VectorBoy

I like to"fly by" canopys. As a wingsuit instructor I like to watch my students deployments as it is the "critical path" as to how well they have done under my fellowship. I sometimes do an overflight of their deployment if I'm in the position to do so. I have coasted a 10 to 20 feet above and to the side of their snivelling mains to a transition of my position, inverted and just slightly ahead of them and a few feet lower, of their completely deployed main. The proof is in the video! How well they have taken the training and utilized it in a completely different skydiving environment. The proximity of the visual really ties with their perception of what happened on what is to them a new chapter in their skydiving portfolio. There is no other way. Just like video of AFF or coaching for the purpose of learning and advancing. Deploying with a wingsuit on is the challenge. I tend to keep a good distance away from most other air traffic. Mostly because they don't understand the wingsuit dynamic and the control available. They would view most of this as a hostile incursion on their personal airspace. When it comes to other flockers that I ( we ) happen to know the habits of we can get very close and still get a thumbs up on the video.

Like I said if I don't want someone I don't know flying a canopy 50 feet from me at close to the same speed...Why would I be OK with some guy I don't know buzzing me at a 60-100 MPH difference? As we still haven't defined a buzz in terms of distance and heading its a big angry grey area. Just like Jason I've been at DZ were the TMs beg for a "flyby" and at other DZ were if you open up or fly closer than a quarter mile from a student it was too close. I do really like Diablopilots definition, if you change your heading to get closer to the TM its a buzz. Now at some tandem mills the tandems, once under canopy, do not just form a neat little skirmish line to fly back along in an offset track but instead fly a much wider path of figure eights to give themselves spacing. From a returning wingsuiter point of view this would appear as not a neat single line but instead canopies scattered laterally across your path of return requiring a constant heads up and possibility that you may be forced to fly between a pair of tandems. If you nicely split the gates, large distances here, it shouldn't get a negative response. But if you demand a quarter mile of traffic avoidance before you get angry at a wingsuiter thats doing his best at staying clear, you might be unreasonable. Its a little like demanding nobody swoops within 200' distance near you on the landing area during landing and willing to get physical over it. Glen

Most of the world is unaware of the mere existense of FAA bsbd! Yuri. The right hand of the FAA doesn't know that the left hand of the FAA exists.

But as soon as you try to fire up something like Photoshop for Final Cut Pro, it will be slower than [or at best the same speed as] a G4 PowerBook. So if a vidiot wanted, primarily, speed and quality for editing his craft with final cut express HD, then you are saying to stick with the original G4 powerbook?

Go Mac and never look back.. Some applications might be a bit harder to find, but everything you need to do on a computer can be done on a Mac.. it will just be easier than on a PC.. Iwan are you pissed that the twice ( as they say for video, 4x faster for other apps ) as fast powerbook pro is now released just a few after you got your G4?

They can do it. It's best to mark the suit with where you want it cut back to (use pins or a fabric marking pencil) so it will come back exactly how you want it. Cost will depend on how long it takes, which will depend on how many areas you want trimmed up and if any of the seams in those areas are covered by the applique. I could be wrong but IIRC labor rate is $30 an hour. Call before you ship it so you can get a money and time estimate and so they know it's coming. Would it also be a good idea to apply thicker material under the areas that get the profile change? I'm assuming that this bomber FF suit is made of the lightweight supplex. I have some slimmer FF pants from Matter but the material is a stiffer poly cotton than my bomber FF pants supplex. I also noticed that the newer Matter wear is made with a polycotton not as "course" as the stuff made a few years ago even though its still a 65%~35% blend just a tighter and lighter weave. I also noticed that the increase in jet fuel and jump ticket prices have led some Free flyers not be able to afford the diet of an athlete.

Not sure exactly, but I'm pretty darn sure he is behind all of this. Every single bit.

My theory I believe he went into supernova. Right, That would explain why he can track like a space monkey. He has disappeared before like back in '02 and that time in the eighties.... But he always came back more careing and colorfull. Reminds me of that movie about that gallactically intelligent and ultra sensitive guy from the mental institution..... K-PAX.

>> The only alternative I can think of is letting the USPA >>handle it, They did handle it. They have provided guidelines largely based on input from some experienced and articulate flyers. Lou can fill in the details. Further involvement isn't needed like it is in AFF and tandem instruction. mostly because this isn't AFF or tandem. It isn't BASE or CReW. It isn't competitive RW or freestyle. Its simply wingsuits and it needs to grow . >> but somebody once told me that politics only exist >>for you, if you let them - and I had to agree with >>him. Quote This is 100% true. words to live by, really. Unless you are some unlucky bloke that gets, in a round about way, thru the efforts of an "empire building BMI" god forbid Grounded or gets labeled as an unsafe flocker or a lethal instructor. Get accused of taking up low-time female hottie runnaways on a first flight course while it is perfectly legal for the BMI to make an "aptitudinal exception" to the BM rules on the part of their "low-time, female hottie runnaway" and their desire to ravish her in her tight fitting classic 2, GTI ( or whatever entry level suit BM is promoting nowadays) then those politics become personal Matt. Man! I just realized I would like to upload an attached picture of a female hottie runnaway tightly clad in her classic or GTI but I don't have any. Can some of you BMI's help me out?

Well if you are going to be in this sport you gotta be tuff ( they tell me ) so you can't get embarrassed easily. This isn't the ballet.

What a BMI can do that few others can not is get access to a boogie load of demo suits, like boxes and boxes of em. At least until its time to ship them off to the next BMI down the line for the next boogie. Concentrate on getting them to first time flyers and its a pretty good program. Load organizing and wingsuit promotion go hand in hand with that for the flockers that have gone beyond the FFC. Too much more than that is just simple "empire building". I, btw, agree with you on the fact that being a good flyer doesn't make one a good instructor. But for the record I would have to state the fundamentals of methodical instruction isn't a BMI exclusive capability.

Its nice to see Pat's plane getting some use.

Come on dude, is this for real?? There is no other discipline with more skygoods than Freeflying. I tink he ez hjoking with us meijo

What are you talking about?? We don't know if this hole tread is truth, or if it is a fragment of someones imagination! . I use it as an example, there have been other events. There are some complaints that never even make it to discussion on the wingsuit forum. Are they all fragments of imagination?

In your last two posts you've gone from the position that the BMI program is totally unnecessary as any skilled wingsuit flyer can do their job, So which is it? Are trained wingsuit instructors totally unnecessary (your first argument), or do you have specific problems with specific programs that exist (a different issue altogether)? I have a problem with the idea that it is only through a certified BMI that you will find quality instruction. I don't have so much a problem with the program as much as I have a problem with select individual BMIs that act in a way that casts the negative light, like in the incedent that created this tread. There have been more than just a few isolated events. But if the grief created by abuse of the program can't be rectified the world of wingsuiting can do without the BMI program. Don't kid yourself for a second that it can't. So you want me to tell you what a BMI can do that very few others can?

Yup, it means raise your hips in my book. Another reason for standardization, if we're assigning different meanings to the same hand signals. You guys are correcting each other's body position on every jump?

You guys are correcting each other's body position on every jump? Cute, No some students need some help, perfect students get a smile and a thumbs up, which is a hand signal BTW. There is a very important role a BMI can perform but yet none of them can say what it is. Instead we hear reliably train a new flocker because no one else is skilled enough.

There is a level of standardization in this sport for a reason, I think that is a very elementary concept we should all be accustomed to. Well here is level of BMI standardization: Some, not most, some have never, ever been tested by any BMCI of any kind! Some, not many, but some don't even own their own wingsuit let alone spares for demos. A great many have no other ratings other than the BMI patch. What most , as in the majority, have done is pay to become BMI. Again do you know the answer to the question?

Correct. At Eloy last week, there was a student who started flying straight down jumprun, which would not have been good. I managed to fly under the student and correct their heading by 9k feet.

I do it. 6 to 6 swapping back and forth between days and nights one week to the next. I've been doing this since I was 17 so my body is adapted to a degree. Once in a while I'll jump after a graveyard but I try to limit it to easy going not super demanding jumps. It sure makes it it easy to be there for the dawn ballon load. The bulk of my jumping is on my long change were I have a bunch of days off in a row to wind down. Resist the urge to hit one day of a boogie in between nite shifts. If you are not dangerous during this long day you will be that second nite at work.

Even Perris has a good amount of developement going on around it. It will be interesting to see how nice the neighbors will be in years to come.

Wingsuits just make the the best presents. More parents should do that.

Thats a good place for the " wing-keeping" snap we see in Saskia's pic but yours doesn't have it Costyn. If I were to add one, like I've done to all of my previous BM suits, thats the place for it.

IGM and its lovely! Thanks Kate. Glen