arai

I've purchased my flight, and got approved vacation time, so I'll be in zhills sunday april 22nd around noon, and I dont leave until May 2nd. I'm giving you 3 full weeks from flock and dock to recover from hangovers and empty pockets, so no excuses. see you in 2 and a half weeks

Matt: I like that idea, sort of a "will work for wings" type deal Jarno, yeah I suppose we are easy to spot eh? I'm a lead artist or cg supervisor depending on the project I'm on. I do a little bit of everything (or a lot depending on how much overtime they make me do ;) ). You can see some of my other work at my demo reel page www.darkbluesky.net I'm planning on a zhills trip for early may, but now just found out they may want me to go work in London for 4 months starting in 3-5 weeks so I'm unsure. Its still up in the air.

oh come on, I'll admit I've been cooped up in cloudsville (can you tell?), but no half hearted golf clap congrats, not even a "nice helmet darth vader, wheres your lightsaber".. nothin? I guess I'll have to come meet you guys in person before I get made fun of (the all telling sign of acceptance) either that or just post whore more, I've heard that works too. maybe that I posted the flight before the suit wrecked it all. are phantoms old skool already? blue skies

I posted up about my first flight when I finally got down to eloy and did my first wingsuit jumps. But as I picked up my new suit when I was down there, and I was so busy jumping it, I missed out on the obligatory "look at my new suit" pics The weathers been crap here lately, and you know how skydivers get when that happens, so I finally got around to it. Now I have to try and make a may zhills trip happen so I have some people to fly with. Only a couple of local birds where I'm at. cheers Dan

thanks guys, I'll give manifest a call, though I expect I'll only be able to make it out for a 7-10 day trip in early may, so hopefully those trailers are available for something that short term. The 10-15 dollar a night that the ihop/bunkhouses provide at most big dz's is what I'm hoping for.

ahhh. those clouds... hmm the skydive city website doesnt mention any type of facilities other than camping. Do they have anything like the bunkhouse at eloy? I'm poor and spend all my money on the jumps (dont we all) I might be able to get off in may, should be before it gets too hot down there

How does florida do in the summer? Is it like Eloy, where the heat is bad enough for people to stay away? I'm looking to plan some time off this year. Unfortunatly I missed some of the early year flocking events finishing off a project I'm working on ( wont be finished until mid april). So I'm looking for reccomendations on where to find the birds. I had a lot of fun in Eloy, but I want my next trip to be to a more active wingsuiting dz. Worst case I'll just jump local until it starts to cool down again and flock south for the winter cheers

great video..... unless your working a lot of overtime and spending evenings and weekends in the office, in which case its a little painful to watch..... ah I take back, still a great video. I just cant wait for summer.

I got my first jump in before the 200 mark. I had been doing a lot of pf tracking jumps, some freefly coaching, and group tracking dives. But in the end, I sought out an instructor, and asked to get in some tracking dives with him to see if he felt I was okay for the ffc. After the tracking dives went really well he said he felt comfortable putting me up in a wingsuit so I took the ffc. Chuck, do you know of any hot chicks that give the ffc course in exchange for getting laid? I could have saved a few tracking jumps

well my trip to Eloy has come to an end. I had a great time and managed 60 or 70 jumps while I was there, met some great people, got some coaching for my freefly, some tracking jumps, hybrid, balloon, tunnel, and near the end of my trip finally got in my first few wingsuit flights. Just wanted to say thanks for the reccomendations. I did a tracking jump with Ash, then my ffc with him and got in 6 jumps on my Phantom before I had to go back home. Unfortunatly he got tied up on tandem video and a swoop competition so I didnt get video. On the first day my best flight was the sunset load.. getting out, opening my wings, and looking up to find myself in formation with the otter in a nice banking turn, it was in that moment that I felt flight. And while I can imagine that it sounds a little stupid, I have to believe that everyone here has felt it to some degree to have kept coming back for more. I just watched as the otter dove away back to the airport, while I felt suspended at 13000 feet. I flew my pattern and back to the dropzone, managing to fly by the balloon as it made its evening trip to altitude. I was still a good distance from it, but it just made for some amazing visuals and a great end to my first day of wingsuiting. I'm still pulling around 5000, so when I got to the ground I was happy to see a two and a half minute freefall with a 55mph avg. Though the number meant little compared to the visual of flying with the otter on that sunset load. long flights

thanks for the reply's. I'm going to be without a vehicle (I'm catching the shuttle from phoenix to eloy on thursday) so I'll have to rely on the kindness of strangers for the occasional ride into town for supplies. As for the kindness of the town locals after dark I guess I'll just stay around the dz. Are there bonfires? every dz has bonefire's dont they?

After about a full month of rain... really, I think it rained about everyday for a month, well except for the last 4 days where it switched to snow and dumped down 30 or 40cm, I'm just about ready to start my trip to Eloy (12 day holiday), I hope I'm not expected to be productive for the next day and a half. Anyone down there see a tall, athletic, blue eyed... err wait a sec, wrong ad. If you see a canadian guy walking around come say hi (you can tell us canadians apart by our polar bear hats and pale complextions this time of year) I'll do my best to throw around a few eh's and aboot's, but as I'm from western canada It might sound contrived and I'll probably even get the pronounciation wrong. Anything I have to check out when I'm down there?I'm getting in a bit of tunnel time and possibly a balloon jump. How easy is it to walk into town for some food or supplies? I'm staying in the bunkhouse (is the blanket they provide enough, or should I get a sleeping bag at a walmart or something?) and plan to get in as much jumping as possible. now to get back to my skydiving videos.... work, I mean work.

I'm going on a trip down to eloy tomorrow and plan on doing some coach jumps when I'm down there. how do you guys deal with giving the video over to the person your jumping with? I mean I guess you could fork over the tape (lot of wasted space there) or burn a dvd. But do you have a way you prefer? I guess I could bring my old digital camcorder down with me. Its too big for a helmet but its got a firewire port so I guess I could get the dives that way.

can anyone suggest a good way to get from phoenix to Eloy? are there shuttles or an easy bus etc to take? I fly in on the morning of Nov 30th, I think I get in around 11:00 and I'm staying in eloy until dec 12 so I dont want to have to rent a car then have it sit the whole time. thanks -arai-

apparantly if you watch her, when shes the evil chick she has the tattoo on her back, but when shes normal she doesnt.

I'm there from Nov 30 - Dec 12 and cant wait to jump, its cloudy and raining here right now so I'm missing the sky.

please come back in early dec, I'll be there nov 30-dec 13. otherwise, have a great time

high five

I did a search on monarchs before I got my first rig (as it had a monarch in it.) I found quite a few people montioning hard openings and being a bit scared of them. with advice from some local jumpers, I got the rig and have found that openings havent been a problem as long as I pack it right, after flaking, I push in the nose, make sure the slider is properly set, and tight against the canopy and then roll the tail to keep it there, so far so good. I've had a great time with the canopy so far.

performance flights look nice from the ground with a long lens, as you can see just how much ground their covering. But for pov's those proximity flights are great.

thanks for the reply's, glad to know I should be able to find someone to help out. yeah I've been practicing the toe tap wave off and the wingsuit pull, just so I get used to it.

okay so I've got a december vacation booked to eloy (unfortunatly couldnt make the holiday boogie so I go from nov 29 - dec 14) where I plan to jump 5-10 times per day and be past my 200 by the end of the trip. Does anyone have any info on instructors to get ahold of when I'm nearing the end of my trip? From most of the posts I've read on here it seems like z-hills is the bird dz. I've got a pheonix fly tracking suit I've been jumping, and my phantom should be ready before I go down south. So if I hooked up with an instructor I might be able to do some mock dives in the tracking suit flying with an instructor to get some tips or suggestions to work on while I'm down there. On good dives I've been able to get the track suit into the high 60's fall rate, so I imagine a bird flying dirty could come down and watch awareness, flight plan, deployment etc. I figured it would be a good opportunity to learn while I'm down south as I dont know too many experienced birds where I jump. Just looking to see if anyone knows if there are enough instructors / experienced birds to hook up with while I'm there, or if I can sched something in advance, as I think it would be a great opportunity to learn from some more experienced jumpers. thanks -arai-

does the 305 work well from aircraft exits as well? or is the gps altitude from the 205 better for that? I found a good deal on a 305 and was going to pick it up until I realized they use 2 different ways to calculate altitude altitude

okay so I'd rather be outside than in my office. But its one of those days where its not too bad. I just got my new pheonix fly tracking suit, put in an order for my phantom wingsuit, and confirmed plans for my eloy trip from nov 30 - dec 12. it also happens to be a friday, and I think the weekends going to be sunny enough for some jumping on saturday and dirtbiking on sunday.