SkymonkeyONE

You beat me to it, Mikey.

Amen. I saw Craig do some amazing stuff with his stiletto out in Eloy at the xmas boogie last year. I think Pete is on a velo now (or at least he has one) cause he used one in a FLCPA meet in the beginning of the year. Blues, Ian I said regularly jumps a nine-cell. Craig and Andy own Velos as well, but their "work" canopies are ST's.

How small of a suit do you need? BirdMan had, as of Rantoul, a couple of very small suits in the demo fleet.

There are WAY more than a few people who regularly jump "standard" nine-cell mains who absolutely kick the shit out of most of the people who fly crossbraces out of pure vanity. Examples include Craig Girrard, Eric Butts, Andy Honnigbaum, and Pete Alum.

My thoughts, and I am going to directly relate them to another discipline: Tandems. There, for good reason in my opinion, is a 500 jump minimum and a minimum time-in-sport requirement in order to obtain that rating. It's 800 in the UK! The funny thing about it is that, also in my opinion, tandems are INCREDIBLY simple. So much so that the US Military allows applicable units to send their personnel for ratings with 200 jumps. More to the point, they send people to their tandem BUNDLE course with as little as 200 jumps. That's 500 pounds of oil drum strapped to the front of you, kiddies. What's the difference you ask? Liability, pure and simple. The military assumes the liability for their own personnel and you simply can't sue anyone if shit goes wrong. Tandem manufacturers make gear to SELL. Still, no, they will absolutely not sell "regular", non-rated skydivers tandem rigs and no, they won't qualify you, as a civilian to jump their rigs unless you have 500 jumps or more and three years in the sport. Once again, I find tandem jumping incredibly simple. The manufacturers have training certifications in-house because they want to make sure you have the minimum talent needed to safely use their equipment. Established wingsuit manufacturers are no different. BirdMan came up with a program because they knew it needed to be done in order to "grease the skids" to the general skydiving public. All old skydivers remembered was that 95% of "original" barnstorming birdmen died with their homemade contraptions and the only "modern" wingsuit guy, Patrick DeGuardon (who had a bazillion jumps) also frapped in one of his own design. The ONLY way it was going to get accepted into mainstream jumping again was to show, in no uncertain terms, that we had our shit together. There was a dream, then a mission, then the reality of what we have today. Without that plan and execution, I can guarantee that wingsuiting would still be a very-fringe activity. Bitch if you like, but without Jari and Robi's plan for a safe and fun future you would not even be contemplating such things today. The standard is set. Peace, Chuck Blue BMCI

Fast times at Ridgemont High

You might want to call or e-mail Stephan Lipp at the Arizona Training Center (on the DZ). He is a veritable slumlord and has a compound with about five residences about two miles from the DZ. PM me for his cell number. He might have a unit open.

I have quilted backpads of both of my Wings and would recommend it.

I, too, think it's a perfectly fair statement. I also know more than a couple of skydivers who have no business still being in the air. Stick around long enough and you will see them. Hell, go to one WFFC and you will see more than you can believe. I have several very good friends who have taken CYPRES rides this year for basically the same reason: lack of altitude awareness brought on by total fixation on someone else; they were both doing videos. While I am very happy that both made it out OK, I seriously hope that this was all the wakeup call they will ever need in their skydiving careers. NO video footage is worth you cratering. NEVER trust anyone else to be your only judge of altitude. ALWAYS use every tool available to you to ensure deployment at a reasonable altitude. I applaud Perris on their decision. Chuck Blue D-12501

No mas tequilla.

What did you think I meant, Jackass?

Actually, Kev, the absolute best weather protection for people who refuse to adorn their skoots with windshields and refuse to ride with a dog house on their head (legal full-face helmet) regardless of how nasty it is outside is a set of MX goggles with a face shield (rock guard). I refer to this as "The Evil Vorlon Mask". While those neoprene-derived face warmers are nice in just cold weather, they do very little for you if it's raining. They saturate with water after a time and gag you, plus they do little to prevent the rain from beating the fuck out of you on the interstate at speed. The setup I use is fantastic. All I did to make it perfect was to put electrical tape over the vents in front of your mouth. The standoff is sufficient so that you don't starve for air and you will absolutely not feel the beating rain and blistering cold. In absolute coldest riding, I will wear a neoprene face guard such as yours under my goggles/face shield. Chuck -riding hard since I was six years old.

I am 41 and Katie won't be 29 until next month. you do the math.

Pot, meet Kettle

Wow. It must be something in the air. I have had two brothers ball their skoots up in the past month quite seriously as well. He wasn't on Derek's bike was he? At any rate, wish him a speedy recovery for me. Chuck

My advice was not that you could not "play" under canopy, only that you ought to have a plan for your playing. If you are dumping at four grand then you ought to be working on the canopy skills which are required in the ISP. Open, find the dz, then work on those tasks until it's time to enter the downwind portion of your landing pattern (somewhere between 1500 and 1000 feet). Chuck

Yes, Jim was jumping his solid blue JSX at Nationals. Same canopy he jumped at Wildwood.

Lines were attached left to right on Evos too and that's the reason there were three risers. Back in the day they were very HP canopies and competed with the original Blue Track, the PD Excallibur, and the PISA Pintail. There were quite a few Evolutions here at Raeford. We had people with the original, malfunction-prone retractable PC reefing system and the later more "standard" slider. The turns you could generate by grabbing that middle riser were crazy-fast. I still have pics in my photo albums of both Danny Page and Isreal Harris jumping theirs.

I don't think there is anything that anyone could add to this thread which hasn't already been said. Chuck

What a nice newspaper story. Hey, doesn't Autumn still owe me a packjob for doing those AFF jumps with her? See you both this weekend, Chuck

I would not hesitate to watch it. Having witnessed more than a couple of horrendous deaths firsthand, it simply would not bother me.

Rob, you do have a very large head.

I wonder if this canopy was installed on risers/connector links improperly. It is entirely possible that the center A/B lines are attached to the rear risers thus causing the deformation. I have never personally seen one misrigged in that manner, but I have seen a VX-74 misrigged with the left-of-center lines connected to the right risers. The guy, former 8-way world champion Joe Trinko, landed the main and "just couldn't figure it out."

Not at all. You have your alti/neptune/whatever on your left wrist though, so writing something on your right wrist is the only logical answer unless you plan on writing halfway to your elbow. This, of course, assuming you don't have a jumpsuit pulled all the way to your wrist.

Very funny.