SkymonkeyONE

I have not checked the moon phase, but as we ran into at the last gathering, you must ask yourself: "am I willing to forego my partying on a long weekend just so I can make another jump?" If the answer is yes, then maybe I can be talked into doing a night briefing and setting it up. Chuck

The photo of the pilgrims in the Skydiving article was immediately recognizable as Gillian's hand. That was a funny pic! Chuck

Eric Butts has some nice video. Like you, I didn't have so much as a regular throw-away camera and have zero images to show for my week down there. Chuck

Yes, Scott, a military UDT vest would be perfect. Yes, I have one. No, you can't borrow it. SkyONE

Named.....Those rules do not apply to me at all. My life is an open book. If you BASE guys are concerned about something being burned, then you may want to get with the person who did all these stunts. Believe me when I tell you that the one person I mentioned made no qualms about letting everyone know exactly who was doing what. As to the other post about the object: yes, it was next to the Summit, not the Spinnaker. Yes, that person did in fact get booted out of the Summit for throwing people into the pool and being rowdy during "quiet time." Chuck

"It's better to burn out than fade away."

Another option with your Sterns unit is to rig it under your rig, attached around the laterals. A smarter option, though, might be to route the waist strap around your upper lift webs above the chest strap. True, it would be out in the air and sort of under your chin in flight, but it would do best there to save you in an actual water ditching. I just thought of that and have not actually tried that routing, but it ought to work fine. Chuck

A "regular" SkyFlyer is definitely not a good choice as an "all around" suit in my opinion, especially for someone who isn't going to make a lot of wingsuit flights in a year. They can get very squirrely on you tense up and that is a very bad thing at pull time. A GTi is still a fine suit. They have much more performance potential than a Classic, but are much more forgiving of flailing pilots than a SkyFlyer. A SkyFlyer-3 is a brilliant suit for an advanced pilot. In my opinion it is the best of everything: it has incredible "pop", fantastic lift and speed when flown efficiently, and is actually more forgiving than a regular skyflyer. The wider leg stance makes it more stable. The only drawback, other than it's prohibitive initial cost, is that it takes very strong arms and shoulders to fly this suit. The wings are huge and they will wear you out very quickly if you are not in shape. My first flight was on a GTi and so my first suit purchase was a GTi. I now own a classic, a GTi, and an SF-3. I sold Lou Diamond my SkyFlyer after he got sufficiently good in the GTi. It's all about hooking a up! Check it! Chuckie

I watched all but one of the "hucks." Johnny No-Stow did the first and freefell (stowed) three full seconds from 410 feet before deploying. I watched the whole thing from my 4th floor balcony. Eric Butts got the whole thing on video as did any number of other clued-in spectators. It was fucking awesome. This was to be the first of at least four such "shows." That, and each subsequent jump was made just after the last Pro competition round. The second day, and every day after that had John and at least three other people I saw doing doubles off the parasail. This was tightly choreographed with the parasail company owner. The winds were blowing nearly straight onto shore or at a slight crosswind down the beach, so it was entirely possible on all but one occasion for the jumpers to land on the beach, right in front of The Spinnaker. They didn't "cutaway" from the harness. They climbed out of it, stood on a sort of sling, then jumped. Only one guy looked like he SL'd it on a double; everyone else freefell. I saw one very sketchy exit on a double where the top guy ened up flailing past what was supposed to be the bottom guy. He got canopy VERY low and landed in the water out near the support boat. In all, it was totally cool. Harry had the crowd thinking it was some sort of emergency, so there was a lot of gasping. Another jumper, who I will not name, jumped the 200 foot construction crain that was setup right next door to the Spinnaker on my first night there. He freefell it stowed in the middle of the night; that was nuts. Anyway, as to the video of the parasail hucking, I can assure you it will be in the PST meet video. Anyone in texas could also get the video from my boy Eric Butts. Chuck

Not sure where anyone else was, But Crystal, Oren Perry, Sonic, and Punisher were all at Panama City Beach partying with ME. Chuck

Well, as someone who has "several" Eclipse tandem jumps, I am just glad that there are ways to get parts, etc. We ended up with two ex-GK Eclipses on the USASOC team, plus Pete Markow has one, so we use them as backup out here. I think of them as a "better Vector 2 with an Icarus main." Chuck

Rob, there is in fact some righteous footage on the Rantoul DVD. Unfortunately, I did not see any instances of the mass, post-sunset, swoop pond nakedness. What up, lip? Chuckie

Dude! Where do I get that mod?

Likewise, I saw a very large British guy jumping a converted Vector tandem rig at Eloy over the Holiday Boogie. My dad's dropzone in Alabama has MT-1XX military rigs (375/375) with the O2 and weapons flaps removed and modern deployment systems. They work great for LARGE students. Chuck Blue D-12501 Raeford Parachute Center

Ed is worthless and weak and his god is a woman! All kidding aside, Both Cajones and Lew are the shit. I have some great friends in the skydiving world. Peace OUT, monkey lip! Chuckie

I will further add to Josh's post by saying that even if your canopy doesn't fully recover to a perfectly "horizontal" glide (because you swung so far under your canopy), a good rear-riser swooper only wants to input the minimum amount of tension to get the parachute on plane. That being said, there are an awful lot of people who now swoop to a complete stop on only rears. You also have an incredible amount of "dig" power with your rears on a moderately loaded crossbrace. Very true, you can easilly stall the piss out of your crossbrace with too much input, but man, I have found that I have incredible rear riser power without inducing the dreaded high-speed stall. Chuck

Kim, I will definitely be there now seeing as how the Rantoul PST meet will be our "nationals." Not sure how early I can be on station, but I will definitely be able to hook you up on first flight instruction, etc. Call me later and we can discuss the particulars. I am loving you guys, Chuckie

Buy you a top mount pad for your helmet, then put your camera up there. Simply turn it around on the bracket and you are set. BASE guys to it all the time. Chuckie

It also has a very stylish Sabre2 sticker for it now. Noice.

I think I will have matters under control. Total control, just like on channel 598! SLAP! Chuckie

Perris in September, assuming I am one of the top ten at Rantoul. Mark, you should know that Lisa Briggs is my full proxy and can award monkey status. Chuck

CHECK IT Nun's of you biotches will be getting a name until such a time as you both jump with me and party with me. That being said, you guys don't qualify. Actually, plenty of people who have both jumped and partied with me have not qualified just BECAUSE I SAY SO. Make no mistake: I am the monkey I personally buy all the hats I administer. It's a fraternal thing; very personal. Monkey names, on the other hand, are even more scarce. Most skymonkeys have no special "name;" they just have their regular name or some other nickname on the back. I am more than happy to jump and party with everyone here. Impress me with your general attitude during those activities and you are in. Pester me like SunCheHag did for so long and I will make you wait. Believe me, it's special. Just ask Paul Rafferty, Chris Talbert, Sangiro, Betsy, Aggie Dave, Kris, Lisa, Stephan Lipp, and various and sundry other "qualified" skymonkeys. Chuckie PS: I will definitely be at Rantoul. I will also definitely be at the PSN at The Ranch. Not sure what other out of town runs I can make, so just come on down to Raeford and check our style. We are not sucking here at Raeford. SkyONE

send me your picture in an e-mail and I will shrink it down. For the record, I have been friends with Craig since well before he left the army parachute team and instantly recognize photos of his style. As to "other" avatars: that's fine, it's not a pic of another "real" person who might not want their pic being used to identify another person. The post in the talkback forum by some disgruntled young lady spells that out fairly succintly. Chuck

Over 200 flights over three years on a GTi, a SkyFlyer, and now my SF-3. I, unfortunately, have not had nearly the time to fly lately due to my managerial tasks. I only have 12 flights on my SF-3, but it suits me SO much better than my original skyflyer did. My wingsuit flying consists of first flight instruction, coaching, and technical flocking. I can't stand to fly alone. Chuck

Technically, it's only a 30-over 80-incher, but it is incredibly tweaked. Last dyno run went 93 hp at the tire. Not bad for an 87 HD.