Couloirman

i have a ground launch specific wing, but a lot of skydivers just use their mains. There are some threads about it on here if you search, but you dont need snow, plenty of people foot launch as well.

you forgot speed. definitely speed. if it was all about the time we would all be flying student sized navigators

yeah, was about to call your bluff on that one. Plus speedflying is way faster and makes you look cool. woopys, not so much...

I was going to say the exact opposite. The people I come across seem to think its some mythical thing to be a skydiver and so unbelievably difficult to accomplish. When I tell them that anyone can do it and there are people who are 80+ years old who I have jumped with they start to realize that's its not such a big deal. You are just falling, lets not make it out to be harder than it is. Im not saying its easy to be a skygod at freeflying, winguits, etc... but any idiot with minimal coordination could become a pretty decent freefaller with just 10-20 minutes of tunnel time and then probably pass all their aff levels first try. Whether they kill themselves under canopy is a different story...

It wasnt too high for me at those numbers, but Im REALLY good at butt sliding YMMV what was your wingloading/what canopy were you flying on your last 18 jumps? Dont buy a parachute without having either a) flown that same size/platform canopy several times and been totally comfortable under it, or b) having so many jumps on a canopy of a larger size that you just KNOW the next size down will be fine.(I dont think 18 jumps fits in this second category). Isn't there a 170 rental rig at your DZ? Rent it, fly it and report back!

did you buy that rhino cam setup or build it yourself? Im trying to make myself something like that and was curious how exactly you went about it, thanks.

really cool flying in that video but my god that singer is awful. I thought someone was skinning a cat or something.

EPIC pics! Wingsuit novice question here: When I have been deploying from full flight I thought I was supposed to collapse the leg wing, touch both hands to the BOC, grabbing my handle with the right hand and be absolutely symmetric with both arms during the pitch. In the pic of 'Lutz deploying' he is clearly very asymmetrical with his right arm being collapsed all the way touching the PC, and his leg wing all the way open and left arm wing half inflated. Is this just a BASE thing to keep flying it through deployment, get more object separation/losing less altitude and just dealing with a harder opening, that in the skydiving environment is just not necessary? Thanks

hmmmm, purposeful rear riser landings with a skydiving canopy with both brake lines still attached seems like it would be easier than on a slider down base jump where you lost both toggles. Wouldn't the trailing edge of the canopy be a lot more stable with the toggles holding them down than without, even though it wouldn't really seem like they are doing anything if they've got a few inches of slack behind them like a canopy is supposed to have? Just my intuition, not stating a fact. Anyone else agree/disagree?

i just got a sick pair of winter work/ski gloves from the home depot for $10. They're awesome in the sky and you cant beat the price.

Gin nano toggles are not twitchy. Since the wing was made for speed riding the brake travel range was lengthened so that while skiing, even when you get thrown off balance a bit and make balance corrections with your hand the wing does not buck you too badly. I can attest from first hand experience that front riser dives will fully collapse the wing. I did some controlled experiments on powder days with skis on, not too high off the deck with rears and fronts and the fronts were way less forgiving than the rears. Double fronts caused total frontal collapse before I was even in a full pull up(then I landed on my feet and skied away so it was all good) My rule from then on was don't play with riser travel any longer than a trimmer is set for, they are only a certain length for a reason.

That's the main problem that I have with my nano, the inability to use rear risers for steering. That's the only reason I would ever consider switching to something more GLX like. The nano is pretty much a thicker stiletto, I laid mine out on top of one and they are very similar in shape at equivalent sizes, line trim is a bit different though, and the recovery arc on a 12m nano is much shorter than an equivalent sized stiletto which has a short recovery arc to begin with.

Paul is a good guy who I have dealt with several times and will make right issues that need to be made right. But YOU had it inspected, YOU made the decision to buy it after the satisfactory inspection, and YOU jumped it when it blew up. This sounds like no fault of Paul's and calling him out on a public forum like that is poor form.

what happened at 1:15? wheres the aftermath? So is it worth the upgrade from the original gopro?

yeah, of course its fine. Its not very different from when you buy a used canopy, it will often come with slinks and you can just throw them on your risers. If they were in good enough condition to jump on your current canopy, why wouldn't they be ok for the next? If the used canopy didn't come with soft links, you can be pretty sure that either 1) the canopy has zero jumps on a new re-line and the previous owner didn't bother to buy new slinks for it(get new slinks with every reline btw), or 2) they put their used slinks on their new canopy just like you're asking about. Did you just buy a new or used canopy? In my opinion softlinks should stay with the canopy, but some other people don't like that idea as much. Every used main I have ever bought came with soft links, but I have also switched softlinks between canopies and its fine. The fact that you are asking this question however would probably lead me to recommend you to ask a rigger to 1) check your slinks to make sure they are still in good enough condition to jump(i've seen people ruin them by tearing strands with their fingernails undoing them from their risers so be gentle), 2) hang up the canopy to attach the softlinks to the new canopy. Its much easier to get the lines on the correct soft link, in the correct order if the canopy is hanging up when you're doing it, and have the rigger give you a continuity check of your lines after you do finish, and 3) have someone you trust check that you 'closed' the slink correctly or else you'll be in for a good scare on your next jump when you lose a riser or 2 worth of lines...

"Dual Record with 8.3MP still image capture Dual record capability lets you capture 8.3MP still images while shooting high definition video, so you can capture those special moments without having to switch recording modes." so did I read this wrong then? does that mean record video while snapping photos with a bite switch or something? EDIT: yeah, I guess that makes sense, oopsies.

8.3 MP frame grabs! the frame grabs alone almost make me wanna splurge on it... I dont freefly much, just groundlaunch, BASE, and wingsuit, but I dont wanna limit myself to a camera that will suck for filming freeflying just in case I like it. Tough call if the price point were closer, if someone would just buy my damn snowmobile then I could justify it, but might have to stick with the tried and true cx 100 being less than half the price of the 500V.

'The previous world record landing was also in the shadow of Mount Everest at a drop zone at 12,350 feet (3,764 meters) made last year, the first year Nepal allowed skydiving in the high mountains.' So does that mean that actually, I held the world record before this jump, by speedriding Mt Elbert, the tallest peak in the rockies at 14,443 ft last year and doing touch and goes above 14K? Or maybe I held the record for when I landed my BASE rig at 13,000ft after going off a cliff? Hell, my avatar is even of me flying and landing at 12,900ft, also last season on a 129 sq ft elliptical. I think that article is a bit contrived as I'm pretty some very tall mountains have been groundlaunched on skis and foot(Aconcogua to name one by Francois Bon). The highest skydive to parachute landing, sure, Ill give you that because that's probably documented; but the article states highest parachute landing ever, which was not true for the previous record, and I have my suspicions about this one as well given the amount of high alpine ground launching/BASE jumping going on in the Alps, and now in America as well. Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to be a killjoy, its still a cool jump that they did, and props to them, but world record claiming using those specific words for it is far fetched.

id probably take the P2 off your hands if youre selling it you crazy jumping bean. You should give me valentines number as well as I need a new container for a 280.

we were just talking about this the other day when people were going up even though we could clearly hear thunder close by. Someone on the load said not to worry because you are not grounded so absolutely NOTHING would happen. I have a seriously hard time believing this. At the least it could set up some kind of circuit between the metal on your rig and either a shirt thats soaked through to your body, or altimeter, or anything. This has to have happened before, maybe a paraglider thermalling who couldn't get down in time with really strong updrafts?

Ive got several hundred foot/ski launches on wings down to a 12m(129 sq ft) gin nano, almost 200 skydives mostly on wings comparable to a sabre 2 150 loaded at 1.33 which I downsized to very quickly, and just a dozen or so BASE jumps on a Blackjack 260. I have also ground launched a stiletto 135 and 150 about 100 times, so have a tiny bit of experience with ellipticals and how they fly, and can help explain the main difference between these speedwings and skydiving wings and why you should not downsize so rapidly to an elliptical platform. There is absolutely no similarity between similarly sized speedwings and skydiving wings other than they both fly through the air. The recovery arcs on speedwings are borderline non existent. I can whip a 360 on my 12m nano flying at 13000ft loaded at 1.667 at under 100 feet and not crater into the ground. There is no skydiving canopy that has this short of a recovery arc and that is the huge difference between even semi elliptical canopy's and speedwings. Everyone says 'oh, a stiletto has a really short recovery arc' but compared to what? It is compared to the other high performance super elliptical canopys on the market that would attract the same customer base of experienced jumper, and is not compared to big boxy canopys like the monarch. My advice would be you could definitely go to a sabre 2 170, fly it for a little bit and will know by your landings if you're ready for a 150, but definitely stop there for a long time if you even go down that fast. The Sabre 2 150 is a really good canopy to learn to swoop on in my opinion, and no one should be learning to swoop on smaller canopy's than this(take with grain of salt though coming from the guy who has never done more than a 180 front riser approach). Also, flying in traffic is more difficult than just avoiding objects while speedflying; trees dont move, dumbasses under canopy do!

They don't really go behind your back, there is one on each toggle, and it goes from the toggle, to the point where the front and rear risers split and is made of very stretchy elastic. A lot of time you have to stash your wing in a not so neat manner and the toggles get tangled up in the lines. With this attachment, even when there are lots and lots of tangles with the toggles in the suspension lines, you just follow the elastic from the base to the toggle and it pretty much untangles itself. It also makes a much easier way to visually see that your steering lines aren't twisted a bunch, and if they are makes it very easy to correct these twists because tension knots are the last thing you'd want on a committing launch.

a quick one from today on vail pass, flying in a T-shirt and trying to get down before the blizzard hit. Sled access, no walking, 45 seconds of flight time, not too bad if you ask me.

one from a few weeks ago right outside of Boulder on a 12m nano. Got some more big mountain ski flying pics I need to get from my buddy before I post 'em...

do they, and other skydiving manufacturers measure projected, or flat area? Im assuming flat cause that would make a lot more sense, but Im curious because my speedflying wing says both in the manual, and i'm not sure which size to use to compare to skydiving mains that Ive flown as well.