Chris-Ottawa

I'm not even going to speak to your shitty jump because you don't even understand what caused my spin and you think yours is the same. Better go back and watch my video...seems to me that you could actually learn something. I'll have a conversation with you when you respond to my last question directed at you, that you conveniently ignored. You're either being handed a golden opportunity to prove me wrong and embarass me infront of all your buddies, or you know I'm right and are choosing to ignore it because you can't possibly admit that I am. "When once you have tasted flight..."

Brilliant...a logical conversation with facts and respect. Thank you. And just to hold true on my promise from earlier, I reward you with my specific jump numbers and progression. I'm doing this because it's in black and white if someone chose to search the forums, but also because the conversation was had with 2 of the posters from this thread who were chirping at me earlier for my inexperience. Unfortunately for them, it turns out that I have more WS jumps than either of them based on their own words. This just shows who we've got policing the skies: Bluhdow who possibly hasn't done a single jump on a mattress yet, and JBag who has 15 on an Aura, but THESE guys are the experts providing feedback? Don't get me wrong, I'm not lightyears ahead of these guys, but it's quite comical that they felt as though they were such pro's that they needed to assist in the critique. This just proves everything that I said earlier about the nonsense in most of this thread. http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=4570682;search_string=X-Bird%20Range;#4570682 Actually, the second poster in that thread has an interesting progression. 25 total WS jumps...then 2 on an Apache, then 50 on an XBird? Yikes... I thought my progression was a little agressive, but this...is insane. "When once you have tasted flight..."

First of all...thank you for having an intelligent conversation with me. Now, we're showing some respect for each other and this is how it's supposed to work. I guess I don't see it quite the same way. I understand knowing my jump numbers might help in contextualizing the cause of the spin, but I think it's pretty evident that I'm not working with multiple thousands of wingsuit jumps here. I already said that these were my first jumps on this suit, and you know that I was last jumping a V4, before that, a Phantom2, before that, a Raptor, before that, an Intro (I'm thinking I had another suit in between the Raptor and the Phantom, but I can't recall for sure). Considering I'm jumping an Aura now...I think that it can be safely assumed I have "at least" the minimum required jumps to be flying it. It seems like everyone wants me to say I only have 43 wingsuit jumps or something ridiculous. That's not the case. I have enough to be jumping the suit, but I still see no relevance in posting a specific number. If you think that I'm hiding because I don't have the required jumps, I can assure you that's not the case, but I also have no desire to prove anyone wrong. To be honest, there probably isn't a number I could say that would please everyone. I didn't claim to have tens of thousands of wingsuit jumps either. I also didn't lie on my order form to Squirrel. They know my last suit, and they know my jump numbers. Was I pushing it by jumping it the first day back from a winter break...certainly, but I already knew that and made a conscious choice to do it anyways. It's done, and I can't undo it now. Hopefully that helps contextualize it a bit for you. I think you can make an educated guess at my rough jump numbers now. "When once you have tasted flight..."

I didn't ignore his question, I actually responded to it, but I avoided a simple direct answer intentionally. I also didn't get defensive about his question, I wanted to know what relevance it had to the first post. I know he wanted it just to prove what everyone thinks and attempt to make a point. Unfortunately, I still don't see the relevance. So what I'm going to do is this. I'll pose 2 scenarios and you tell me what each one would do to benefit the original post. *I'm not sure what the minimum required number of jumps are for an Aura, but based on Tony's website (the only one I can find numbers for) they call for 200+ minimum recommended jumps for an Apache Expert. Therefore: Scenario 1: I have the minimum 200 wingsuit jumps. Scenario 2: I have 1700 jumps and 650 are wingsuit jumps. Now, lets discuss how these numbers impact this specific thread. We have a "green" pilot jumping on an advanced suit and a pretty experienced jumper that certainly isn't your Jokke/Jeb/Jarno's of the world, but has a respectable number of wingsuit jumps. If there is some sort of a revelation, and my jump numbers have that big of an impact on it, I'll post exact numbers on each of my suit progressions. This is the result I foresee, but am always open to being proven wrong. Scenario one: "See, we were right, you don't have the experience, so you should downgrade to a Phantom because only we're good enough to jump Apaches/X's and Auras etc. Scenario two: Oh...well, ummm...yeah, so I guess you just botched an exit and uhh...won't do it again. Thanks for sharing. @Bluhdow: I think I was pretty clear in a couple of my posts above of what I want someone to man up for. Unfortunately, everyone knows that I'm right and won't speak up . So, whenever you're ready...I'll be listening so you can show everyone how badass you are. Yet you keep coming back for more? "When once you have tasted flight..."

Honestly dude, if I go in skydiving, just like anyone else, people will speculate. The same thing they'll do for you. I could be jumping a 380 sqft canopy, hit a wind gust and have my canopy collapse, then tumble to my death from 400 feet up. Everyone will go back on here and claim that it was all because I didn't learn basic canopy techniques early on and I wasn't qualified to be jumping that canopy. Whatever makes you sleep at night man... The fact remains that almost no one has said anything that isn't basic knowledge or what I already covered in my list of mistakes. When I called people out on their comments, they pretend that they didn't say them because they realize how stupid it sounds. You're just repeating what others have said. There is no advice given in this thread (aside from DSE) that isn't basic, common sense and I already knew and posted about in my first post. Please, man up and show me one post that I ignored and blew off the person's advice. You'll probably be quite embarassed to realize that I haven't, which makes you look kinda dumb. You enjoy trying to make me look like an ass, so grow some balls and prove me wrong. Here, I'll even make it easy for you. Tell me which one of these I ignored, blew off and showed just how conceded I am. "When once you have tasted flight..."

First, Skow...I'm not even sure what to say to you. Simply put...your "recommendations" made zero sense. You should stop while you're ahead. ZeeMax...Thank you for making a post that isn't quite the same jibberish that this thread has been plagued with. I completely agree, but this was one of the mistakes I recognized in my very first post. What more can I say? I knew better, I recognized that, but for several reasons I did it anyways. I posted the honest account of what happened. Maybe this is the case in youor part of the world, but this is certainly far from my experience. Sure, my 1 in 10 stat is probably a bit exaggerated, but from "my" experience, it's not that far off. I think regardless of the suit I was jumping, and asymetrical inflation would have caused a spin. Maybe it wouldn't have developed as far as it did, maybe it could have been worse. It's SO easy to critique someone when it's not you, but being there, this whole spin happened in about 4 seconds. I think that a smaller suit would have left me with slightly less worry about getting material into the wind on exit and maybe led to less rushing, but I can't tell you for sure. This is my point exactly. Nearly nothing that was said, has any relevance. It was simply a gong show. People telling me that exiting into the relative wind would have prevented this? Really, are you fucking serious? No shit it would have. This is why I admitted to my mistake. I rotated into the relative wind, it was a mistake and I went for a quick ride. My whole point in all of this is that I shared the video for people to see what happened, maybe to learn from it, and hear if anyone had anything that they noticed I was doing glaringly wrong. From my summary of the 15 "recommendations" made in the thread so far, only a couple were relevant. In all honesty, if someone jumping an Aura doesn't realize that you need to present to the relative wind, or keep your wings closed...they certainly shouldn't be jumping the suit. I got frustrated because everyone was posting stupid comments, and then claiming that I'm ignoring their advice. Advice is usually something beyond skills learned at a VERY basic level. I mean, If we were walking down the road and went to cross and I grabbed you and threw you to the ground and said "Holy hell, Zee...you need to look both ways before crossing the street, I think you should sit down and think about this for the rest of the day". You'd think I'm an idiot because you learnt that when you were 2. This is exactly what happened in the thread. This is what I mean by "revolutionary" information that I'm choosing to ignore and play down....there was none (well...mostly). I even took the time to summarize all the recommendations in the post and called everyone out to show me which ones I ignored or hadn't addressed in my original post...unsurprisingly, no one is. What a shocker! When the facts are presented, everyone goes and pretends that it wasn't them who said it. As much as everyone thinks I'm a huge ass, my attitude is a direct result of the stupid nonsense being posted in these forums. If people were actually formulating responses instead of just speaking to let everyone know how good they are, my attitude would be very different. This thread just keep going in circles and I keep explaining the same thing, btu then someone just comes up again indicating how much bigger their dick is and how this would NEVER happen to them. It was a mistake, I recognized that, I shared it and people seem to be incapable of discussing what it is instead of trying to sell theirselves to the rest of the DZ.com community like they're fighting for a slot on that next wingsuit bigway. "When once you have tasted flight..."

I just went through the thread and picked out all the tidbits of advice for everyone to see how ridiculous it was, maybe I missed something in all the BS. If you want me to respond directly to that, please quote it or let me know what post I blatantly disregarded. "When once you have tasted flight..."

Actually, while you were busy focusing on the least important aspect, I was busy adding clarification about DSE's posts. Incidentally, I had already clarified thta I had taken that offline with him in a previous post, which of course, you probably didn't read. "When once you have tasted flight..."

Yep...ignoring the facts because you know I'm right. Smooth! "When once you have tasted flight..."

So, let's do a summary of all the advice given in this thread to "school" me. Then we'll see why I think a bunch of the people in here are morons. Please, please, anyone...point out the ones that aren't common sense, or the ones that actually have some merit. 1)"PhoenixPlr" - Open arm wing first, then leg wing. Good point, I had no comment to disagree with that. 2) "Slater" - Don't rush exit...This was in my original post 3) "Davo" - Lots of side presentation, yep, in my original post 4) "The111" - I'm not convinced the plane's speed had anything to do with it. It certainly didn't impact the exit, but it affected my mindset, which I recognized in post #1 5) "DSE" - "No flaps isn't why you went out sodeways" Yep, figured that one out on my own, and I never said it was the cause. 6) DSE "Probably a good idea to get more current" - yep, in my original post 7) "Skow" - "isn't this rotation exactly what makes you rotated 90 to relative wind, as on the exit the relative wind is not from the earth but from the side? Ummm...what? My rotation makes the rotation? Yep...rotation usually does make rotation. Thanks for the advice Skow. 8) "Zeemax" - You weren't current and put the big suit on. Yep, this was in my first post too. 9) "Skow" - It is expected from any reasonable jumper to know certain things before upsizing. One of them is that during exit, relative wind will have much bigger impact on the bigger suit. Holy shit Skow, this is deep. Bigger suit = More material. I totally never considered this. 10) Flite - "square up in the door, knees together , elbows in and look at the wing while I exit - keep everything closed for a good 2 seconds". Good advice, but the video shows this is what I do, except I choose to exit slightly rotated. 11) "Airbornesid" - "a scary reaction a simple barrell roll " Yes, my mistake, an Asymmetrical inflaton is nothing more than a barrel roll and I failed to recover in .0003 seconds like Sid would. Anyone in the same situation would have never been able to stop that much better than I did. Certainly not a simple barrel roll. 12) "Skow" - "You have a rubber cord inside your legwing which you can pull and it'll keep the legwing up until it's pressurized". Wow Skow, 3 for 3. You're a master...and should probably put your RW suit back on. You're not qualified to jump wingsuits anymore. 13)"Jbag" - "I'm just going to say a bad exit by an experienced jumper looks completely different than going 90 left for some reason". Sorry, I'll work on my style . Jbag clearly missed that this was my second jump on the suit and I never claimed to have thousands of jumps leading up to it. Also, I will conform to JBag;s mandatory exit style, I must conform to fit in. 14) "Mikki_ZH" - "Crapy shitty exit and lack of skill to recover quick". That was the most helpful advice in the thread. Thank you. Haha 15) Butters - "I'm perfect! Let me tell you about my mistakes. Please don't respond with advice. Remember, I'm perfect!" But wait...I posted my "mistake", but you're saying I'm perfect. I'm confused. Which is it? Thanks for the advice? Wow...putting those into a single thread...shocking to think that some of you are coaches and the guys people look up to. NONE of those provide any revolutionary advice. Frankly, most people simply re-wrote what I wrote in my first thread and called themselves a saviour for coming up with it. The rest was pure shit. The award for least intelligent posts was a clean sweep by Skow. He nailed it with 3 of 3. Note: DSE made 2 posts about my exit style, which I was communicating offline with him about to understand better because I saw potential validity in them and I wasn't getting a response in the thread. Seriously, can anyone read these and not see how dumb most of these are? I genuinely, positively, BEG someone to point out something from this thread that I should have heeded instead of bitching about it? And of course wasn't already typed in my own post. Had I been a new jumper/wingsuiter and not known any better, I might have believed this nonsense. Honestly shameful... "When once you have tasted flight..."

I did actually! It must have gotten lost in all this chatter, here it is again for you: Honestly, if people were capable of having normal conversations instead of focusing on tidbits of info taken out of context, I would post the real numbers. Until then, it's irrelevant and pointless. "When once you have tasted flight..."

Wow....you are quick! We've got a genuine keener here! Anything else that I missed? It looks like I'm getting under your skin....don't get too worked up man, I'm just having some fun since only a couple people so far have the mental capacity to have a conversation that doesn't turn into a gong show. (PS: You're in the bottom of that barrel my friend). "When once you have tasted flight..."

It was intended to be a learning opportunity, but everyone is more interested in telling me how I'm not qualified to be jumping the suit, so I gave up and now I'm just telling them what they want to hear. I'm 100% interested in advice, but simply put, there are some dumb people posting dumb things in this thread, or simply repeating exactly what I already explained in my first post like they've discovered some sort of a revolutionary explanation to what happened. The ONLY thing that has been remotely relevant so far was DSE's post about my exit technique. I honestly don't quite see it, yet, but that's why I' having an offline conversation with him in parallel to the thread to find out more and understand. To me, the relative wind direction doesn't change based on your orientation to the ground, but apparently...it does. Working on understanding that one. Typical DZ.com nonsense is why I'm now posting nonsense. Everyone just wants to throw out their ego and prove how much better they are than I am. I mean, it's totally helpful to me to tell me that my spin was nothing more than a barrel roll and my inexperience is what caused it to continue beyond that first revolution. Sorry, but there is not a person in the world that could have prevented that spin caused by asymmetric inflation from continuing. For occurring in the beginning...yes, but that's what my mistake outlined in the first post. Plus, I willingly admitted that this was my second jump...ever on the suit. I don't particularly care anymore, I'm just going to tell everyone exactly what they want to hear because 75% of the responses in this thread are moronic or simply repeating what was already in my first post. "When once you have tasted flight..."

There's a few people making some pretty steep claims in this thread, but I certainly don't see them posting videos of their mistakes and/or first jumps on anything. They must be everyday Chuck Norriss' and make the wind go around their ability instead! Mikki, JBag, got anything to share? "When once you have tasted flight..."

Whoa! Really? Is it a magic cord? Shit dude, I'm glad you posted, I had NO FLIPPING IDEA. Can you send me a video of how it works? I'll be sure to test it out on my next jump! Is there one for the arm wings that can prevent them from deploying too? That way, I'll never have to worry about the spin happening again! Where the hell were you 3 jumps ago man? Really? Is that what you're reading? All I see is a bunch of egos floating around that need to make a point to some noob that isn't qualified to be jumping this suit according to them. EVERYTHING that's been said, was said in my first post. Now I'm just being a dick because people can't read, or use common sense. I'm making this thread fun for ME now. "When once you have tasted flight..."

You know man, you're totally right. You ARE better than I am, but now everyone on the internet knows. I guess this makes you a skygod, right? Can I have your autograph? "When once you have tasted flight..."

Thanks man, I'm curious though, what could I possibly do to prevent the excess material from my legwing from touching the plane? Unless there's a snagpoint, I can't really foresee much to be worried about. Considering the size of the KA's door, I'm pretty sure anyone with an Aura/Colugo/Apache/X-series etc sized suit would have this same issue. Those jumping from a door that fits a fully loaded pallet (Caravan/Otter etc) don't have this concern. "When once you have tasted flight..."

Haha, you got me again. Your right, I learnt on a Tracking Suit, and my next logical choice was the Aura. You guys are good at this game. Don't worry though, I put at least 8 jumps on the tracking suit before upsizing. Now that I have enough experience in the Aura, I'm going to start proxy flying this weekend in Lauterbrunnen (sp?). "When once you have tasted flight..."

Michalm21, do you know me, or has my aggressive canopy progression proceeded me? That would be bad, right? Haha. I didn't downsize "that" aggressively and I don't even jump an x-brace on a normal jump, let alone an elliptical while wingsuiting. Plus, I needed a smaller canopy so I could get better flares and more wind penetration. Why else would I downsize? Jakee, if you read this post...it's a complete lie. I am jumping that Comp Velo, but don't tell anyone, k? "When once you have tasted flight..."

Haha, yep, you got me. I only have 103 skydives and 18 of those are wingsuit jumps (The last 3 being on my Aura). I've been hiding it all along. I've also been jumping a GoPro since jump 4 and I downsized to my current Comp Velo 79 on jump #81 (and yes, I wingsuit with that canopy too). There....it's out there to discuss. That's what you wanted to hear, right? Wait...while I'm being honest...there's more. I downsized and changed to an elliptical at the same time. Also, it was me that farted on the plane that day on the ride to altitude. Fact is, if I didn't want to discuss it, I wouldn't have posted it. I posted it to share the video, and hopefully allow people to learn from it, or maybe this will help them reconsider getting a large suit for a few more jumps. I have no idea why everyone has their panties in a bunch anyways. I don't see why we can't accept that fact that I posted simply to share my mistake. I'm fully aware of what it was, but everyone on here seems to believe that they're invincible to anything like this from happening to them and that they need to reitterate the same things I already said in my first post like I had no idea. Oh, and just because you think I'm secretly hiding something that would allow you guys to roast me...I'm specifically going to make every effort to withhold it now. What will you do? You won't be able to sleep at night! Some random guy on the internet won't tell you his deep, dark secrets. Haha... "When once you have tasted flight..."

Cool man...you obviously missed my first post where I pointed the exact same thing out, and then I clarified my last post for you, and you still choose to believe what you think you wanted me to say. I'm not sure what you want me to say... "When once you have tasted flight..."

I actually didn't miss the point of his post. I agree with it and I even recognized that this was my one of my mistakes in my first post. He would be naive if he "believed" that this is what everyone did, not because he said it is what everyone "should do". "When once you have tasted flight..."

This is what I'm trying to figure out. How does rotating 90 degrees in one direction or another increase my risk of hitting the tail? Looking at the video, it's pretty evident that I'm clearing the tail MUCH sooner than someone else exiting poised would/does. Based on simple evidence, I'd be inclined to say you're incorrect, but I'm genuinely interested in understanding your view. The way I see it, is that if I exit in full flight in a poised, sideways, or upside down...something is going to hit. My risk doesn't go up because I'm sideways. I certainly did invite criticism and I don't feel as though I snapped at anyone, or that anyone is beating me up. I know exactly where Zee's question was going, and I simply wanted to address the fact that it was a mistake as a result of several factors and not necessarily indicative of my experience level (unless we're referring to the winter break, to which I'd agree). I think you have a very optomistic and maybe even naive view of the sport. I'd bet that no more than 1 in 10 experienced jumpers actually do some sort of an upsize after a break/winter, or downsize a wingsuit for the first few jumps of the season. Students...sure, I'd say that most of them may do it, but experienced jumpers...not so much. You buy that new canopy, generally, you're jumping it. Now, will you rip a 270 on it on jump 1? I'd say probably not, but 99% will likely still jump it and save 270 for jump 2 or 3. That being said, this didn't play down quite like I imagine it is in your mind. There were a few things leading up to everything happening the way it did, and I simply didn't feel it necessary to draw out the complete story for everyone. My intent was to share what happened and that is all. If someone learns something from that, great, if not, I guess I wasted my time. "When once you have tasted flight..."

Interesting...so if someone botches an exit, they don't have the required experience to be jumping "X" suit? That's the extent of your assessment? A little hyper-critical I think. In my opinion, I had 3 successful flights, deployments and landings on the weekend, but one hairy exit as a result of a simple mistake in body presentation. Hindsight is 20/20 my friend...if we all knew what was about to happen, we would probably take steps to prevent that outcome if it was not desirable. The relative wind is coming from the same place, regardless of the orientation of my feet/head. If you're referring to the fact that the side of my body rotated into the rel wind, then yes...but that's exactly what my mistake was. The fact that I'm 90 degrees to the left has zero effect on the rel wind. "When once you have tasted flight..."

I am well aware that you have heaps more experience than I do in the sport, as well as in a wingsuit, but I'm intrigued by your assessment. Regardless of the orientation of my body to the earth, my postition to the relative wind is what makes the difference. This spinning jump aside, the way I exit is the same as anyone else, except I'm rotated 90 degrees to the left and this doesn't put any part of my body closer to the tail than anyone else. The relative wind still hits my chest (on a non-botched exit). Did you see the same exit....done more "effectively" we'll call it? (It's the second clip in this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLqlvPcPKzE). This clearly shows that I have zero momentum towards the tail, and by being sideways, I shave off at least 2 feet from my profile/height relative to the tail. Could you elaborate on your assessment to help me understand? Also, just to clarify, the spin was induced by one wing inflating while the other remains uninflated (this can be seen very clearly in the video linked above). This was a result of my leg wing catching a bit of air below my knees, which drives my head into the rel wind, and when I opened my wings, one inflated and the other didn't as it was blocked by my shoulder. I will not say for a second that this wasn't 100% my fault, but it happened so quickly that there was nothing I could do. The plane and other variables contributed not to the resulting spin, but to my rushing and poor exit. I blame absolutely no one and nothing aside from myself for this shitty exit. Same as above...orientation shouldn't matter, as long as the rel wind is in the same direction (which it is). I'm interested in knowing more about what I may not know at this point. "When once you have tasted flight..."