VectorBoy

I didn't think flocking was that complicated; it's not exactly brain surgery, but apparently it is still beyond the intellect of some jumpers. Sounds like the people you were flying with still don't 'get it'. You really should have held a remedial flocking 101 class to help them out, Glen.. I could have held a mini-siminar on flocking but I'm only a first generation BMI and they are all late model PFI, MEI, CFII, a real professor and a guy who calls himself a professor but isn't. I don't think they'll listen. Yes no body wanted to be the base for fear that I would ass munch them. Diego did a great job on thursday but it was chaos for the days following. You know the texas bunch doesn't play nice, they don't want to flock like normal children. They should be banned from all wingsuit boogies, even the ones in texas, for being too disruptive and not gliding fair. I would much rather do CReW with them. I'll go on record as pretty much hating them when it comes to wingsuits and any post on this forum. All twisted humor aside Tony, the level of flockage skill has increased. There will be tight flying for the big dogs ( fast tight and flat) and not just solos off big Norwegian walls but regular skydive flocks of this nature. And of course there will always be falling flocks for fat cats and the less skilled. Its the future bro.

In flight cutaway on the monowing systems is reportedly significantly scarier than on the tri-wings, because the wings tend to try to inflate anyway. I've used them a couple of times, again due to line twists. There is one handle ( good thing) its on your chest and easy to find ( good thing) there are two cables per side so you have more pull tension( bad thing) the quadruple cables take a bend at your elbows as they bend so your arms can reach the cutaway handle so the pull tension has a mechanical advantage ( bad thing ). IME the Robert system has less tension as long as you don't struggle to find the loops. I've never struggled but I've never faced a cliff wall under canopy. Question: anybody ever accidentally cut away an arm and, unintentionally, the leg in stead of the opposite wing?

We do it all the time in the Socal also on three year old S-3s. I max out my Protrac and shut down both of my neptunes ( registers deployment within 10 seconds average out the door) on the small ways similer to which you speak of Scott. I have never gotten royally smoked unless the flocker has a unique physique that I don't, 6' @ 140 lbs. I've held my own in flocks all summer long at all of the boogies I've gone to and have first person video to prove it. A few weeks ago I was "smoked" all weekend long, just as Chuck was a year ago, probably by the same friends and a few others. So just like Chuck I went to my primary wingsuit sponsor visa to see what they could do for me. I talked to a nice kid named Jerome and the V-2 is on order. Once I get it and I put a whole bunch of jumps on it I'll review it openly. If it sucks I will quit wingsuiting and take up skysurfing I hear its making a comeback. I'd like to take a second to thank my skydiving sponsor Visa Its where you wanna be. Glen

Congrats to all of them Yeah Veggie!! Nice one Bob! Hey Money how was the boogie?

P.S. A floaty suit would feel better in a flock anyway, compared to a better-gliding and faster suit. Flocking and perfomance flying have different goals, it's only natural. That is unless the entire flock is made up of performance suits and flyers that have taken the time to learn how to fly them. That is definitely what I'm starting to see now. Its a little bit like saying you can't do X-braced crew, well you can't on a 140 sized 7 cell.

I do like the cutaway system as it is. I've used it quiker than I can un-zip a suit to deal with line twists. Also if someone is in a borrowed loose fitting suit the zippers may be bunched and not so linear to smoothly operate.

Scott Bland was very bummed out that he could not get any "usable" range out of his brand-new V2. He's pissed and selling the suit immediately. Chuck Careful Chuck he might stealth into your trailer and steal back his old V-1 or worse your new S-6 and leave you something with webbies. I would gladly buy a V-2 from an unhappy customer but as my luck misses the boat again I've already purchased the V2. When it comes I plan on putting 50-100 jumps exploring and refining what it takes to fly it through its full range, kinda like the pros do with new canopys . I've seen new v-2 owners struggle a few weeks after a transition to it and I've seen guys with hundreds of jumps on theirs.... big difference. After 500 sum odd Old S-3 jumps I'm going to have to be patient and work at it. I'm definitley not expecting instant mega results. The good thing is I will be in good company of a nice little flock all making basically the same transition. And hopfully next year Calvin won't be able to bragg about kicking all of the old guys asses.

Skydive Oregon is fine with them. This year there were two wingsuit pilots doing wingsuit night jump. Kirk I think its a good thing that Joe puts on a suit and flocks with you guys. Its easier to exclude a discipline if its considered a "fringe" thing and you are not a part of it or haven't experienced it.

I loved the brilliant response by John. Atmonuati supporter or not Much respect to the professor

Love em too. I have about 50 - but for me it's all about wingsuits now, looking at he moon reflecting off Silver wings with lightning in the background.. t You are killing me over here with a burning jealousy!!!!

I agree and spectra / dacron shrinkage bias won't be a factor.

We are approaching ludicrous speed to the nebula, set weapons to stun. An unintentional opening will be bad on any group jump, day or night. Belly or vertical. This DZ has a very well established Wingsuit operation area. Unless the fast faller can track like a monster those that fall will be in a completely different area than the flyers. That is up until closer to entering the pattern for a landing but hopefully the canopy pilot will have acquired most traffic, either from their group or unplanned from a previous group, that may offer a conflict. Chances are, and as observed by those lucky enough to get their wingsuit night jump in under the wire previously, there is adequate separation in time between wingsuits and sport canopys. Usually they are the only ones in the air. In the case of a solo, you have the pattern to yourself, often the landing area also.

Taking a devil's advocate position here for a moment, I can see that issues of separation on opening when wingsuits are thrown into the mix are a potential problem if the pilot/jumpers haven't been properly briefed with an effective plan. So what is an effective plan? Taking a devils advocate to your devils advocate, This dropzone would probably have little problem, hosting a night 20 way R-dub record and probably has. You are not going to tell me there are any less separation issues here. To be fair their night ops are pretty safe. There is a limit to the number of groups per jump run, smaller groups are encouraged, staged deployment altitudes are planned based on group sizes and canopy loadings. I've seen it take four passes to get everybody out. Jump runs are truncated compared to what you may see in the day time to prevent canopys from getting strung out too far. The otter descends slower and further away than it might on day jumps to prevent any interference with canopy traffic and more important the fear factor of turbines in the dark while under canopy for some one who may be new and overwhelmed by night jumps. It was one of the first DZ to implement a WS op area for day use which you get briefed on apon waivering. Their pilots know where you should be. Since a prior day jump the same day as any planned night jump is required a wingsuit pilot should have a degree of area recognition.

Unless they are flying tandems, a big no-no at night, there won't be any canopys when you get down low. If they pull high, lets say 5, by the time you get to 5 minutes later any sport canopy will be at 3. There will be more canopy traffic from the fallers of the same group. Solo wingsuiters will have none.

Just got back from the DZ. They are hosting night jumps, a bunch of them. Double the usual. Looks like a nice gathering. Then I was told " Sorry no wingsuits". I wasn't the only one turned away. Man I'm bummed. Four years ago this was the position of the former manager,..... no problem I was sure things would progress in the future with the change in both the DZM and my number of night and wingsuit jumps. And I have seen a few wingsuiters on night jumps in the years in between but I was committed to other night jumps. This left me jones'n for a nightsuit. I didn't ask for a reason because if you understand wingsuit fundamentals/ capability there really isn't one. If they don't have the understanding then the reasons become nebulous and pointless. Besides I wouldn't want someone to tell me how to run my business and I'm not going to tell someone how to run theirs. Lacking my other night jump toys I just bailed. I know plenty a wingsuiter has done a night jump or two name where!! List the hoops you had to jump through if any and if the current policy still supports suits. I smell road trip .

Was that an R-44 ( four seat) or the 22 with just you and the pilot?

No harm Birdy, and I love humor too. But it also happens to be true it is also a perfect and beautiful example. Events like stupino and germany feature an international blend of participants and suits from every represented manufacturer and they were accommodating a large group with varying experience. Even typical smallish wingsuit boogies try to provide something for everybody. Maybe a little skills building. Organizers can build formations based the participants skills/experience and range. But there will come a time when the organizer will not have to work so hard at skills building. I see the talent out there getting better all of the time.

Yes faster flocks are much more fun. The flocks in Stupino lead by Loic were pretty fast. Btw he also flies a suit thats way faster than Vampires and even Skyflyers and what else. I've flown that suit and like it, in fact I like all suits that I have tried. But you know I will never "be" Loic who is amazing, I will never be Yuri, Jari or Robert all incredible. All I want is some range on some mild mannered Texans, a few kids from Ohio and a handful from Colorado, a growing number from Washington state, two or three from Idaho, just as many from Oregon, a Bus load from central California and the soon to expanding number from Socal......and one German dude. All on the PF product.

They had 10 dudes standing there looking at the thing for a half hour. Zach at least he only said it in this forum and not yelled at some trendy eatery in front of a bunch of geezers.

Seeing as the S-6 and S3-S are the same suit, (aside from a few material/construction improvements) thats a damn funny statement.. Cool...it'd be nice to finaly see one in a formation instead of beneath itQuote Matt has a gigga hard drive full of pictures of vampires in the formation.They are sweet you should check them out. I've got hours of video of vampires in and around the formation. But to be honest my reply was to the original poster who resides in an area that will soon be pretty heavy with Vampires. If he desides to travel to local boogies that is what he will see. This is the new trend in the three away boogies that I have been to and our home dropzones. Usually not a problem for other suits and I don't typically have a shortage of range in my S-3 and didn't at the boogies earlier this year , but at the last boogie the flying was more challenging and faster by a large margin, PF suits were the majority suit. Flyers skills were up as well. Flockers left their other brand suits in the bag and got on some Vampire demos for the duration ( and hung on to them ) because flying was flatter and faster overall. We have all seen vampire owners from smaller dropzones who don't get to flock much have a hard time staying up and any where relative with the flock. I've heard the smug comments from all kinds of people claiming to have smoked them in their other suits. But I must say when you take experienced flockers who have put the time in to learn their suits all predominantly in Vampires streaking up and away from a handful of stragglers in other suits......... it makes you think........ where do you want to be in the flock?

Traingular sections of ZP are sewn onto the inlets. If you see a picture of the comp cobalt its pretty much what it looks like. This mod is done to varying degrees ( the size of the patterns ) by different people. Howard Adams are I believe different than the ones Joe Bennet might do, for example. Roq who posts on here has some for his own cobalts that are, again, relatively bigger in size, if I understand correctly. I'm not sure where on the size scale the comp cobalt pattern compares.

Them Texas boys ain't right. Jason,Ted and Jean were pretty much openly twisted Bob was the only mellow one. Which leads me to believe that he has something dreadful to hide. Wait, Diego was very quiet too and he was previously part of the Texas posse.

I am begining to think that the Vampire or it's equivalent is not as crazy as it sounds. My question to you then is two fold. 1. Is it rational to buy a something like a Vampire as a first wingsuit purchase. Getting a vampire with 50 ( give or take ) jumps is not a crazy Idea! If you plan to fly regularly you will find yourself there sooner than you think. You have to spend the time on it otherwise it doesn't matter what you get. The argument that Vampires aren't for flocking will vaporize very soon as it seems most DZs in your area ( western US ) are going to be saturated with Vampires and phantoms. The new trend in flocking seems to be actually flying at higher speeds ( imagine that ) than we have seen here in years past. I find myself working harder and harder just to keep up. The talent out there keeps getting better. This last weekend left me with the impression I must upgrade to a vampire. The S-3 has been around a long time. The S-3-s offers some improvements and slight increase in performance. The S-6, on the other hand, has modifications that some who have flown it consider to be counter productive to glide and not really enhancements, A step backward from the 3-s. The upside is that you can get S-3 cheap used and in great condition. Spend a little more and you can get V-1s slightly used.

Steal her back with a hybrid! But if you dock on a dude during your hybrid.......you are gay!

Ted and Jason are technically also on the young side, the two utes were hilariously juvenile young. IIRC Matt didn't get to fly with the masses. He just stayed in smaller groups. I could be wrong which happens now in my old age.