SkymonkeyONE

There will be a ton of wingsuiters at the Raeford boogie in June. We are going to have all the demos that we brought with us to Dublin there, Marion. Those, plus all that Scott Campos has if you want to try other stuff. I look forward to seeing you again! Chuck

Tony Suits will definitely be there with all of their wingsuit demos. Jeff Nebelkopf will be driving there for them. Assuming there is a drawing for door prizes (I can't imagine that there would not be one), I will have a fantastic prize to give away from Sunrise Manufacturing (Wings). Chuck

I am not sure if there were any major US manufacturers other than JumpShack which did NOT apply for licensing of the Skyhook at this PIA. I know that Aerodyne and Sunrise Manufacturing (Wings) definitely have. Pretty soon I think it's going to be like the three-ring release, which is to say "standard" across the board.

You look like the neon pink type, JP.

Since I have actually gotten a couple of PM's from friends on "the east coast" telling me that their lofts charge either $45 or $50 as well, I feel I ought to respond to everyone with my general answer to all of those: -While your loft might charge a customer that much for the I&R, how much is the rigger doing the work getting paid for it? I know the answer to that question at this dropzone and the one I left a year ago. Gear stores which offer rigging and straight-up lofts all generally have overhead. The owners of those lofts are perfectly free to charge some additional stipend on top of what they have to pay the riggers they employ in order to make it worth their time. They are running a business. It's the same with dropzone-sanctioned packing concessions. The lead vendor is generally going to made fifty cents off of every single packjob that gets done in his tent/mat/buliding. THAT is the difference, guys. Additionally, I have yet to meet a loft-employed rigger who won't take work on the side. They do it either to make additional money or simply to help a friend out. Ultimately, the savy skydiver isn't going to have any trouble finding $35 packjobs (if they have to pay at all....) Personally, I am all for people making a dollar. I know for sure that I cannot swing a dead cat by the tail without hitting a rigger in the head at this dropzone. Same for Raeford.

No, it's not right. The landing area is just that. I will agree with JP 100%. Having a large group use the main landing area as their private dirt dive spot is asinine. PARTICULARLY when there are better-suited spots available about 200 feet away (and even closer to the boarding area). Hell, at our last event here at Z-hills they even allowed the RW bigway organizer to put up a circus tent in the main landing area! It's my opinion that this practice is permitted solely for the purpose of supporting the spectacle of the event. To make it somehow even more grand. That's fine and dandy sometimes, but it does not work at all when you have ANOTHER group of 70 people running a SEPARATE event on the same dropzone at the same time like we had a couple of months ago. Never mind the other fun jumpers on the DZ. We routinly had to land multi-plane formation loads around this other group who would not move out of the way when we were under canopy. Conversely, our group was told to get the hell out of the way when we were doing walk-outs in the same area and the other group was opening up. The problem was only exacerbated when more than half of the 160 people on the RW load would funnel themselves into this tiny little area left between the stupid circus tent and the hangar. So much for landing in designated quadrants..... Yes, I took it up with management. Chuck

I can promise you that our team (USASOC parachute demonstration team, "The Black Daggers") was the first who jumped within the capital airspace after 9/11. It was the opening game (first of the season to be televised) of Monday Night Football. Redskins versus Eagles. We jumped a UH-60 Blackhawk from 2000 feet, straight over the top of the stadium. Lovely. The game was actually halted for a bit around midway through because some security guard pepper-sprayed an unruly fan and the spray got sucked into the fans near the benches!

Not entirely accurate. The first person on the Golden Knights to fly a wingsuit was Jon Ewald. Jon was already a wingsuit pilot when he transered to active duty and tried out for the Golden Knights. He owned a GTi at the time. I taught his sister Jill to fly a wingsuit at the Mardi Gras boogie at moss point the year before Jon made the team (in his suit). Fast forward to Jon being a "new guy" on the team and him trying to get the leadership interested in putting some people on the black and gold demo teams in wingsuits. He did not get much attention that year because of his newbie status, but the next year he was successful in getting the unit to purchase one custom-logoed GTi using end-of-year funds. He got the suit and was allowed to start flying it out of GK aircraft and was tentatively given permission to get others on the team involved. As he was not a BMI, the team contracted me (two years ago) to run him through the course. This, so he could train others up within the organization without having to ask for outside help. As a BMI he has/had free usage of all available BirdMan demo suits then, but they were pretty tied up and only a few people got trained. Jon was given permission to order a couple more suits, so he went ahead and ordered those two Firebirds you saw in the pictures. I am actually surprised that the team didn't use the last winter training (in Yuma) to nail down a routine for wingsuiters in their regular program. In my mind it's a no-brainer to replace the diamond trackers with guys in wingsuits. Talk about range of flight! Jon's a good pilot and he did well in the BMI course. There are a couple of other great wingsuit pilots on the team as well, but I doubt you will ever see them on the road since they both belong to the competition teams: Chris Moore and Kurt Eisenbarger. I trained them both at Eloy three years ago. Chuck

I did over 400 wingsuit jumps under a Cobalt of one size or another. So long as they are in trim they are perfectly suitable for wingsuiting. In the end, ANY canopy which opens straight enough on a continual basis and never requires you to reach for your risers during the opening sequence is fine. Chris Martin made every single one of his 850+ wingsuit jumps under a Xaos 21.

Yeah, how did it taste? Like Chicken. Actually, more like frog legs (which taste alot like chicken). Snake is good eating.

Just west of Perth Australia in the Indian Ocean.

I got really sick of people stealing my gaffer tape rolls so I prodded around and found a great sourse online for cheap: www.tapebrothers.com They will ship you individual rolls for $12.50 apiece (2"x 50 yards) in pretty much any color you like. I got me some Flourescent Orange because that's how I roll and nobody on the DZ uses anything but black. It's the "Pro Gaff" brand. Sure beats the shit out of paying $30 a roll for black at Sunshine Factory! Chuck

I have been paid $500 for several one-jump shows, have gotten into countless events and had free run of the suite-level amenities, and have even been paid in all the Vidalia onions I could carry with me. Most importantly, though, is the simple fact that I (and the teams I was a member of) got asked to do those high-profile demos in the first place. There is simply nothing that compares to landing with the american flag into a bowl stadium, at night, to a capacity crowd for a Monday Night Football game in the nations capital (immediately after 9/11). Fucking awesome. Chuck

We need to start a thread somewhere, possibly bonfire, or maybe just in here for airport pick-up/drop-off. I fly into Hobby around 5:30 pm on the 10th of July and need a ride to Spacey. I also also need a ride back to Hobby prior to 10:00 am on Monday the 16th. The ride back to the airport is not so critical if no one is driving that way though. Chuck

On the contrary. A Red-blooded american Master Rigger who is about to the the DPRE for the region. Him and any number of other super-qualified riggers who don't attempt to make a living solely by packing. Please don't pretend to assume that people who charge more are more qualified than those who still charge $35. Chuck

I thought it was fantastic that the race announcer guy named Jessica Alba and Michael Chiklis, but didn't know the other two guys and called them "friends." The other two guys looked horrified and Chiklis started laughing about it.

Derek and Kyle Thomas were on the demo for sure. The suits were all built by Tony Uragalo.

I didn't even know anything about this. Is it sort of an inter-state mullet toss reunion boogie?

Did Mike tell you that personally? Call (386) 439-1036 and ask him direcly.

Method 1. That's how Joe taught me when he gave me my first one.

Me. January 20th 2007

Yes, Scott is the only six-time world champion eight-way jumper on the planet.

You really haven't ever heard that term? An "up" jumper is one who is licensed and is no longer considered a student. The term has been used for at least 40 years.

I have been jammed in a C-172 with four sport jumpers and the door off, but it was a dog and climbed very poorly. I could not imagine two tandem pairs in a C-172. I have also, on a number of occasions, been inside a C-182 (straight tail) with five jumpers and it was not pretty. The few times I was in a plane at that capacity there was always at least one jumper getting out low. I have never been to full altitude in a C-182 jammed with five jumpers and a pilot. Chuck

If you are already satisfactorily landing a Mamba at 2.1, then I don't think you are going to need to worry about 2.2 under a crossbraced main. Yes, HP nine-cells do land fine at that loading and yes you do start losing a lot of glide distance on landing at that wingloading under a nine-cell.