VectorBoy

Glen, your such a Rebel...... Get back to work Cupcake. Be safe Ed Can you tell its a slow work week? I'm stuck here Saturday boy is this gonna get good.

Matt, Im not argueing the pro or con of the whole instructor thing. I could care less. People say there are a boat load of instructors out there and not a lot of represented skills. You say as an instructor you would have made me a safer flyer on my FFC course,NOT if you were not right there in the air next to me! Safe, rated , respected I say FUCK the instructor all of them.......... all of them who ever took a dime from for a first flight without being right their the entire time in the air with the student. Fuck the instructor who conned free gear from a manufacturer with out the intention of being out there promoting the product. Fuck the instructor that isn't out there actively load organizing, networking with the boogie promoter to make some events happen. Fuck those guys Meanwhile anybody and everybody involved in actively getting you some instruction , spare suits to the boogie, demos to your remote DZ, cool WS related aircraft or multiples there of, coaching for the bigway, flags- banners-Tshirts-food-judging etc.etc. In other words actively working the thankless job of WS promotion, Hail them, thank them, spend your money on them. " This beer is for you". "Real skydiver heroes"! Matt some people just make good stuff happen in the sport they love. They need support and respect or they will stop doing it. Others say I'm safe, I'm rated, I deserve to get free stuff and paid but I don't plan to lift a finger for it. Fuck him!

Knowing plenty of stories of people who did the read, read, read, and still had some bad hickups on their first jump that could have been prevented had someone given them a good 1st flight course.. Id say yes...1st hand instruction from a capable person is always 10x better then reading... reading about a flight patern, or having someone 'walk' it with you can already be the difference between understanding it or being lost in the sky. Maybe not for you, but plenty of low-jump-number-ahead-of-the-curve-heads-up-firsttimers out there who probably wont grasp every aspect of wingsuit flight that well from reading it in a book. Next to the fact that a lot of the unofficial 'reading material' available online is not always the best advice possible... I'm going to have disagree with every point listed. Your statements are absolutes and not individual case by case situations. This is just not our experiences. And with that in mind I have to ask what is your complaint about the status quo of the current instructor paradigm? You say this above> "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." You contradict yourself. How can it be 10x better having an instructor on a FFC if you say yourself they can't fly relative? Its pretty much required to fly relative to a potentially wild card student. Kind of like the examiner in an AFF course. The first flight experience is just that getting you through the first flight and its not rocket science. If you think you need help, get some help. Flying relative to others comes from actually flying relative to others and not everybody with a WS has this luxury. We all know of the sol WingSuiter on a given DZ who was taught by a traveling instructor or the one that primarily does solos in the back country. I will agree with your statement about online reading material not being the best advice. There was a lot of hoopla about flat spins and banning of wingsuits at certain DZs that was just laughable. These scare tactics freaked a lot of people out enough were they became scared to try stuff slowing their progress down. You must be careful but you can't be timid to the point of disfunctional.

I would prefer to not have to buy a new rig, but rather spend my money on a wingsuit and jumps. Then do it! You won't need freefly -speed- safe gear. Anything that is good enough for RW will work. I have an 18 year old back up rig with fresh velcro for wingsuiting. Several guys use larger, older rigs to stuff their big base canopy in. Works great. But just about any used container now will be modern enough to use even for FF. Our old stuff is so old we can't even sell it,.... why not use it?

Should have, could have, knowing what I know today absolutely would have! My experience was a lot like Kallend's, the instructor was never seen again after exit. All of my friends did not pay an instructor we were all fine. It was quite a few jumps later that we would run into another flyer who had more ability than ourselves in a wingsuit. That was due to having thousands of jumps of world class experience and not in a wingsuit. It was all FF/tracking. It would be years before we ran into someone who was better due to being a rated WS instructor. How well someone does on their first WS flight has much more to do with what kind of skydiver/athlete they are more so than what their instructor brings. If you are not that good then maybe you need some help. I know people that, without any instruction, have done superbly and still set a benchmark. And by the same token jumpers who have had extensive pre training, First flight specific training and many follow up coach jumps with very capable instructors but still are very weak in wingsuits.

Zoter, you do realize in the begining there were no wingsuit instructors. You could get a WS shipped from the very few outfits that made them. Read the manual if there was one and fly. No problem. The instructor program kind of evolved into a well thought out pyramid scheme to attract lots of eager flockers coming in with lots of cash, they in turn attracting more eager cash rich wanna flockers. It quickly devolved into what we have today when a great many people realized a scheme is a scheme and their cash could be used for more flights to actually get better and not wasting it on someone who actually does not fly that well but are there to make you feel better about a FFC. A few other companys were forced to have an instructor program even though not all do. The fact that the "structure" started out as a pyramid scheme didn't stop it from being used as a PR tool. " Look at us we have a certified safe instructor program and the others don't". Who cares about instructors. This discipline needs trusty organizers with the equivalance of 10,000 wingsuit jumps experience. It needs events worthy of gathering the interested and skilled together so that there can be growth. Having an instructor specification governed by large organizations will not do anything to promote the above. Maybe you might actually end up with a fraction of the instructors we have today. The remaining instructors will be to busy or tired to bring the spare suits to your out of the way boogie. Thats not progress.

So I've often wondered about the value of a WS I rating. Its a great value in that you get unsuspecting wanna-be Wingsuiter to pay for your jumps. In some cases you get the DZ to pay for your jumps while you organize WS for the boogie. The entire boogie could be travelled to and enjoyed cost free. In the early days some instructors got free suits and I'm sure some still do. Thats a street value of several thousand dollars. I'm only picking on the frauds here. We should all be aware that there are individuals whom donate much more time, energy and resources than they received in order to promote the whole wingsuit experience. I'm not here to ridicule them, unless it turns out to be a slow work week.

A more generic WS Instructors rating is a great idea...I think the top two manufacturers being the proactive people they are will support this fully. If the bulk of the instructors out there now are not so hot ( according to you guys ) what in the world would lead you to believe that a governing body/ universal world level instructor would be any closer to ideal? Who do you think the applicants and the inspectors would be? It would be all of the same people it is now! In order for them to be better they are going to have to get better ( in due time). More importantly focus on the fact that if the bulk of instructors we have now are not so hot ( as is being said ) we really never needed them to the extent we all thought. Hummmn. This is real old news to most of all of us BTW. State one reason why any of the manufacturers should try and promote a universal instructor? Most know you don't need it. If you guys feel you need more governance and guidance you guys should push your governing body for it. AND be sure and leave the bulk of us, the ones that do this all the time , out of it. We don't need no stinking badges.

The money I pay a manufacturer is for the best quality product that they can produce shipped to me in a reasonable time frame-------Period! Squandering their resources politically chasing a world wide rating system for wingsuits would turn my stomach. You can always have the "ban the 270" committee do that once they are done with their current mission. They'll have nothing to do. Money wasted on some wingsuiters who are sponsored with free or greatly reduced price wings is bad enough. Its even worse if these guys don't actively do anything to promote WS positively. You know who pays for their gear? Everybody that buys a suit for fair market price without thinking they are special.

That opinion based discussion will have us augering into the this brand is better than that brand scenario and have a bunch of regular forum denizens complaining. The first responders will cry foul after a few counter opinions. They are a sensitive bunch..... its been known to happen.

Meticulous R$D with accurate quantifiable follow up testing will serve the manufacturers and us the consumer in turn. A "magic filter" other than time to bypass all of the fashion and marketing hype would also serve the would be consumer. But it doesn't exist. So to answer your question I like the company that does a lot of R$D and I don't like the company that has hype as their main export. In the end it does not matter what I like. Junky products don't have staying power, bad customer service, slow delivery times and high prices let the manufacturer know quickly right in their books if they are not serving the market.

DeHavilland, Short Bros, Cessna but I'm a whore I'll fly anything at least once.

Mostly searching during the openings at the slower speeds of a WS deployment but they take so long and the whole time you are descending on your tail which doesn't help trying to sit symmetrical in the harness. Lighter loadings and line twists with cobalts typically does not guarantee a dive but any dive with the H-mod means a more aggressive longer lasting dive than the same size regular un H-modded cobalt. Two of the H-mod benefits, among a few others that are suited for regular skydives, are slower openings and steeper dives. You just don't need slower openings for wingsuiting. For wingsuiting the deployment is the critical path. Getting through it smoothly, softly and symmetrically are much better than lingering in the snivel longer than you need to. A dacron lined base style canopy can open very quick and still be soft believe it or not. Long snivels are great for higher freefall speed deployment.

Believe it or not longer time in the snivell. With a wingsuits slower deployment speeds mine will act like a x-braced canopy. It opens on heading at freefall deployment speeds.

I know some west coast guys that would be jealous,..... thats my thought. Sorry Ed

The majority of my WS jumps are on a cobalt @1.4. I also have a triathalon at the same loading and they behave similar during the opening with wingsuits but the cobalt flys and flares much better once open. I guess you can say its a compromise on planeform. I also have an H-mod cobalt loaded at 1.6 which was the loading , for me, that things could get wild and I decided that it was not the best choice. Keep in mind it was very good for wingsuiting before I had the H-mod installed. Some of my friends have small base canopys that will still fit in a two canopy TSO'd container and the whole system is small. Its a great choice but its in the verge of overloading an already small F-111 wing. Its a compromise on canopy performance. The best choice would be a normal sized base canopy in a base container which we can't do in this country.

Which specialist performed the mylarectomy Pete?

Squirrels in France don't say things like that. They say things like, Merde! Have you seens the movie withz ze ratz?

Are you guys saying that I'm loosly not qualified? Sorry to scare you guys but I was compensating for heavy tail winds on the DZ that were not there on the demo just a few miles to the north. First I was going too slow in my Acro then too fast in my Vampire then yer bitchen about the demo which everybody made it into. I know I made it right on to the 20'x15' assphalt in my shagged out tri. I just can't pleaze you guys. I'm gunna get a mach 1 and fly zercles around your demo-homos!

Put down your Mary Fucking Poppins Crack Pipe and look up a few posts. The suit looks like a new design, though he still calling it an M1. Be safe Ed Its a tequila pipe~ and my head sez to not do that again~ not too bad spelling considering. Cervo anyone? But what I meant was close ups of the vents of the new wing, assuming they are the improvement unless they are not different and its all due to a change in planform alone. But it looks like Tony answered my initial question although I have yet to see a locked vent in any of the newer suits in person. My older locked proto s3 didn't lock all that well. I was wondering if anybody is going to the depth of design in these locks that you see built into the bottom of some bottom vented BASE canopys? Those vents are really locked!

He is not that lucky! He weighs in the same as you and about a foot shorter, so you have more luck than him. I'm lucky at a few pounds more than both of you but with a perfect smile that chicks really dig! Check your package.

Why does it always turn to "mine is better then yours"? This thread is about the new backfly leg on the Tony Suit, not a performance comparison......... The new suit design looks great. Be safe Ed Actually its about the new leg wing that has no pictures, no pictures and its not a new wingsuit. Hold on while I post pictures of mary fucking popins in her new legwing design.

Just watched it and I agree it is very cool indeed!

Its not very nice until Chuck writes off on it with the Z-flock seal of approval. I haven't seen it yet but I'm sure it will be fine with the west coast guys cuz it has PF gear, always good.

Whoa! There are ghosts out in the house?