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Tony No-one is saying you guys did not think about the jump. Some people are saying the groups' analysis of the possible failure modes of the jump was wrong. The exit timing (and style) is critcial on that particular jump. If for whatever reason the PC-holder gets below the level of the PCA-ee(s), he/she has to release the PCs. It turns the PCA-ee(s) jump into a normal freefall with a downward and sideways PC placement and that works just fine given altitude (which this bridge has enough of). The PC-holder HAS to have the awareness of his level relative to the PCA-ee(s) during the whole waterfall, regardless of his body position. Being upside down in a rollover is no excuse for not using your peripheral vision. I do not see how releasing their PCs early could have resulted in an increased entanglement risk for them. How far was Nick from Jason? It seems that he pulled him right around by the bridle, which suggest Nick was WAY below Jason, or he was a little below and far off to the side. Between 3 very smart guys (by all accounts) they should have been able to see that the right thing to do when the PC-holder is below the PCA-ee(s) is to release the PC. It should also have been obvious that the PCA-ee(s) leaving early is the safest option. At the very extreme of leaving early, it turns the jump into a normal PCA from the bridge. I hope people will think about this now and understand the required exit timing on this jump. Also what is required of the PC-holder. I wish Jason a speedy recovery (again) and I hope Nick can forgive himself for what happened. Here is what I really hope everyone learns from this: Please do not do any jumps if you do not truly understand the mechanics and dynamics of them. Please do not do these jumps in sub-optimal weather conditions. Please do not leave snag points from padding (or anything else) exposed. Cover them up. This includes the loose tail of this type of sunglass-cord. This includes lace hooks on boots too, many jumpers still jump in boots with lace hooks. this bit worries me the most: It's the MOST important issue on this jump! Any number of jumpers would have told you that if you asked them. I say shame on everyone who saw them set up and did not point out that a tailwind is BAD for rollovers and that exposed body armour has snag points.

Nick Firstly – my best wishes to Jason, may he make a full and speedy recovery. Now – what can we learn from this? From what is posted, general consensus, experience and logic, we have the following: 1 – tailwinds are bad for rollovers 2 – exposed body armour and/or pads present significant snag hazards and should be covered to prevent snags 3 – exit timing on multi-ways can be critical These are three things I think we can all agree on. Then there are some points that you disagree on and I do not understand why. For the benefit of people like myself, please explain the logic of not releasing the PCs if the exit order is wrong? Provided you did not stand shoulder to shoulder, I cannot see how releasing the PC in case the other jumper gets higher than you is bad. It seems like the most logical and safe thing to do. When Tom and Maggot and I did that very same jump, Tom exited late and Maggot did not throw his PC, resulting in a downward extraction for Tom and a really nasty SD/SO opening that gave him a bloody nose despite wearing a full-face helmet. Had Maggot released Tom’s PC when he saw Tom above his level, Tom would’ve fallen past his PC and then had a normal deployment, below Maggot’s level and likely still above me as I was slider up. Even if he ended up on level with me, we had some horizontal separation. I would really like to know your reasoning on this. Also why you thought that it would all be OK for everyone else even if you hit your canopy?? WTF?? If you had gotten the exit timing perfect and you got wrapped in your canopy when you hit, it is possible that it could stay collapsed enough that you might not have enough extra drag over the packed jumpers to provide a safe freefall PCA. If you were perfectly wrapped I guess it is even possible that holding on to the PCs could result in a triple fatality on this type of jump from this particular object. I realize there are two (or more) sides to every story, but your own account here raises these questions. Did anyone say a rollover in tailwind is a bad idea? Did you know that by using a tailgate, the primary stow with 2 wraps and wrapping the tail of the canopy around everything but the nose you will greatly reduce the canopy’s drag and it will not get blown in front of you much, even in higher winds? Did anyone there say the conditions were not good for the jump you had planned? Did anyone there point out to Jason that exposed body armour has multiple snag points? I jump full Dainese body armour on some jumps and even though the suit is very hot, I always wear long pants and a long sleeves over it a bare minimum. I sweat like a pig then, but I have no snag points. I’m glad everyone involved is still alive, but it is frustrating that it seems like all the knowledge needed to avoid this incident was out there and just ignored… I always have and always will share what I know, or have heard, with people when I see them do things I believe to be adding unnecessary risk, like jumping exposed armour or doing rollovers in tailwinds. People may keep thinking I’m an asshole for doing that, but hopefully now some of them will reconsider my motivation and think about why some things are bad ideas. Cya

1 – they have aggressive treads and a heel, so no good for swooping (can’t slide on them) 2 – the other skydivers will look at you funny That’s about it. You may not care about either of those points.

styling! I haven't gotten my Canpara yet. Thanks Matt! and thanks again to everyone who made Z-Flock such a great event! I truly enjoyed meeting and flying with you all and hope I managed to entertain you in some way, even if only by taking an empty slot near the front of a flock while wearing smoke...

OK - Can't resist it any longer: anyone notice that purely by the coverage offered this suit is the ass-less black leather riding chaps of wingsuits??

pull at 1 feet there are ways to do that and still have enough time to use your reserve (which you won't need if you use the right gear in the correct manner)

The two 3-ways were not due to the having an Otter all summer and not appreciating it. They were due to bellyfliers being in the minority at Burnaby in conjunction with the terrible weather we had this weekend. Nothing flew on Sunday. The Otter did not fly yesterday either, but we did do a bunch of Cessna loads, due to not having enough jumpers willing to brave the low cloud ceiling and relatively high winds. Practically everybody that jumped yesterday were Burnaby regulars. There were some jumpers visiting who stayed on the ground. It’s amazing how much a grey cloud ceiling at 4000ft scares most skydivers these days… A lot of Burnaby jumpers did not ‘give up and come back next weekend’. We stuck around with no chance of getting the Otter up again yesterday and were rewarded with some fun jumps from the Cessna. I think you underestimate the commitment to jump of many Burnaby jumpers…

I don't know about the Navigator.. but I have been getting into swooping my Blackjack260 @ 0.75 lb/sq. ft and I do not find using the rears hard at all using the fronts, now there's a different issue! but a very simple technique will allow you to get those puppies down further than if you were the Governator himself... there's a 1st person view near the beginning of this teaser: (SObase2006teaser) of a swoop with a 260 @ 0.75 probably not a very good idea if you don't have loads of jumps on these canopies, the recovery arc is stupidly short... Miles Daisher does some really awesome swoops with his 260 ACE - you have to see it to believe it. cya edited to add: who needs an RDS if you jump without a slider and PC anyway?

Looking at your options I’m totally not sure what to vote. I’ve been flying a Nitro 120 @ 1.67 lb/sq ft with my S3 for just over 200 wingsuit jumps now and I have been loving that canopy. I did around 100 WS jumps on a Chute Shop ZP155 @ 1.3 before that, which was very docile. I have a few WS jumps on a Xfire2 109 @ 1.83 and that was fine too. I only had 450 skydives when I started jumping the Nitro and that meant a steep learning curve, but I keep current, I mostly do WS jumps (it is my only skydiving canopy anyway) and I pulled higher with it. You do not need to go to a Triathlon or a Spectre when there are more fun canopies like Sabre, Sabre2, Pilot, Nitro, etc. that are plenty docile enough if you load them according to your skill, experience and currency. I demo’d every canopy I thought would be suitable in my wingsuit before buying. Including 2 sizes of PD reserve. That’s the only way to know – DEMO, DEMO, DEMO. Give Beezy Shaw a call and he’ll hook you up with a Nitro demo, like he did for me. I liked the demo so much that I kept it. Cya

click here first > Pattern Recognition < click here first I wonder if it’s the same news crew?

I'm not sure that I would agree about empirically sound. I have personally seen 4 object strikes, 3 of which was with unvented canopies and the 1 vented canopy object strike I've seen was gross pilot error and would have happened just as easily on an unvented canopy. To be able to draw any valid conclusions from incident reports, we need to know the ratio of vented vs. unvented canopies in the field, we need to factor in experience level of the pilots and then the type of objects and weather conditions that they will jump. maybe, but if they do, it's not a lot more and sometimes it's not enough more to make a difference same with a vented canopy if you are quick (and you need to be) the difference is that the vented canopy will actually start to respond to control inputs pretty much as quickly as you can make them, whereas the unvented canopy will take longer to respond which is better?: -a canopy that gives you marginally more time to react and give control input, but will take longer to respond OR -a canopy that gives you marginally less time to react and give control input, but will respond to it immediately and tolerate far more control input before full pressurization and in deep brakes more precisely? I don't think so. Deeper and closer to the stall point, maybe. Now is anyone willing to get into the heading performance of vented vs. unvented canopies?? that's a good debate too

I checked with my buddy and the weights are like this (jumpers without gear): Mojo 260 : 175 lbs Blackjack 260 : 165 lbs not a big difference, but according to the higher wingloading = faster opening theory, it would have made the Mojo open faster than if the person under it weighed 165 lbs also.

Airpro

the video is approved and available on skydivingmovies.com here: blackjack and mojo unpacked 2 way looking at it again, it looks like I actually get line-tension before Trent does

yes they both are rollover tard = tard-over = front-flip tard i'm sure there's more names for it too I do tend to enjoy the tard-over, it's got everything you need: quick/no packing, self stabilizing aerial, you can do anything from a 1 to at least a 3 second 'delay' I'm sure you can do more than that too, but I haven't had a suitable object for that yet, maybe this year at BD I will do a tard-over and see if I can take it 5 seconds Mary Poppins rocks!

If you were jumping in the Twin around the time of 21-22 April, you may want to check this site: blueplanetphoto

you should probably scratch Canada (unless a real Canadian attended that I don't know about) and add South Africa... thanks!

Cool. You are the only person with a Wings (or Wings EXT) I have heard of who does not have the issue I described. What size is your harness, container, suit, you?

on the Wings containers they have really wide backing pads behind the laterals these require you to skip an extra tab on most suits, unless you have a suit with long tabs this leads to the wing being not attached for a bigger area and the suit gets deformed under load more easily with these big triangular pads running toward the centre of the container this issue is likely specific to the Wings style of cut in laterals, it would not exist where the laterals are narrow and do not have wide backing pads hope that helped

that is a good point to the poster who suggested this: if you really feel you need to tie your lines together at least be smart enough to use your bridle instead of something else

I agree with what Lonnie and Tom are saying and I have some video that you can see the differences they are talking about clearly. My buddy Trent and I did an unpacked 2 way off the Perrine recently and we have video from the side, so it’s really easy to see the time and altitude taken by the openings. He was jumping a Mojo 260 and doing a rollover, I jump a Blackjack 260 and did a TARD-over. Both slider off. We exited really close together because with a little delay after coming around on the TARD-over, before letting the canopy go, we SHOULD have had decent vertical separation. I rotated the TARD-over kind of fast and Trent did the rollover kind of slow, so we pretty much exited and flipped over all synchronized, then I let the TARD go after a slight pause. Trent got linestretch first. I get linestretch very soon after. I am below Trent’s level when we both have linestretch. Then you can see the two canopies go through bottom skin inflation. Then you can see the differences in pressurization. I end up slowing down more than Trent at this point and now I’m the high guy. My canopy also starts moving forward way before the Mojo does. Then there’s a difference in time-to-toggles, with me unstowing the toggles and flying the Blackjack before Trent even has full pressurization. I am really glad that we both had on-headings, because we spent most of our deployment very close. I will post a video clip of the whole jump on skydivingmovies soon so people do not have to depend on my description of this experience. It is the same jump there’s a little of right at the end of the SObase2006teaser. Cya Sam

That’s a good plan. I apologize for my smartass comment in the earlier response. Further to the ‘best wingsuit canopy’ thread, I think the Sabre is a good choice, but a Spectre will open nicer. Way easier to find a nice cheap used Sabre than a Spectre though… Wings are good too, but for wingsuit use do NOT get the cut-in laterals – they are a pain in the ass to rig up your wingsuit with.

Are you flying the Stiletto at 1.73 lb / sq. ft with your V1 ? Just wondering if we should start betting on when you will chop it if you are…

hey hey I didn't get around to doing any straight static line aerials, but two new versions of the Ho-bag and I think they qualify. one even used some breakcord... see it here cya

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