DSE

Care to post a screenshot of that? Perchance is it displaying feet and you're reading meters? Otherwise, could be a defective unit. L&B will replace it at any authorized gear store.

Not just on the wingsuit, but the wingsuit itself :-P Plus Gary was wearing a t-shirt advertising his wife's cafe Well heck...if T-shirts matter...there were Skydive Elsinore Wingsuit School T-shirts seen on TV, building up the landing area. I guess we're a sponsor too. (not). Gary spent tens of thousands of his own $$ on this project; Bremont may have paid for parts of it, and rights sales... but this clearly wasn't about the money. It was about "I believe I can do this and am going to follow my dream." Did anyone notice that the majority of the people attending were people who assembled boxes? Wonder what happened to the other 17,800 boxes that weren't damaged in the landing.

in terms of safety/pull time; they're identical. The P2 has grippers, the Shadow does not. However, both are suitable for getting started and use as a primary suit regardless of skill level.

Minor side point, Chuck Priest had fastbacks long long before anyone else was building wingsuits.

Yep, many people will now try to copy this stunt. And many of those that try, will die. I'll bet that "not many" will try to copy. Not any more likely than those that have tried (and died) copying Bill Cole or Travis Pastrana's chuteless jumps, or those that have tried to copy Greg Gasson's stunts. Landings of a wingsuit has only been a matter of time for a long time. Aside from Gary's tremendous success today, there are at least three others with plans to achieve this same thing/different ways.

http://news.sky.com/home/uk-news Click the "watch live" button in the upper left. They're running teasers now

Knees and ankles. Teaching to touch "ankles" without knees generally doesn't provide the result we're seeking.

Apparently enough of them that they lobbied USPA to consider replacing FF time with Tunnel time. I watched the experimental jumps here; the tunnel guys were pretty impressive with their flying ability. The argument that they can't fly/manage the air skills is a very weak one. If I were to make an argument, it's that canopy time (especially since AFF students are to learn canopy skills) and related decision-processing are the missing components when you cut out roughly 200 skydives from the experience bucket.

Then please explain why chuteless jumps are not much more common? They have been done, they have been done by a few people, they are repeatable. Fact is only time will tell, but I don't see this being anything more than a stunt and I very much doubt it will become a "reliably repeatable activity" like the other poster mentioned BASE. Time will only tell, but my money is on no. Chuteless jumps are a show of balls and bravado, having very little to do with flight. Flying includes landing. We don't see people hitting up RedBull or other companies for big $$ to do a chuteless flight. It's been done, blah blah. Landing a wingsuit and walking away from it fits the human dream. Sure, it's a stunt. Like early BASE was. Re-read my previous post; I don't think *everyone* will be doing it, but a helluva lot more than are doing it now. Everyone used to think "surfing" (swooping) would never be commonplace either. Everyone thought XRW was only a stunt, too. People are pushing the envelope in wingsuits and flying because they can. Jumping out without a parachute isn't really pushing any limits, and there certainly is little skill involved outside of the trust factor. Comparing landing a wingsuit to chuteless jumps are apples/oranges.

Head low is usually only a problem if they're not taught to go head-up after waveoff. Even if they fumble for the hackey for a while, the position is *very* stable if they are head-up, bent knees, because this puts them into a stall. This muscle memory is developed on the ground, and should become second nature. Nearly 400 FFC videos on FB and YouTube from our school. You'll find very, very few that have any head-low problems. Trained properly, students will do well. This guy somewhat goes unstable, but quickly settles out. https://vimeo.com/39413125 "1,2, 3, head-up, arch, deploy, pray." Linetwists and hard openings are also rare with this technique. Notice the stall; https://vimeo.com/37904896 This is how we teach it. https://vimeo.com/29102611

Don't kid yourself. Of course it will. Will it become mainstream? Probably not, but you can bet your ass that once Gary (or someone else) successfully pulls this off, someone will follow very quickly. And then someone else, and so on. Will everyone be doing it? Likely not, but will everyone want to? Everyone has been wanting to since the days of Icarus/Daedalus. Man wants to fly. I predict we'll see BASE into water, snow, wet grass, whatever in the coming months.There are many that could pull it off now, they just need the first person to cross the threshold, and someone who actually has the discipline to do it vs fluffing for sponsorship $$. It's a new era. Florez set a bar for time, distance...Pecnik recently set the bar for proximity... lots of huge barriers being broken by wingsuiters on a somewhat regular basis. It's our time.

First and foremost, changing the ISO isn't necessary. If the large suit means that the pilot can't wave off in the manner expected by everyone else, perhaps he shouldn't be in the large suit. This method has opportunity to create more instability, IMO. Instability with waveoff in student suits is incredibly manageable, and part of good training anyway. If the student is really nervous, it usually means they weren't trained properly. "There are very few bad students, but many bad coaches" (in any discipline). (just read Lurch's response and agree entirely) Lastly, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Keep in mind that the wings do tend to pound pretty hard on the sleeves, and spandex will likely wear out. Neither of my camera jackets are spandex anywhere but the cuffs, and both sets have fairly worn cuffs,

I prefer Red. Tony always has it in a cooler behind his stove... Failing that, there is usually a case of it in my office. Tomorrow is looking light if you'd like to change plans again. or there's always next weekend. Yes Squeak...the dress comes off on occasion, special occasions... Failing the Gatorade; there are always L/O's on the DZ, just ask at the Manifest window. The gals up there are always able to make the hook-up.

I'll bet...if you showed up with a Gatorade or Dr. Pepper, there's at least one guy that'll jump with you tomorrow. Jumped with one of your friends today; she got in 5 docks. Even tho the org'd event isn't happening tomorrow, we can push some jumps out. And never be shy about asking!

Liquid and Gatorz both can be bent/molded to fit your face. I have both, prefer the Gatorz only because they fold up for transport.

The Curv in flight There is more/better vid, but need to edit. Sweet how it sits tight in acrobatics.

Birds Over Hawaii with multi-plane formations, beach landings at Waimea Beach, and some all-around awesomeness. The last two wingsuit events at Skydive Hawaii have been terrific; this one will be spectacular. We'll be doing a G.L.O.W. event with the Gorgeous Ladies of Wingsuiting, too! (beach landings restricted to C/D license holders). Hawaii has several female wingsuiters already, so this'll be a super fun formation. We'll start on Friday, but DSE and some of the Skydive Elsinore Wingsuit School crew will be on-site prior to the event for coaching and fun. 45.00 registration fee gets you Tshirt, Sat night luau dinner, and organizing all weekend! Andreea Olea, DSE, T.K. Hinshaw, and Skydive Hawaii organizing and bringing the good times. Hawaii in November/December...doesn't get any better!! You'll see whales from altitude, and lots of killer sand and surf. Treat yourself! You deserve it! Mahalo!! Manu o' Hawaii 2012 Facebook page Wingsuits over Hawaii 2010

If "real world measure" counts, then any variation is a variation. Winds at 100mph aloft is pretty extreme....and winds aloft at a comp are very rarely going to vary on a load. It's all relative. If everyone is jumping from the same plane at the same altitude at 7 second intervals, then the variation is as negligible as everyone leaving the same exit point with the same winds at 7 second intervals. It's all relative. Comparing a BASE exit to a skydive, if the gates are the gates, and flying is flying into the gate...it's still equally all relative. Here's where it gets interesting; At the Performance Cup, I received a few letters from BASE wingsuiters talking about how stupid and easy the comp would be compared to BASE jumping....yet not one of these bad-ass base jumpers showed up to compete and show their bad-ass skills compared to skydivers. Sure would be interesting to see how the skills stack up, because flying skill is flying skill, and once terminal is reached....it's reached, and skill factors are identical. Regardless of the exit. See you in November?

The competition doesn't include that time anyway; the gate is at 3km. So, if the aircraft is at 3.3km, it doesn't help (nor hurt) the competitor to "get flying before they've cleared the plane."

100' after exit isn't really practical, but it's on the right track, IMO. This is why we limited the Skydive Elsinore Performance Cup exits to 11,000. We discussed a fixed aircraft speed, but didn't implement it. I honestly can't recall what the reason was.

by the way, this is not necessarily accomplished with a rating. It is accomplished with a manual on how first flight courses should be conducted (which I think DSE on this website has started). There is no need to insert a rating into the work needed to be done. It is simply an effort of putting together the information and consulting experience wingsuit instructors and then making the information freely available for anybody to download by PDF. The "manual" is the SIM, and the SIM was written predominantly by myself, Jeff Donohue, Scott Callantine, Sean Horton. There were others on the team, but the primary wordsmithing was done by us as a team, after the initial "manual" was created in a Google WAVE doc. That aside... A "manual" doesn't assure that standards are taught and met. For example...(IMO) the reason we're seeing the tailstrike increase, is because of how people are being taught to exit, and in many cases, taught to exit with big suits and no real experience. There are good forms of exits that are clean regardless of the type of suit, and there are exits that encourage tailstrike potential. Deployments are another example. Look on fb or YouTube even as recent as last week, and see FFC's where the student is deploying in a full track, no slowing down. On two of them (different jumps) they're complaining about the hard openings. This is due to training, at least one of them from a "my friend gave me a free course." That friend might just be hurting his buddy but doesn't understand enough about mechanics, or wasn't properly taught himself. Instability recovery. I can't begin to number the students that have shown up at Skydive Elsinore for advanced coaching, but knew absolutely nothing about recovering from instability or a spin. I had a student here in Hawaii only yesterday, terrified of a spin because of a close friend who died as a result of not knowing how to manage instability. "Ball up" is the catch phrase to everyone that talks about it, if they talk about it at all. Well...there are better, tested, compared, and demonstrated techniques. Off landings...seems most coaches don't really address this, yet it's the second biggest concern that USPA, DZO's, and FAA have with our discipline. It's not unusual to read a wingsuiter bragging "dude, we landed 5 miles off the DZ!" like that's a good thing. It's not a good thing. In one case, the wingsuiter had an AAD fire, landed in a backyard doing damage to a fence. This doesn't bode well. We also have different flying patterns, patterns that have an affect on the operations of the DZ regardless of size. Several DZ's have at least temporarily banned WS due to bad pattern management or other safety issues. Most of those DZ's have reinstated WS after a lot of discussion, planning, and agreement to adhere to standard WS patterns. Most people who have been in the sport for a while agree that they wish the'd foreseen small canopies, low turns, swooping prior to experience and knowledge leading the process (canopy issues in general) and could have implemented some form of control, regulation, prevention, protection (whatever) that may have saved a few lives and kept the FAA and local governments out of skydiving. Wingsuiting presents itself to be much the same. The past three years have been terrific for wingsuiting in that we have high profile placement on Youtube, vimeo, and mainstream media. The BASE vids, PF proximity series, XRW, and many news shows plus major motion pictures....it adds up to a lot of good attention that brings more people to our sport and discipline. The past three years have also been challenging, because of tailstrikes, injuries, off landings, problems with DZO's, landowners, and airport management. All the good press in the world won't convince an airport manager or DZO that wingsuits are a greater liability than an asset if they start going down that negative road. There are a lot of great people providing not-so-great information to their friends, and as we grow as a discipline, having standards to which all training is applied benefits everyone. Tandem, AFF, Static line, and IAD have all benefitted from standardized instructional processes. There are growing pains, regardless of which direction this particular conversation goes. The idea is to minimize the growing pains wherever possible.

BAck to topic... Enjoy The Jesus App now downloadable from UTunes.

Am I understanding that you feel limiting turns to not greater than 90 degrees will not lessen injuries at any level?

This is so true. Aside from the effort, you're up against the pressure of real-time results, everyone in the same wind, and it's a collective effort. Moreover, it's a real competition where everyone is in the same 'fishbowl' so to speak. And... it's inspiring to see everyone putting it on the line vs the "I'm the greatest in the world" people that never show up to put up. Looking forward to the next Performance Cup in November. We have repeaters on the planes and a request for sats to stay active in the area for the event. Hope to see you there kickin' azz again, Simon.