SkymonkeyONE

I can't say that I have ever seen anyone jumping a Vengeance with a wingsuit. Still, as someone who used to own one (a 97 which was too big), I wouldn't have hesitated to jump that one with my suit. Problem is, nearly ever other Vengeance I have personally seen (other than Tony Thacker's) opens in a dive to either the left or right. That being said, if YOUR'S is one that does that, then I would not recommend it. If it's a straight opening one, then don't sweat it. Chuck

Derek, likewise. Actually, both Katie and I were sick as dogs for most of the trip. We had went to bed at 8:30 PM on New Years Eve, right after eating, so we missed the entire party. I had no idea you guys had even left, so we will do the suits next time. Chuck

I cannot think of a single thing you would gain by flying your suit in that or any other tunnel. Chuck

Nice pics, Sunny!

Dude, that is one small-ass camera. It's one of those new "micro" DV jigs. As shaky as that video is, you can definitely tell it was cold as hell yesterday. Either that, or 'ole Droopy was hitting the pipe again. Chuckie

Trevor made 78 I think and Alex was right behind him. They both brought two rigs, paid packers every time, double and triple manifested, and literally RAN to catch the trolly on more occasions than I can count. The boys love to jump, that's for damn sure. Trevor could have possibly made a few more if it were not for the night that he and Sunshine earned their "Toxic Twins" designation. Me? I only made about 25, but I was either sick as a dog or had not slept all night and was still too blistered to skydive several of the days I was there. The only thing I regret was insisting we tent it for the duration. I will definitely be living indoors next trip. Chuckie

WHAT UP, Monkey Lip?!

2:1:0 Still sick as a dog from Eloy, but I did manage to make one tandem on Sunday. No, I haven't gotten around to repacking my reserve from my last jump at Eloy. Chuck

Tighten up, Slappie! As to the original post: of course I remember each and every one of those screen names. Chuck

It was nice meeting you, Mary!

I second Sangiro's nomination of Spectre230. You newbies just can't imagine how out of hand that got. Chuck

Trying as hard as I could for nearly ten full days, I just could not empty that damn beer truck. I spent $200 on shots on Christmas evening, right after we arrived in the Bent Prop. "I am a man with a mission" Raeford ruled the airport the night of the 26th, as all the commoners fell off to bed around 3:30 am. No amount of harrassing would get anyone out of bed at 4:00 am, so Katie and I just walked around the airport the entire rest of the evening, making rooster and donkey noises and drinking beer from the never ending beer truck. Life was good. Well, all except getting sick as a DOG! I am far from recovered and I have been home two days now. Chuck

This "smiley face" stuff is KILLING me! I have to tell you that I had a 99 percent sure idea that Willem Grobler was going to be on the premisis, so I was not surprised at all when I caught sight of him from about 50 feet away. He was, and is, exactly the person I knew he would be. That, of course, is a good thing in this case. He is one of the fairly small group of our online family who I had interacted with on a pretty frequent basis who I did not need to waste any time with small talk. It was like seeing a member of your direct family again after being away for several years. It was exactly the same with Betsy. After this trip, we are all best of friends and I can't wait to see these people again. The rest of you can blow me....Just kidding I met some great people on this trip and made life-long contacts with a ton of them. Who can bitch about that? Chuck

Pablito to Chuck: "what is this 'shady'?" Chuck to Pablito: "shady is someone who would try to fuck your old lady when you had your back turned." Chuck to Pablito: "you are now known as Shady Monkey. Be proud that you are the first to be 'named' in quite some time." Pablito is a great guy and I was plenty happy to award him my only spare skymonkey hat that I had with me on that trip. Chuck

I will give you two different personal views: If you have a high tollerance for alcohol and have undergone phisiological training at an approved high altitude test chamber to get a feel for your limits, then I wouldn't hesitate to go from 23 without bail-out bottles. This, assuming you pre-breathed for the requisite 30 minutes for a jump above 18k and were on supplimental oxygen for the duration of the flight. If you are an "efficient" wingsuit flyer, then a jump from 23k will give you at least as much exposure to fairly high altitude as an MFF jump from 32 grand, so you had better pre-breath. For Jari's aborted freefall time record attempt at the last boogie in Quincy, I brought him my Gentex, 02 mask, and a complete set of twin 53's. We were to go to about 33 grand for that one, so I was to be his o2 tech for the flight. We rigged the bottles under his rig, suspended from the diagonals; the hose run through the wing, across the chest and out the main zipper. It was great. Too bad we didn't get to do the jump. Chuck

Here are the details: It was my 16th or 17th wingsuit flight of the boogie, about 12 noon on 2 January. I was in a 4-way diamond formation with Jay Epstein and Drew from Colorado, as well as LouDiamond (Scott Campos) from Virginia. We were looking to get some better video to give to Lewmonst and Cajones for the boogie video because that was the only way to ensure our bad-assedness. At any rate, I was left wing, Drew was point, Scott was right wing, and Jay was tail, flying a big high to get the shot. We broke-off at 4500 feet and I split left. Jay also went in that direction, so he saw the whole mess. At 4000 feet, I waved off with my feet and dumped, totally stable. I gave my "two count", then dropped my knees and looked at my handles as per my SOP. After feeling the canopy start to inflate, I quickly started unzipping the left arm of my SkyFlyer. It was then that shit got VERY ugly. My main, totally uncharacteristically, had a violent right spin while I was laid over to the left. I knew right then that I needed to pull all of my suit handles right away if I had any hope of kicking out. After pulling all my handles I looked back up to see that by that time I was on my back, spinning straight out from my 75 square foot H-mod Cobalt with the risers spun up clean in front of my neck; not good, as there was no way I was going to kick out of that much twist before impact. Anyway, I resigned myself to chopping, so i reached down and took firm grips on both of my handles. I do NOT bullshit when I chop, so when I punched the cutaway handle and it didn't budge, I knew I might be fucked. I punched a second and finally a third time before the force of "punching" dislodged my reserve ripcord from it's pouch and pulled the cable just enough to fire the reserve. We all know what ought to have happened, but somebody had my back because that freebag made it to clean air and the reserve caught air on the opposite side of me than the main was spinning me, sort of stopping me dead in the middle in a sort of double-spinning downplane. It was only then that I tried to cutaway again and the tension released off the main risers by the reserve allowed the three rings to function. It was at this time that I got the "flatline" on my Pro Dytter, which I keep set at two grand. This entire situation took maybe six or seven seconds and I burned up two thousand feet in that short amount of time. Once free of the totally-spun main, I kicked out of the four reserve line twists, then landed unscathed in the grass of the main landing area at Eloy. Omar shagged my reserve and we balled it all up and I walked off. It was only at the dropzone.com tent that I took full accountability of what was there and what was not. I had both of my arm handles, but my LQRS handle was gone. I had my cutaway handle, but the reserve handle was still in the housing, pulled only about three inches from its seat. I thought the main and freebag were a loss, seeing as how the wind had really picked up, but Brian Burke had them recovered almost before they hit the ground. He returned all but the LQRS handle within ten minutes of my landing. Now, to the crux of the matter: the reason I was unable to cutaway was that I did not have my tubes in the risers I was using at that boogie. The tubes were still in my triple risers which I had removed some months ago, sitting in my gear bin at the RPC school at Raeford (where I work as a tandem master and AFF monkey). Let me tell you one thing: I will never make another skydive without tubes in my risers. I lived through this one by the grace of God and will not tempt fate in that manner again. Chuck Blue D-12501 PS: I had a great time flying with Jay and the other Colorado gang people. Hopefully I will see you monkeys again at Rantoul or somewhere else this year.

I am happy to report that I am alive and well, still kicking it like a motherfucker here at Eloy. Chuck

Lew (Karen Lewis) is far from a dude.

Katie will manifest as "Little Miss"

I am manifesting as "Big Daddy"

Yes, work it out. LIKE IN PRISON! Chuck

Get back in the kitchen, woman, and make me a sammich! See you tomorrow! SM-1

Don't think the Relative Workshop made suits. You are probably thinking of the RW Shop of Brookline, NH, which made some huge suits. I know of one which probably used to be mine now used as a FF/hybred suit. Picky, picky.. HW LOL! I STILL have my old two-piece RW Shop suit. Solid white with green stripes down the arms and legs. Swoop cords were a must! It had huge wings and slowed my (at the time) 120 pound ass down to a crawl. Chuck

I am packed and ready to travel, as is Katie. I managed to get my rig in my GUN BAG! Unbelievable! Chuck

Both my current sport rigs are ringed at the hip and chest and I like them. One thing I do notice, though, is when I went to them I seem to have lost some of the "feel" during harness steering under canopy. I can't really explain it, it's subtle, but there. I have no concerns whatsoever that my rigs are going to fall apart due to the rings, though. Chuck