SkymonkeyONE

I was told that it was going to be an "improved" Phantom derivative. That's second hand from a conversation one of our visiting wingsuiters had with Rob Jones at Morpheus. Other than that suit? Who knows.

Just a quick note here concerning the comparison I made between a Velo 79 and the JVX 70 (hybrid) that Jamie Knoop has here at Z-hills. The two canopies are EXACTLY the same size. They were both laid one on top of the other in the packing tent yesterday and, as I said, are identical in size. Nine square feet is a lot of "fudge factor" in measurments between companies as far as I am concerned. Odd, but positively true. That explains alot to me when I hear statements like "my JVX flys big". Chuck

Hey, it was great seeing and jumping with you guys. Sorry I was out of town for most of your trip! Chuck

I am going to agree with James here, with a caveat. There are plenty of photos of us doing larger-than-20-way formations where the front ten or more people are incredibly tight. True, as you get past the third row on some formations the gaps loosen up, but saying those looser flyers are "not in the formation" is BS. In my opinion, on those loads the best flyers simply must be setting the example up front, and staged at various points a bit farther back. That gives the less experienced flockers very stable targets to line up on. As people get better at maintaining relativity, they get to move up to the very-tight leaders. Eventually, entire 20-plus-ways will be flying with 12 inch gaps. There are plenty of people flying right now that could get together for such "perfect" skydives. Problem is, it's hard to get them all on one dropzone. In the meantime, I don't have any problem with the structure of all of the current and past wingsuit events. Everybody benefits from jumping with better jumpers. This truly is a discipline where bigway experience and tight freefly skills help. My second-ever wingsuit flight (in 1999) was a seven way with three docks led by Jari H.M. Kuosma at Carolina Skysports. I took to it very easilly. Some don't. It's these nice large events that we put on these days that get's those "not so naturally talented" birds on the right track. On that note, I took a Z-hills jumper here up on his first and second flights yesterday (in a Phantom) and he positively smoked it. All I could do was look up and go "nice job!" His second jump involved two docks, him doing over and unders, and even a backfly attempt! I really love it when people like that simply materialize and are instantly qualified for bigger and better things. Now for the caveat: like the TopGun guys are doing overseas, I am totally down with doing smaller, very-exclusive, technical flocking weekends. We end up breaking down into such groups anyway at our Flock and Dock events. This upcoming March Flock and Dock 3.0 will be no exception. Big-way stuff with everyone involved, and smaller groups doing very tight and clever formations. I can't wait. Chuck

Personally, I would not care, especially if I were buying one as my "only suit". In the PF line, the back-vented Phantom is positively my favorite as "all around".

Mark and Al are both right on the money. While I remove my slider every single skydive, I only attach my RDS lines when I am doing hop and pop full-on training jumps or competing (which is rare these days). There are many, many benefits to removing your slider (visibility is one, wasting less time dicking with your slider stowing another), but the added hassle of jumping your RDS in "full" mode on routine skydives where you are going to run into traffic in the pattern is simply not worth it. I used to jump my full system all the time when I was doing AFF and pulling high every jump, but I would never consider it on any of the belly RW jumps I organize here at Z-hills. I have been jumping them since they were invented, as have many other posters here in this forum. You can trust that we are all speaking the gospel. Chuck

The back-vented Phantom (Phacro) is a brilliant wingsuit.

I used to own a 75 Velo and it was a fun, very-fast canopy. MUCH faster than the 74 VX I owned previously. The little Velo also opened MUCH better than the VX. I loaded the Velo 75 at 2.38 without weights. At the same time, I also owned a Velo 79. The four additional feet added tons more distance (about 50 feet) to my runs. I found that surprising. I ended up upsizing one more time to an 84 and found it to be my favorite canopy in the Velo line, though I competed for two seasons under my 79. There is a buddy of mine here at Z-hills now jumping a brand-new hybrid JVX 70. His other canopy was my old Velo 79 which he jumped about 20 pounds of lead with. He positively zooms under the newer, though smaller, JVX. His speed and distance have both increased dramatically. It's Jamie Knoop in case anyone is wondering. Apparently, his is the smallest JVX to be sewn and sold. Chuck

Go Beek! Not bad for a washed up Airforce guy! Great win, brother!

You are entirely correct, Sooty! That said, I didn't just about rip my big toe off my foot and get hauled off in the meat wagon like Jody Conn did a few days ago here on a botched 450. My "big" turn is still only a 360. Ultimately, I don't think anyone has any business throwing turns larger than 270 in competition if they cannot hit the gates every single time and stay within the course boundaries using that "little" 270. "Go big or go home" doesn't mean shit when you get spanked routinely by girls and old men with Vectran lines in competition. Still, I applaud Ian's attitude. I guess it's all good so long as people don't start using his and Eldon's name in the same sentence as it relates to such "experimentation". Chuck

I think you can get a wedge that is custom made for Neptunes now. It's also canted inward so that you can more easilly read it when you are under canopy and have loosened your chest strap Very clever, plus it only takes a few seconds to remove if you feel like doing so.

The flight manual is available for download on the official BirdMan website, so just look there: www.bird-man.com

Where Don is, Spence is. Actually, Don beats Spence to most boogies. And NO, I am not coming to the Farm. Not unless I can bring my own float and rope anyway.

Dude, spend less time working on "trendy" turns and you will always finish at least in the middle of the pack. There is no turn more effective for scoring cleanly in competition than the 270.

Your choices in the USA for the BMI course are here in Z-hills with me, in North Carolina with Scott Campos (assuming he is available), in Lodi, California with Ed Pawlowski, or possibly in Deland or elsewhere on the east coast of FL with Perry. There are no BMCI's at Eloy, but you might contact Scott and see if he is stopping back by there after the PIA symposium with his girlfriend.

you would have to ask the camera monkeys, bro. Scotty?

McNincompoop got spanked by TWO girls, but he DID beat the new moderator.

Looks like any weekday here at Z-hills! Still, I love Spain and it would have been nice to be there with you guys. Chuck Z-Flock

That, or simply ignore what the old school thinking was and just wear your alti on your mudflap or chest strap. Nobody I know who does that suffers any in the way of accuracy at pull-time (the only time that matters really). I don't even teach that in FFC's anymore. I wear my neptune on my left hand (rotated toward the thumb), but never look at it. I set my Dyter for breakoff and pull-time, make sure it looks right with my eyes, check my neptune and dump. I believe you do lose some "perfection of form" when you crane your neck over and drop a gripper to check a hand-mounted alti, so I am most assuredly going to just buy a wedge and put my neptune on the mudflap. Chuck

Dude, you weren't lying when you said you got spanked!

Jeff does have tremendous range in his Mach1, but he is also two inches taller than me and possibly five pounds lighter. I will also say that Jeff has more time backflying than most other people have on their belly in a wingsuit. There have been a total of zero other people who have flown that suit that have gotten away from me. There have been a ton of people here try though.....I might end up with one just for shits and grins, but at this point I think my first Tony wingsuit will be the Aerobat. Chuck

Joe Bennett. "GoLowJoe" on here.

I am in.

Just a quick note here. I made several jumps with Yuri when he was tinkering with his weights and I while he did pull away horizontally from me towards the end of the skydives, he was also dropping out. I was able, in my S6 to catch up to him after he pulled far below me, then (from hundreds of feet higher) rip a 180, swoop him under canopy, then fly another twenty seconds before I pulled. If it's a race to get a certain distance away from your exit point, then I guess he wins. That said, I could have gotten much farther away by the same pull altitude in my suit. Actually, either of my suits. Yuri is a much bigger guy than me though. Moose, in Scotty's V2 and as compared to Yuri, seems to have more vertical range. I think it's his Swedish body type. You know, long torso and lighter weight. I did not jump with Yuri after he "fixed" his vents. He did solos on all of those jumps and the rest of us were flocking, so I have no report as to how those jumps went for him. One thing I can tell you for sure though: you would never catch me jumping leg weights like he was doing. You ought not have to do such things just to get a suit to fly comfortably. Chuck

The forums offer tremendous benefit to those of us savy enough to wade through the one liners and read the well-thought-out posts from truly experienced jumpers. They are easy to spot in my opinion. I don't think there has been a single question about canopy piloting that has not been answered at least a dozen times. Using the search function definitely helps. Knowing who's posts to ignore helps alot as well. Simply shooting me a PM will get you an honest-to-god straight answer or opinion on anything I have landed under in my twenty-six years of jumping (well, as of the 24th of this month anyway). Chuck