VectorBoy

That X-bow suit sure is pretty! Nice job on the vertical flite there, it looks like you had a monkey on your back. I would like to see that vid.

Do we stand a chance somehow, in a sick way, of glorifying the scars as right of passage. As in the fact that the majority of pro bull riders have titainium in their bodies, its a fact, its excepted... Now should it be expected? " Welcome to the botched swoop brotherhood. Here is the pin for your leg, some Ice for your ass. You will get your T shirt and membership card when you get out of ICU in a few months." This is also the case for Moto-cross riders. Some motor sports and many dangerous stadium sports. The spectaters don't mind a little carnage. You have to convince an up and coming jumper that he is not a spectator and carnage is not acceptable!

I think in your case, based on what you are telling us, that it will work for you. The problem in aggressive canopys for wingsuits comes when someone is hit or miss on that main then they add the demands of deploying a canopy they haven't mastered in regular freefall to the realm of deploying it from a wingsuit. Your first handfull of wingsuit jumps shouldn't have to be about the canopy combination. You should be very in tune with how your parachute opens and behaves or missbehaves. And you should have already have bagged the experience to deal with it if it does. Your first bunch of wingsuit jumps should be CONSUMED with flying your body in this otherwise new area of muscle memory, sensational feedback and incredible visuals ( it is really not that foreign and for some people it is very natural). But more importantly you must deploy in such a smooth, stable and symmetrical body position. This should be your focus on deployment nuttin else. You are no longer a flat plate plunging straight down. Your gliding forward through the air. Your burble is much bigger, taller and wider. Hell, look at the movies of Robert's base jump with smoke on the BM website, when you deploy you even want your vorticeses to be symmetrical. Looking the same on one side of your body as they are on the other side.

I'm going to the one that doesn't offer the possibilities of TORNADOES! If I wanted tornadoes I would just go in the Perris wind tunnel and have my kids blast me with a fire hose from below. Specialty aircraft? You see if the Herc even shows up this year ( or are they chapter-13 already). I doubt the DC-3 does.......There may be a DC-9, but it might be at LP also, and it will also be here most of the time. WFFC does have the best parties, some of the worst bands, some great hospitality by the supportive locals, some of the best parties, Some of the worst beerhag fun bags. All of the vendors are reasonable and not as commercial as they could be ( IE as gouging) It does sport the very tasty Carbonezone. Its also one of the easiest places to score crack..

What , beer hags without makeup?

I have a junked stand-up jet ski hull waiting for the next batch of junk drops ( if ever). But if I had my pref I would love to take one of those switchblades, like in the bond movie, off the back of a tailgate.

Dirt? He likes to video people having sex,. Now I'm not saying thats a bad thing.... . Now if he can only hook up with some people that like to be videoed the world would be a happy place.

I'll be in Vegas at Fly-A-Way tomorrow. I've got to work a trade show there, I don't drink or gamble so I just "have to go" to the tunnel. Quote I'm probably too late with this for you, But dollar for dollar avoid this tunnel and spend the time and money in Perris's skyventure. Fly- away's design is obsolete, it is not powerful enough. The thrust is completely in the center with a dead air perimeter. Its single large prop and plywood baffles, designed to concentrate the flow and focus the weaker power, create burbles as much as they cancel the P-factor. The staff caters to wuffos and could "be bothered" by divers wanting to improve. Perris Skyventure has more than enough power to fly in your personal tight RW suit for belly improvement and enough power for lighter weight flyers to FF in without resorting to a tunnel suit. Perris has many coaches available for both disciplines and a whos who of customers practicing most times during the day. You can spend a few minutes in the tunnel and make a 2 minute walk to a 15 minute call afterward without ever changing your jumpsuit. You can also learn plenty just by watching the goings on.

Nice opening canopy. Turns like a monster. Glides like a 7 cell. Some people believe the flare is more efficient and like it better than the same size spectre.

Not even to wash the wingsuit? Eeeuuwww!

women realize it's not worth buying an entire Pig, just to get a little sausage. Kelly You don't get it. Its not about the sausage. The Cow can get all of the sausage she wants. Its the pig's bread the cow wants.

That is indeed a very good idea. It would also bring wingsuit flying to the attention of aviators which can't hurt either Or to the attention of supermodels. You can't let Jari keep all the babes to himself..

I looked for hours for free bag & PC, Nothing. Then Hired an ultra light to take me up looking for it. He is very experienced in doing just that as he also runs a rigging loft. After 10 minutes we found it landed within 60 feet of it an had to start a sweeping pattern to find it again. I was standing within 15 feet of it and it was invisible. Couple more steps a Viola! This was all in brush no higher than 3 feet. I watched the main coming down but saw someone stop their car to grab it only to give up as they saw me coming to get it. I know of two individuals who watched people drive off with their pretty new mains. Nothing they could do, just like a bad dream.

Loic told me that the New S-fly has even better characteristics/workmanship than the old suit and the facsimile Matter suit. Just watched adrenaline Rush featuring Adrian and partner in wingsuits. The Film made it sound that these were custom suits made by Adrian based on Patricks original. They looked like classics. Seems to me that the world distance record holder may be interested in a newer offering that can go a greater distance than something based on the classic. The S3.....Hmmm!

Truely Derek, I'm at a big DZ. It is part of "the tour" home of "the team". Home base to a LOT of talent, read it as real world serious swoopasouras talent. no delusions just guys that can! Even the instructors at the two schools due to student volume, jumpable days, And the level of skill required just to get a job there, are cabable of burning it up on "the tour". Most can swoop big time, not all do on the tour or "have to". This would be a bigger question for all of them that really can swoop it before it ever becomes an issue for me. But lets say that it does come to that and I have to do it. I can always land out....... way out. Does this help?

I have one also, but it had more to do with the shrivel flap on the Base PC pouch causing a total. Once the reserve deployed pressure was off of the container and the main deployed. Both canopys played nice together.

I guess I don't understand this. An ellipse is a well defined mathematical curve. A canopy is either elliptical (or a reasonable approximation thereto) or it isn't. The Evil reality is that mine is a back to back trapezoid.

Not unless you have expoding shoe laces.

[Fine. I was gonna buy you dinner at Capt. Hiram's. But since I'm not special enough for you to come visit... Do they serve fish sticks there?

Furthermore, I'm not sure doing freefly tracking dives has a very big impact on "real" tracking skills- i.e. going faster, longer and slower. Freefly tracks are, if I understand correctly, mostly about flocking together and having fun, not getting as far as possible. Quote In my reference to combat tracking you better believe the rabbit is going to get away fast and flat or be funneled by several guys at once that want his slot.

You will never fly Big way RW without very good tracking skills. And working your way there your peers will critique that ability constantly. Tracking at break off for either discipline is different. RW conserve altitude, turn, track fast and flat. For free flying speeds are fast and you don't want to cork so you do a gradual transition to this flat and fast position. Using this extra speed may give the impression of incredulous extra tracking ability. Then again the RWer has to do this from a stand still without going head low at the start. Then there is the BASE jumper who has to do this from a stand still in zero air before ever getting to terminal or else. Free flyers are always tracking for fun maybe doing tricks in the form of relative tracking. Or playing smear the leader combat tracking. Yet flying a little dirty so every one can play. The excellent flyers in both disciplines have some of the best tracking ability. Its probably harder to get away with poor tracking skills in RW. If you do mostly small way RW at a small cessna dropzone it may not be as criticall as the person that is on 20 way RW every weekend. The only way to find out is to attend a tracking camp doing several days of nothing but and see where you stand. You will have fun and you learn somthing. I hope this helps.

They don't approve yet.

Yes, and think of all of the rural dropzones that really don't have to deal with ATC as closly as the saturated coastal airways gobbled up by several 30 mile area overlapping "approach" systems. These may be dealing only with a "center" that may cover the area of several states in some part of the country. Pilots have the option of not contacting them at all. Hell I use to know pilots that would fly way out of there way to skirt ATC and use corridors as much as possible , threading the needle, to avoid having to talk to anybody, yet fly in some of the most congested airspaces in the world. This is getting harder to do BTW but still happens. This is just the general aviation world, ask the jump pilots at Elsinore about sailplanes and hangliders near their dropzones. No radio and no way to get reports of other traffic, and invisible in the case of hang gliders. At a tiny grass strip dropzone where I started static line progression back in the mid eighties. We shared the field with gliders and aerobats. I remember once being under canopy with the aerobatics box right behind, the aircraft was close enough that I could tell he was running a pretty rich mixture by the smell.

I agree with your advice to be very familiar with your canopy before going wingsuit. But a certain paradigm in the design of both of those canopys are pistol quick turns.... More so than an equally loaded high performance x-braced canopy. Turns, thats all. This could have an effect on your wingsuit deployment for the quik second you are even a hair out of symetry during your deployment. Both of these canopys don't fly straight level after being spun up. Neither are easy to kick out of line twists easy. Now, they are both known for super soft openings. Cobalts and X-fires have a better rep for flying straight under line twists. But if things go bad under the cobalt or X-fire these will dive much more than the stiletto or Diablo. I bet if we held a poll about wingsuit reserve rides due to line twists the stiletto would be at the top of the list.

Its another facet in the world of freeflying. Its cool, its its own thing and not like any other type of freeflying. And with the right group I could do it all day long and have done it all week long when Frick was visiting ( Marco & Gigliola ). It wasn't for everybody, some of my friends didn't get it, didn't like it and didn't want it. Most of my fun jumps that week were nothing but. Some of us ate it up. Come to think about it Eli Thompson was on a bunch of them just for fun. Said he couldn't get enough. Try it see if you like it. If not there are other facets waiting around the corner for you.