Emmie

Hey guys, So it seems that over the last month I've reached a plateau in my tunnel progression, and actually started regressing in my flying. Never thought that more tunnel time=worse flying. It's pretty frustrating. I've been super focused on hd transitions, and was so close to getting backflips and then all the sudden, I can't do them anymore! And, my headup is shit since I've been neglecting it focusing everything on head down. I know that not all sessions can be good sessions, but, lately every session has been a bad session! Has anyone experienced this before? Does it eventually go away?! I've been flying in the tunnel once or twice a week for almost two years now, and even if it was slow, I felt like I was always making progress, so this is completely weird, and extremely frustrating (not to mention expensive!) Any thoughts?

Thanks so much! That's super helpful, and big thanks for posting the pictures. It's a great looking suit, no doubt. And please, let me know about your experience with it.

Hey guys, Anyone have one? I'm thinking of getting one, and wanted to see what people's experiences were. I'll be primarily using it as a tunnel suit, so durability is pretty important. How do you like flying in it? I'm a fan of tight suits, so all the spandex is great for me. (Does anyone know whether they have any other colors other than red or black spandex?) Not a fan of the firecrotch look What were your experiences with ordering it from Slovakia? I think that's my biggest fear...what's their customer service like? Also, what did you pay for yours? The prices are listed in euros, and I assume there's a pretty hefty tax and shipping fees. Any comments at all are welcome. THANKS!!!

Thanks for all your help! Just wanted to give you guys an update: I finally got backflips!

Looking good, and after 21 hours of time, I wouldn't consider you a slow learner, I have a few more hours than you do, and your head down would kick my head down's ass!

Hey guys, Looking for some advice on transitions into head down. Let me give you a little bit of background on my situation. I'm a pretty good freeflyer, have about 25 hours in the tunnel, can fly pretty much every orientation...except...I'm having a REALLY hard time with head down transitions. I've tried cartwheels, backflips, and trying to tilt head down from a sort of atmo position, and all without any luck. In cartwheels, I end up on my back, with backflips, I end up over-rotating...it's so freaking frustrating!!! I'm also flailing with transitions in the tunnel, so I'm beggining to think I'm just transition-challenged, and will never get them! At this point, I can fly head down out the door either by myself, or in a linked exit, and I'm flying it just fine in the tunnel (but I still have to start off the net...which is getting old). So far, I've spent the last 5 jumps doing solos, and normally about about 4 minutes out of my weekly tunnel session working on transitions (probably over the last 3-4 months), but all without any luck! I just flail all over the place I'm looking to see what people's experiences with transitions have been. Did it take you very long to get them in terms of both jumps and tunnel time?(And I know...everyone's got a different learning curve...) What things helped you when learning to transition? Should I be doing anything differently? Help!!! I think a big part of the problem is the fact that I get frustrated when I don't get something right away, so I give up, and revert to doing things that I already know how to do...ugh!!!! Any help would be greatly appreciated!!!!

Well? My Z1 broke, and I got a Factory Diver as a replacement. Did a few jumps with it this weekend, and jump No. 1 scared the living crap out of me. The visor was fine in freefall, but the second I was under canopy, it got super foggy, and just got worse and worse. By the time I landed, I could barely see because there were was just a ton of condensation in the helmet. Pretty scary stuff. The jumps after, it got a little better. I put on the helmet right at the red light, and made sure to try to breathe out the hole through my mouth under canopy. There was still some condensation, but not as much...However, I would prefer to not have to worry about this on landing. So, my question is other than holding my breath, is there anything else I can do to help with the fogginess/condensation problem? Doing this for one or two jumps is fine, but I can't imagine having to do this every weekend...is there anything I can coat the visor in? Thanks!

So, I'm at a point where I am pretty comfortable flying head down in the tunnel (yay me!) I've been working on taking docks, forward/backward/ up/down/sidesliding movement, etc. and I can do al of that stuff pretty well...I still having trouble with transitions, so at this point, I'm starting off on the net. Are there any drills you can think of that I could be doing between working on all this other stuff to keep life interesting? Thanks!

Oh, pictures would be great! Thanks so much!!!

Hi guys, I have a Z1 issue and was wondering if anyone had similar problems, and if so, how you resolved them. The little knob thingie that opens and closes the visor doesn't seem to be keeping the visor closed anymore. It flying open on me in the tunnel last night, and I finally had to ducktape it to keep it shut. I took a look at it this morning, and it doesn't look broken or anything, so not sure what prompted this. It was sort of stuck before I put it on, so I'm thinking that maybe my trying to get it opened somehow broke it. Anyway, is this a common Z1 problem? Is it fixable? Thanks so much for your help!

Does anyone know who would sell the sticky tape that's on the back of the GoPro mounts? It's Industrial Strength Grade 3M Brand Adhesive Tape. Would a hardware store carry it? Thanks!

Hahaha, it sounds a little silly to spend that much money on a suit, but I do a lot of tunnel flying, and needed something high quality that wouldn't fall apart on me after a few hours. The Ouragan suit looked brand new after 20 hours (until I landed on a rock...,but that's a pilot error, not a manufacturing defect). Liquid Sky seems to be holding up well too. I think you get what you pay for. I had a cheap Kurupee suit when I first started freeflying years ago. It cost me less than 200 bucks. It literally was falling apart in less than 30 jumps. Like the zipper blew out, and stitches were coming undone all over the place....I basically threw away 200 bucks for nothing...Although, that's not to say that you need to blow half a grand to get a good quality suit. I had a Freakin suit that I thought was perfectly functional. It just wasn't as pretty as my other suits...and freeflying's all about looking good

My Ouragan Suit cost close to 700. The Liquid Sky suit I have now was around 600.

Skydive New England's open 7 days a week and flies an otter. Awesome dz, but, it may be a treck for you coming from CT.

Hmmm...personally, I think that things like body position can only be learned by actually flying it, either the sky or the tunnel, preferably both. What I think a dvd would be helpful with would be things like exits, approaching formations, flying once in a formation, etc. For me personally, I have a whole lot of tunnel time, so I can fly my body however I want to. But I am waaay less proficient with exits. Say I want to take out a linked 5 way sit out the door...well, I can guess what everyone should be doing out the door to make it work, but, I don't know for sure. This is the exact reason I love jumping with experienced organizers. They have the knowledge and experience they rely on that translate into successful skydives. I think that instructional dvds/books that could bottle up that knowledge/experience would be very helpful. Some things that are obvious to people that have done it thousands of times, while they may not be difficult to perform in the sky, are not so obvious to those that don't have the same number of jumps. I don't think there's anything like that out there, so there'd probably be a pretty decent market for this product.

Haha, you were so right, it took another month to move from poor head down flying to mediocre/semi decent hd flying! I'm crossing my fingers that in another month, I can get from mediocre to good (and get transitions down).

Will, you're a genius! I used steam from a tea kettle to get the mount off. Took less than 5 minutes, thanks!!!

Oooh, perfect! Any ideas of places that would have high pressure steamers? I don't really know what one is...or where to find them

So, back on the topic and as an update to my progress with hd, well, I'm definitely off the net, can fly the whole rotation can side slide (poorly), move up and down (poorly) and move forward and backwards (poorly). It took me over half a year to get here, and probably 7+ hours of just dedicated hd work. It will probably take another 6 months to actually move up from poorly to mediocre.

Yes, of course, or just use the tunnel's protecs, but I do lots of tunnel flying, and our skydiving season doesn't start for the next so I wanted to be able to use my fullface for the time being while looking for a secondary helmet. I guess the good thing is that this mount is so firmly attached to my helmet, that unless the plastic casing breaks, I will never loose my camera!

I just found out I can't use my helmet in the tunnel if it has the mount on it, so I need to get it off of there asap. Does anyone have any experience/advice with taking it off? It seems it's on there pretty securely. I thought about taking a screwdriver to it, but I also don't want to destroy the helmet in the process.

I think you're right, I didn't even think about the A and B license holders. I thought it was great, but that's probably because all but one of my landings were on the beach. Quite honestly, I think the younger jumpers would have been safer and better off landing at the beach rather than the dz. Hopefully, next year the boogie will be organized a little better. I would have been pissed off too if I flew all the way to Puerto Rico thinking I could land on the beach only to be told that I had to land at one of the worst landing areas I've ever seen.

I concur on the landing area at the dropzone, as well as the landing with the plane part. I landed there once, when they shut down the beach because of the surf and pounded it in pretty hard. Not saying that the pounding in part is the dropzone's fault, but landing there was very very sketchy. From the minute I saw that landing area, I pretty much classified it as my last resort out. However, that being said, I think that they did the best that they could, and the beach landings pretty much made up for the shitty landing area at the dropzone. If you were landing at the beach, there was absolutely no reason to not do a crosswind landing, the winds never went over 10 miles an hour at the very most. It seemed that the people that pounded it in, landed in trees, or got dragged into the surf were the people that were overly focused on landing into the wind. This was a great event. While the innitial organization could have been a little better, they did a good job bringing in organizers, keeping the planes running, getting the trolleys to pick us up from the beach, and organizing the parties. The only day the trolleys were an issue was Sunday, but I actually liked hitching rides from the locals, and never had an issue getting back to the dz. I think overall this was an awesome boogie, and I can't wait until next year!

Has anyone had any experience with this. I have my camera in the mail, and have a Z1 right now. I was wondering whether it's still possible to slide the visor up if the camera is not mounted to the helmet? I use my Z1 in the sky and the tunnel and don't want to buy a new helmet just for the tunnel unless I have to. Also, a separate question. Anyone ever mount a GoPro to a Gath? Picture? Thanks so much!

Thank you so much for all of your hard work Ari, it turned out to be a really great event! I'm already looking forward to the next one (so...start organizing!!!!) Marianna