VectorBoy

Agreed, If you are in a wingsuit you will not hit the stabilizer unless you allow yourself to hit the stabilizer. With the exception of If the pilot puts the plane in an aggressive dive then it does not matter if the jumper is in a wingsuit or not. This should be regarded as an awareness and communication bulletin.

Yes it has airlocks front and back leg vents.

I've sold 2 S3s this year both in great shape for $400 and $600 respectively. Cheap good suits are out there.

I was pre committed to doing CReW and did not believe the wingsuit turnout would be what it was. My bad, and I got teased for showing up without my sport rig and WS. I did get some nice flights in though and one spectacular CReW ride.

Thanks for the jumps everybody. Sorry I only managed a few with you guys. Pleasure meeting you James. Have a great time in Chicago.

Thanx Squeak I loved those.

you still need to take a coarse with myself to be wsi rated. Right now their are less than 10 WSI's out there. Every one has had extensive training. No ratings are handed out like with alot of bmi and pfi ratings. You can't get this rating by giving someone head sorry Jeff please tell my you are dipping into my unattended dime bag of sarcasm. If not I'm going to have to declare you are bunking way too close to the monkey-bago and have received a large stray dose of flux from the skymonkey perception vortex generator, for which my friend,..... there is no cure.

You can jump on released student status. The person has completed AFF and can do solo jumps ( or jump with a coach or instructor ) but has not enough jumps to take the test and apply for an A license.

Positively not. In the beginning of this "modern" wingsuit era, you could not make a wingsuit jump built by BirdMan unless you had 500 jumps....period. It was not until Rantoul 2003 that we lowered that number to 350 for the WFFC and then, the next year, lowered it to 200 jumps (within 18 months) if you were trained by a BMI and flew with them on your first flight. Chuck Blue Bird man's Jari and Kim came out west in the summers of 01 and 02 to promote the product. They held first flight courses, they sold suits. I would venture to say that a goodly sum of the attendees had less than 500 jumps........ more than 200 yes .........but gauranteably less than 500. Manifest was overseeing events in both cases and would not allow jumpers with less than the required jumps attend. So its safe to say 200 was OK with bird-man ( with instruction ) at that time, at least out west. By 03 you could get an S3 from BM with a little over 200 jumps. BY 04 Robert left and that was a rebirth of an era.

tandem ratings are do not come into play with what i said and they serve a purpose since they are held to be more responsible for a non-skydiver's life. there are other 'teaching' ratings out there, just use those. For further reading on this subject, search for last yrs post I started about this . You do know this entire reply to your post was sarcasm, right?

I am simply over Glen's anti-establishment rants. I am not "the establishment". You fuckers do what you like, but get over your problem with "instructors" and people who actually do enough for the sport to acquire sponsors. You all sound like whiny bitches....seriously. Chuck Blue D-12501 AFF/SL/TM-I, PRO, S&TA, BMCI-4 Z-hills Actually I'm not making myself clear enough. I have posted before and I'll state again I'm actually more tolerant of the new Rated instructors, say than Jarno in this thread for example, than some other rated instructors that want more from the system that they are a part of. Are you aware that Jarno was the first one to post, in this thread, that things are not as right as they should be in the instructor ranks..... not me? So lets be clear I don't have a problem with instructors, I don't have a use for them but thats not a problem. I for one am not delusional about there being some magical way to increase the instructors skills out there other than, in time, skills getting increased via experience. I will be the last guy to bash the new guys that try to become instructors and have been supportive of some who have. The whole governing body superseding the manufacturer rating theory will absolutely not make better flyers out of the current crop of instructors in the present time. Time will if they are still around. I agree with your whiny bitch comment. In no other discipline/ forum do you hear " we need more governance" or "we need the government to step in" like we hear in this forum. Thats gay! I'm ashamed of you guys. And in no other forum do we hear " I am the foundation of safety in this discipline, I am the cornerstone of performance, I bring the bling to the wing" , Like we do in this forum. Think about that one and get over yourselves!

(Waiting for Ed, Mike and Glen to respond) My next suit will be a bold departure, just not as bold as pink.

... not like it is harder or more dangerous than Crew or skyboarding. Zach the fine body of rated instructors would disagree with you at this point. Instructing in wingsuits is as hard as instructing a would be tandem master.......oh and managing a successful two way between to rated wingsuit instructors..... man thats a bitch of a challenge, apparently. A USPA level wingsuit instructor rating will happen because Wingsuits are now banned in Italy or something like that and so many new people are getting hurt in wingsuits nowadays. But first our governing body will have to create the HP canopy instructor rating chief instructor and the air traffic landing pattern controller rating. First those tasks that need to be accomplished and then onto our burden since we wingsuiters are 40% of the total of the injurys/deaths in skydiving world wide, despite the fact we make up less than 5% of the total skydivers. ** Disclaimer** "a lot of the unofficial 'reading material' available online is not always the best advice possible... " This entire post is a direct testament to the statement above taken from the 14th post in this tread. Adhering to the information available in the product manual will help the user achieve much better product satisfaction and safer flights.

Who makes it?

Is this were I give you a hard time about the same 'ol colors?

So I've got a choice... keep my Lightning-equipped CRW dedicated rig... or sell it to get a wingsuit... ... Simple, keep the CReW rig and get a used cheap 7 cell for it-= Pd160, triathalon, cheap reserve ( unless you have a sport rig suitable for WS now) and then get a second hand WS from the classified.

With all of the "big names" that are pushing for it, it's only a matter of time. There are big names in Wingsuiting? Fuck me! I know there are fantastic flyers pushing the boundaries of human flight and designers advancing the state wingsuit design. But aren't they too busy with all of that on their plate? And I thought all of the "ones" pushing for it don't really accomplish anything or make anything? They're not big names they are just little mouths that roar.

> Some of us still pay $13 to 13K......... Be safe Ed I actually I knew a response was coming from one of you guys after my post, Ha! Made you post.

because i choose to jump a small canopy, my hard deck is 5000' to deploy, just in case,. That is like getting more than the 60 seconds of a regular skydive plus a hop and pop on the end for canopy fun. With the gas prices jacking jump ticket rates more of us should look into that.

Glenn --- when you start bitchin it brings a tear to my eye.................Oh the good old days!!!!!!!!! I'm not bitching I'm amused that now that these guys have plenty of rated instructors to go around for everybody, which is what they wanted, they are unhappy with the quality of them. Its just comedy. They won't be happy until the have a rating for wingsuits administered by the european space agency.

Ryan>What ? I think Matt an mccordia just finished saying they have ther Ratings because it means something to them so how are they feeling sorry for them selves Quote Jarno wrote this: "At the moment, there isnt a boogie you can go to, without 75% of all attendees having some form of a wingsuit rating. Yet when you see most people fly, they cant even get a normal 2 way to fly together." "But there's also a large bunch of people out there who didnt really earn that rating. And Im not even talking about an exam. Im just talking about having the skills as an instructor, which the rating they 'flash' indicates they have..." Honestly he probably only let this little bit of negativity slip as a result of coming down off of a high from attending some really great wingsuit boogies this summer. kind of like a post pardom effect. Ryan>How did you start your skydiving carreer ??? Did you pay for coach jumps to get you a b c and so on. Isnt this the same thing... Quote No Ryan its not the same thing as AFF or AFFI or Tandem rating. I only paid for AFF and a coach for my a not my C,D Ryan> Wingsuit Instructers are in the ealry stage and eventually it will be a uspa and Cspa regualtion. Every part of this sport started and ended up this way no ????? Quote No not needed it would have happend already if it was needed. It won't happen in the future if it continues to not be needed.

And knowing you a bit better, I believe you are definately part those trying to further the dicipline the right way. critisizing (tongue in cheek or not) everyone who does not share you vision of how it should be... and I guess thats mostly what puts you off of the whole 'official' instructors thing...or did some instructor do bad things to you in the basement or touch you in the private place...its ok to be scared Don't be fooled I'm not doing anything to promote the discipline now and not pretending to. There are guys that do way more work in that regard. My hat is off to them. We did in the past do FFC and loan spare suits all for free. Then we realized that such a life was for suckers and now we just fly. In the past we got bashed by the factory hags that didn't think we should be doing it without a rating. The ones that didn't pay for their own suits. We payed for ours and all of our demo suits too. The consumer paid for the hags free suit. We got shit on by the factory reps for mentoring without paying for a rating while supporting the manufacturer with the purchase of more suits. The reps didn't pay for anything, few of the reps lifted a finger for the sport. I don't support that manufacturer anymore. Now we don't care who is an instructor or not. My predictions, or visions as you say, of how it will be are personal, not for sale, and I don't give a fuck who aggrees or doesn't, I could be very wrong with my predictions BTW. As it goes no intervention is currently needed. More accidents and injuries and you have it your way. Will you have a celebration if the governing bodies come breathing down your leg wing? Sounds like that is what you want. I don't care about the instructor effect. In the past we were put off by some of the dialogs that went on because we were not rated and the way we were treated. It was funny then and now every once in a while. But nobody is picking on the unrated mentors anymore. You guys are now picking on yourselves. You say the factory level system is flawed and needs revamping, I was told it was perfectly safe and that we were not over and over and over again. It better be safe now there are rated instructors enough for everybody.

You are miss reading me. I don't have a vector rating. I don't have a first flight worthy trainer suit any more. I haven't conducted a first flight course in years. I would if needed without hesitation. I have recommended mentors who will do a fantastic FFC. Some are rated I's some just fly really well. I don't bash anybody who has a rating. I play nice with all of them, except the frauds. I'm not picking on anyone who contributes. Not you not Matt. Not even the score of new I's you are having a problem with, Jarno I'm not rebelling against a factory instructor program as none are recognized or required by my governing body therefore don't really need to exist or more importantly rebelled against by me. Let this last sentence really soak in. I love to poke the stick at it when it gets all serious and self righteous but its completely legal to just ignore it here, most people do. You guys are basically unhappy with yourselves. The reality is that the governing body will not step in and most of us don't want them to. You are unhappy with your own factory level instructor programs, the very ones you've signed up with. Question is what are you going to do about bad rated instructors? Its up to you guys to fix yourselves.

well said Jarno. Yes agreed, Jarno very well said. Although you can say it because you have the rating not despite it. When a bunch of guys without ratings said the same thing a few years back they were laughably threatened, told they were reckless and unsafe, banned from the forums. etc. I predict that in 5~7 years there won't be anybody willing to claim to be an instructor. Wingsuits will still be around and there will be guys who do it and guys who do it really well. Those who do it really well will have the bulk of our attention and adoration and manufacturer support. We can only hope that we can find them at the center of some cool events open to the rest of us who do it good enough and just want to get a little better with our friends. Instructor patches might just end up being a curious relic from the past or a humorous item of scorn to be tossed into the bonfire.

It's obvious your vendetta is against people (certain instructors you've met, no doubt), and not the concept of instructorship. You can FUCK in bold and capitals those people all you want, but in doing so you are abandoning the actual discussion at hand, which is the value of a competent instructor. Hey this discussion started by someone else lamenting bad quality so called instructors and the wish for a more uniformed higher quality instructor directed from above. It isn't going to happen. History with bad instructors or the good does not warrant it. Move along citizens. I pointed out the fact that they are not needed based on all of your ( other rated instructor's) own gripes about one another. If there were some higher level rating created who do you think the applicants would be? The same shitty flyers, although lesser in numbers. I don't have a vandetta you guys are proving your own short comings. You can say that I hate instructors ( not true) all you want. You can also yell that all of you rated motherfuckers are the best and the safest from your self righteous tower and I will just get the opinion of another rated super safe instructor off the roster that says no you are not. I can get that opinion in writing in this same tread. A few years ago a heated discussion about instruction would have been based on those with ratings and their names on a factory roster against those without formal verification of skills and ability. now you guys are turning on each other and you are all on the roster, you all have ratings. Funny!