side devided into flyers and fallers, means you use the space in the middle as well, and not just end up with one huge circle of canopies... I (again) want to take the 399 way RW formation as an example. They have roughly 100 people shooting in every 45 degree angle/direction in the staged seperation. Which (I believe) started at 6500 or 6000. With the distance you cover in a normal (non wingsuit) track, they manage to get 100 people to open a safe distance away from eachother, while using only 45 degrees of seperation. If you take the 90 degrees we have (plus, we cover more distance) they can fit 200 people in there at seperation time.Why cant we fit in 50? We always do seperation up to 90 degrees here (up to 20 ways or so) and never have any issues when people are flying diciplined. We've also had 6 ways, where people went into playtime/outfly eachother mode, and ended up with 4 out of those 6 opening within CRW grabbing range of eachother. Its all about structure and dicipline... What we need to do together (everyone here) for these bigways is think and come up with a safe structure...and 180s definitely arent part of that.. *edit* attached an ugly 'paint' sketch of what I tried to write...looks messy...but picture people flying more and less distance, and you notice you get an evenly spread at breakoff. Even with room in the center for stray flyers to open. Its not my 'this is how it should be' Just trying to come up with a solution...think along everyone.. JC FlyLikeBrick I'm an Athlete?

This is also not a photoshop/graphic job. We jokingly put the camera on his head for a picture during a shoot for a TV item last summer. But yea..not something you'd want to jump if you want to land with your head still attached JC FlyLikeBrick I'm an Athlete?

Do you backloop into a 180? As doing a 180 involves turning, and during that time first risk getting''T-boned' and then getting hit head-on. With stray flyers maybe being a bit higher/lower the chance of you spotting someone coming at you at those speeds are little to none. There's some videos online of accidental high speed passes (I remember one from Perry I think) and by the time people see eachother coming its already too late, and luck is what decides if you hit eachother or not. Doing a 180 is just plain stupid..and saying "Id rather be hit at 200 km/h then 100 km/h" is not really the most valid reason Ive ever heard safetywise to do so? Peel away from a formation slowly, at a predictable rate (not making sudden turns) and people will see you coming. Its ok for you to think so...though incredibly wrong We are not talking a direct 90 degree angle. The extra altitude means that there is a lot of time to slowly peel away from the formation. Its also about time and safety. Again, look at the RW 399 way. If those guys just all waited till lower altitudes, and then F-ed off in any direction, you'd loose a few people every jump. Its such a shame that everything thats already been tried and tested (tracking off in waves, tracking leaders) on bigway jumps in other diciplines is just ignored here. And with the distances we fly, unless you keep jumps smaller, you cant avoid the area 80 people fly to be a little spread out. If the back flyers fly it lazy, and the front flyer have more speed on (forward, not up!) it also means you get less distance then a 180 would give you. Doing a 180 at 5000 ft and then flying that down to 300 ft would put you further off then opening behind or off to the side of the base is an evenly spread out (half) circle. And again..with those amounts of people in the air, you cant avoid having to need a big landing area at some point.. You are turning things around.. If people do controlled breakoffs, it means they are flying in set lines/paths, with manageable groups and their opening spot would even be predictable beforehand (given the base flies a steady patern) Id love to get some input from you on being able to see where 80 people are heading when everybody just picks a direction.. Waving out in a controlled patern (when done diciplined, which is what it all really comes down to on bigways) is the safest way. Just having 80 people point into a direction and hit the gas is going to cause mayhem in the sky..and unless people stop doing 180s, will lead to an incident at some point. dicipline and organisation is the key..and my hat is off to Scott for the detailed dive-plan and rules. I would like to see 'no 180s' included as a safety point..but that aside...definately great work Thats why indeed, people should not make breakoff a racing game, but stick to a controlled speed. With 20 to 80 people doing their own breakoff, at different speeds, it can be mayhem... Completely agree... Having the forward people fly for distance, and the center/back people fly ay a lazy pace will ensure a lot of horizontal distance between flyers. And not just turn an 80 way into a 5 km wide (half) circle.. Yes..definitely...as I sayd before...this is a type of briefing I wish more organisers would hand out before hand. Too many big jumps have a briefing that just means people get a slot pointed out and then its off too the plane.. Getting in to more thourough safety/formation/flying briefings/debriefs also means people learn a lot more... JC FlyLikeBrick I'm an Athlete?

Nice work! Wingsuits really seem to be catching on in the media outside skydiving! JC FlyLikeBrick I'm an Athlete?

My friend wants to jump his new setup, but he is worried about snagging a line on opening. Yet I see no problems with it. Its a bit heavy, but well worth the better quality video I think. Anyone have any input or thoughts on this? http://flylikebrick.com/minishowcase/galleries/00_misc/alex_cam.jpg JC FlyLikeBrick I'm an Athlete?

Haha...no worries man..no need to explain... Its not like I've never done a Camposs before Im a pro! http://flylikebrick.com/minishowcase/galleries/24_2007_fjc_flevo/jarno_fjc_01.jpg http://flylikebrick.com/minishowcase/galleries/22_2007_slovenia/slovenia_damir_04.jpg http://flylikebrick.com/minishowcase/galleries/18_2007_hoevenen/hoevenen_07.jpg http://flylikebrick.com/minishowcase/galleries/12_2006_Rotterdam_02/IMG_6845.jpg http://flylikebrick.com/minishowcase/galleries/12_2006_Rotterdam_02/IMG_6847.jpg http://flylikebrick.com/minishowcase/galleries/09_2006_Scheveningen/beach_sept15_01.jpg http://flylikebrick.com/minishowcase/galleries/07_2006_Cochstedt/jlo_jarno_board.jpg http://flylikebrick.com/minishowcase/galleries/05_2006_empuria_brava/jari_jarno_boarding_web.jpg (really bad first flight student) http://flylikebrick.com/minishowcase/galleries/01_2004_hercules%20boogie/hercboogie_jlo&mccordia.jpg http://flylikebrick.com/minishowcase/galleries/00_misc/jarno_jlo.jpg JC FlyLikeBrick I'm an Athlete?

Its developing intoa style Scott hehe.. When we have a first flight student here, you can always hear someone asking "Shall we shoot a quick Campos before boarding?" So we put on our sunnies, and shoot a picture standing next to our first flight student

If I could afford it, the Stealth looks like it would be a more then likely candidate for my money to disappear to... The new rigging of the cutaway looks good. Easy to reach. And again..the inflation looks super solid...must be stable as can be! The a-symentric placement of the back-inlet on the legwing looks weird, but at the same time quite logic (not placed centered, in the burble of the rig) JC FlyLikeBrick I'm an Athlete?

On every bigway event...RW and FF, there are people making it to their slot late, or just not making it.. And when a formation collapesses (which happens at all experience levels) there WILL be people everywhere.. straglers will ALWAYS be there...maybe not every dive...but there are to many scenarios that have a few people there.. "Say no to a 180" should be a bumper sticker on everyones tailwing... JC FlyLikeBrick I'm an Athlete?

Just click the URL button, insert it before and after your link..thats all... There is also the 'Get Markup Help' option people could potentialy try out..."If everything else fails..read the manual" type solution.. JC FlyLikeBrick I'm an Athlete?

As mentioned by others...straglers will always happen. If its not people left behind that didnt make it to the formation, it could also be chaos at breakoff due to a partial collapse of the formation. Congestion is a complete non issue.. The (RW) 399 ways have 200 people heading the same direction, and they fly at less then 1:1 and have half the time to look for a safe opening spot that we have. If we need to do dangerous things such as heading into a direction where people can (and will!) definitely be coming from, then maybe we should scale down the formation, instead of coming up with 'and then/and then/and if' plans that will only work in a perfect world..which it never is. An72 was a scary boogie. Ive seen way too many people shoot past formations, left behind etc. And that involved a lot of near hits/misses with peope only offset a few degrees in their flight path. We had one nearly fractured leg, and an arm that just snapped due to two flyers meeting. Mostly do to the exit on that jump, causing all jumpers to pass eachother in different directions during the build (something Im working on in animated examples for a new series of FLB flight manuals on formation flying) We should look at RW bigways, and take a note on how they built those. Both in terms of size and the time it took them to get up to those numbers, and in terms of how they stage breakoff, with trackingleaders etc. We dont need anything over 90 degrees...and if numbers/safety indicate we do need to start doing dangerous things such as 180s, then scale down the formation, untill the skills of the group match the intended goal/target formation. I still dont see why we are aiming for 50 to 80 ways, when there still are only a dozen or so photos online of anything bigger then a slotperfect 9 way with less then 5 meters in between each flyer. Baby steps.... JC FlyLikeBrick I'm an Athlete?

Though you could come up with a lot of variables to try and prevent stray flyers behind the group, you never know who gets lost or caught up in trying to make it to a slot just before breakoff.. Im a firm believer in nobody...no exeptions...doing anything over a 180 degree turn.. What if a whole group is left behind and the make a preventive 180 and fly into other stray birds? Setting up a clean, staged breakoff and defining tracking leaders for those sub-groups (that make a 45 to 90 degree breakoff at 6k and then have their own secondairy breakoff later on) is much safer...where some groups could fly lazy/steep..and others fly for more distance.. With the distances we fly, we dont need anything over 90 degrees...we need more dicipline in what we do...and (as you mentioned) definitely not turn it into distance/ff time contests in bigways... JC FlyLikeBrick I'm an Athlete?