SkymonkeyONE

The awareness you are talking about comes from general skydiving experience. Experience that only comes from repetition and training. Also, some people are generally more "heads up" than others. If you have people running into you, then relegate them to less technical and even solo flights. The increased forward speed of our suits make them such that we MUST be turned on at all times, especially down in the thick air. I am pretty color blind, so I am constantly scanning the sky in front and below me for motion. A head on collision with a "lost sheep" would be catastrophic, so I, when needed, am fairly harsh on new wingsuit pilots who are not flying the flight plan. As to "buzzing" canopies: so long as you plan the dive then dive the plan, it's fine. This, assuming demonstrated airskills and canopy skills. I won't let anyone swoop past me unless they meet very certain criteria. That said, I don't randomly swoop. I plan the event out on the ground in detail. In wingsuit flight, I make sure the canopy pilot is setup properly at the correct altitude and on the correct heading before I make my approach. I always pass off to the side; never over the top. If anything isn't in order I simply turn away and say "oh well." The bottom line here is that you are the pilot of that suit, so fly it, don't let it fly you into trouble. If you are sketchy in your suit you don't have any business attempting these kinds of maneuvers. Technical flocking is for people with refined skills and great air awareness. If you possess neither, you need to work on them before putting yourself (or others) in potentially hazardous situations. It's like Omar at Eloy told a flailing FF wannabe: "it's nothing 1000 jumps won't cure." Don't be reckless in pursuit of coolness. Get out and skydive and the skills will come. People making one wingsuit flight a month will have a much harder time getting to the next level than those of us who keep a task-specific rig sewn into our suit. Chuck

In a Jav, I would say C-16 or C-17. You are sort of light, so you could probably get away with a "B" yoke, but an "A" would probably be too tight up top and your chest strap would sit up high.

Correct, but it's at your own cost.

No, you misread me. What I meant was that you dearch by dropping your knees down a bit, not relaxing them up on your butt. That tip was on the original site in the flight manual.

No, they all flew like they were supposed to, which is to say great. I could never figure out a reason for the opening disparity. On a related note, our demo team, and those of the Golden Knights, had very similar problems with a batch of our StarTrac mains. The older ones we had, which it is said were cut from the same CAD templates opened like a dream. Unfortunately, our entire new batch, plus those of the GK's, "came off our backs open." Why? Who knows. Not us nor the manufacturer. They flew the same but the openings destroyed not less than six sliders and three mains. on our team. The fix: a simple nose mod on the center three cells. Was this a "patch?" Certainly, but it worked flawlessly and we accepted that as a solution. A similar patch for hard opening Cobalts is the H-mod. A further patch for still-hard-opening Cobalts is more of a nose mod, just like the one on CC's and FireBolts.

There are a lot of us in the south. One thing that a lot of us were doing in our "standard" skyflyers was flying a bit "knees down" in order to funnel air through the hole into the leg wing inlet. Doing this, while keeping our toes pointed and the leg wing taut, took away some of the squirreliness. Another BM-I buddy of mine from Australia found that blocking off the air inlet to the "butt deflector" made his standard skyfler MUCH more controllable. Chuck

Easy now.

Sign me up for the hit and chug and the vomit on command contests, please. Also, I will be belly-cam'ing most of our wingsuit flights.

I am pretty sure most people here know that I used to be an Atair guy. I had consistently great openings with every one of my own mains and my two competition mains, pretty much trash packing all the time. That said, I did have the opportunity to evaluate some incredibly hard opening stock cobalts in sizes 105 and 170. Generally, just leaving the nose out on these "problem" canopies helped, but there were instances where even my standard pack would rattle my teeth. In each and every one of these cases it's my opinion that an H-mod was the best cure. That and maybe a bigger slider. I cannot say that the problem is systemic because I checked the trim and stitching on each of those smackers and found no problem. As has been previously stated in this thread: every single manufacturer has problems with a few of their canopies per year. When those rare problems DO occur, it's up to the manufacturer to deal with them in both a truthful, analytical and expeditious manner less they reap the wrath of their consumer base and it's, sometimes, mob mentality. Some manufacturers are better equipped to deal with such occurences and keep their good name. Others simply fold and/or reorganize when the pressure proves too much. Many parachute manufacturers simply keep their focus on the much-more lucrative and far-less hassle military market. Make no mistake: sport parachute sales are a gnat's ass of the total parachute market. Back to the packing: I firmly believe that stuffing the nose back on a Cobalt is a bad idea that can only negate the "two-staged opening". For that matter, I believe that stuffing the nose on any parachute is a bad idea. Just my opinion, but I have brilliant openings on every canopy I own and have owned since my old monarch. Chuck Blue D-12501

That's nice. I hope they all know how to work OmniSkore.

Don as a rigger.....lol. You know, he drives all the way to Raeford to get his rigs packed. Don is a great friend, but I MUST teach him to stop landing in the "girl's dropzone" out in the briars. Chuck

Also feel free to complete the subject line so that people don't have to bother opening threads just to see what you might be talking about. By the way, I have no clue as to what you are asking. Chuck

I have never been a ProTrac fan at all anyways. They are nearly worthless in wingsuit applications in my opinion. If you really need to know your exact freefall times simply use your video or the stopwatch function on a watch or something. Chuck

Nice thread. My first square was a brand spanking new Pegasus 223 in the black rainbow color pattern. It was a fantastic canopy.

No, they are not required. I don't have one in my primary pond rig. Chuck

Likewise, I don't have a CYPRES in my BM rig. It started out as my competition pond swoop container, so I have never bothered to put one in there. No biggie, I was just wondering how long you fucked with your total.

Thursday at noon.

I am feeling incredibly intelligent right now.

Unfuckingbelievable.......I get kicked offline for three weeks and one of my best friends has performed this major coup. Oh yeah, Cora is cool too..... Kramer, drunk dial me and tell me what the dillio. Mono Uno

So what are you telling us? That you rode your CYPRES in, or did you keep your cool and pull your reserve after the second try?

Very unfortunate.

Sabre2 97 loaded at 1.8 in my BirdMan rig. It is a brilliant canopy for this application and I also swoop the piss out of it. Chuck

Straighten your legs and point your toes, but I am glad to hear you had a blast. Chuck BMCI

13 days and a wakeup! But who's counting! Me, that's who.....

This issue has quite a few familiar faces; mine among them (flocking with Jari, Kimmie, Kev, and Sara). JP looks fat in that two-piece suit, doesn't he? Chuck