lonedfx

It depends what you mean by "full flight". If the alternative is to bend the legs and arch, then I suppose I always pull in full flight, but in fact, I don't. I losen the tension on the suit and begin to decelerate using the torso, opening up the shoulders and lifting the head, keeping legs and arms extended. The wing is never collapsed, but I'm definitly not in full speed anymore, there's a lot of added drag. I like to pull a second or two into the deceleration, this gives me the best openings. When I began wingsuiting, the direction I was given was to arch and bend the knees for a few seconds then open. A couple of P.O.Ds bouncing on my feet made me stop that real quick. I've also had a period where I experimented with pulling in actual full flight, at max speed, and had a few colorful openings... once did an involontary wingover and had my lines lose while (asymetrically) falling back into the harness, you can imagine the result. Another time the force of the parachute throwing me on my back kept me on the ground for the rest of the week. Maybe it's just that my openings aren't that good, but as far as I'm concerned, opening in full flight is just as bad an idea as opening with bent legs. I don't do base, though, and there may be other considerations there. It's possible that the very large square canopies make that a safe technique. edit: typo

I'm curious as to what kind of control you can have on a student at exit. Surely at some point you have to let him go out the door, and it's right outside the plane that he can potentially do the damage. Am I missing something ?

...and yet the ContourGPS still does not work as advertised. http://support.contour.com/contour/topics/video_quality_of_the_contour_gps_disappointing http://support.contour.com/contour/topics/contour_gps_gps_doesnt_work http://support.contour.com/contour/topics/contourgps_32gb_memory_card_fine_with_1_09_firmware_but_problems_with_1_10_and_1_11 Awesome.

People interested in the ContourGPS camera should first have a look at the following thread at the Contour support forums: http://support.contour.com/contour/topics/video_quality_of_the_contour_gps_disappointing In summary, there is a severe problem with video quality, which seems to be affecting every single CountourGPS unit (the issue is not present in the classic Contour1080p model). You may not have noticed unless you watched your footage on a large screen, or inspected it frame by frame, and it might be fine for low quality youtube clips, but it is unusable for any serious purpose. There are promises of a firmware fix, but users are losing patience, and getting very angry (especially since the Contour+ has been announced, while the previous "flagship" product still does not work as advertised). As for the GPS functionality, in my experience it is not suitable for skydiving. I have never been able to get a clean log with it, either wingsuiting or doing anything else. It's been either lacking altimetric data entirely or in chunks, the track was shifted on the ground, and the GPS antenna is not particularly sensitive inside a plane. Do yourself a favor, get a Flysight instead, with a classic Contour1080 or GoPro HD.

Ohh, you don't know what you're missing ;-) But yes, I always tell them, some pilots don't seem to care, but many will ask you if you don't go and tell them first. Some aren't necessarily used to having wingsuits on the load, and don't immediately realize that depending on the plane and how you fly the suit, you could both have about the same rate of descent (and that, of course, also opens up a huge pandora box)

That's when you have to make the best of what you have, like immediately beginning a return arc after exit if you need to. Though in theory, if AFF students just exited, and considering the distance you can cover compared to them, your flight plan shouldn't need to change that much. When in doubt, I turn back, it's easier to spend away extra altitude because I'm back too soon than to get altitude back when I'm short ;) When in *real* doubt, I open (as long as it's safe to)... I can still cover much more ground with my canopy than with my wingsuit :P

To me it's never a set altitude, it's almost entirely dependent on wind, both during freefall and under canopy. The first question i ask myself is where do i want to open, so I can make it back, and once I know that, how wide/long my pattern needs to be so I can open there, and that can vary quite a lot. This isn't exact science though, and where on the jump run you end up actually exiting the plane is going to influence the pattern during flight too, so I just try to adapt to the situation and do my best with what i'm given. It's just like precision landing patterns, the more you practice, the better you get at it. Yesterday I continued flying straight on the jump run for about 50s, then 30s perpendicular, then 50s parallel (that's not typical, though). I try not to compress the second leg below 20s of separation with the jump run, especially if there are students and/or tandems on the load (at least if the tandem isn't expecting me close, *cough*)

I'm using the ones from Xtream Wearther, they work fine for me.

Something I was recently reminded of after slipping off at the door and ending up in flight inside the frame, ooch. I balled up really quickly but according to the pilot, didn't miss by much. Not my proudest moment. ... and my suit is *small*. That's the kind of reasons I'm not entirely convinced that I do have the expertise for these big suits yet. I think in the end it may simply be wiser for me to wait until I have a chance to meet an instructor who actually has hands on experience with those big suits, and can demo several models, before I actually get one of my own.

Yeah i've been doing that a few times for RW but then it's the load under canopy that threatened to become an issue ;) It's alright, I seem to be in the flock range with the sfly (well, the flocks i've flown so far anyway). However, I was browsing the forums and saw a bunch of photos of the incoming ghost3, it seemed very similar to the stealth2... has anybody here flown both and is able to talk about the main differences in how they fly? Just from the looks, the armwings do look very similar. The legwing on the stealth2 still looks a bit bigger tho. Is that correct ? Just trying to get a grip on the lineup...

One for flock, one for time, one for speed ? :) How about a 4th, for style !

From the videos, it looks very promising. Being a dev too I know that the last 10% of a software is usually 90% of the work, so please do take your time and polish all those lovely details that are going to make the game awesome to play, but i have to say, I can't wait to get my hands on this. Do you have a beta tester list yet ? Can I join in ? :-)

I'm using an altimeter hand strap, screwed the back of the flysight through the strap itself, and run the headphones inside my sleeve. I works great for me, but ymmv. I just like that I can see the flashing green light (gps lock) before exiting. Also, if it ever had trouble finding its lock, i can move my hand around, to a window, or the door, much easier than my helmet (and by the time I turn it on, I really don't want to take my helmet off anymore). Never had a problem with the lock though, it's surprisingly sensitive. My contourgps wishes it was even half as good.

I was thinking more surface = more pressure on the arms, but thinking it through, the slower vertical speed is going to compensate at least some of that... Well, 2:20 is the best i can do here ;) but so completely peaceful... add a few clouds here and there and a retarded smile just gets stuck on my face for the rest of the evening :P (well, the beers after that might be partly to blame too).

Well, it's one of them anyway, but it's definitely the primary goal when I'm flying alone. I'm assuming it will be much harder on the arms though, but what you're saying about stability is definitely reassuring, I've read (and seen) a few things (here and elsewhere) that gave me pause with regard to large suits.

Oh interesting ! /me goes looking for info

Hiho Haven't posted much before here, i guess this will double as an introduction :) So I'm thinking of getting myself a stealth2, but it's quite a bit of money to spend so I wouldn't like to be making an obvious mistake. Basically my question to you all is, why shouldn't I get one ? I can think of those reasons: - I don't have enough experience for it ? I think I do, I have close to 200 wingsuit jumps, about 120 with an sfly expert, 75 with an sfly access (yes, that's staying way too long on that suit, i agree). Were I to order the suit now, I would be at around 170 with the sfly expert when i receive it, assuming i keep my usual wingsuit-to-freefly ratio (and around 600 total, which is what french regulation requires to fly a stealth2). The PF documentation recommends a minimum of 150 ws jumps for the stealth2. I think I'm alright. Of course, a number is just a number, and you guys haven't seen me fly, I could have been falling uncontrollably for hundreds of times ;). I think I do okay though. - Regardless of number of jumps, i'm too new to skydiving ? This is quite possibly true... though I seem to fill the prerequisites, i've only got 2 years of skydiving under my belt, and maybe i'm not giving myself enough time to assimilate what i'm learning. - I'm too lightweight, a stealth2 makes no sense for me ? I'm 161cm, 55kg, which does usually keep me above the flock, but that's why I don't plan on flocking with that suit at all. Because few people at my dz jump a WS as often as i do, i end up mostly flying solo (well, the plane doesn't count right? :P). I love doing so and trying to optimize my performances, so the motivation here would be to use the stealth2 for long solo flights, and to keep the smaller suit for flocking (and in fact, the vast majority of people i meet in france use sfly expert suits, so that would make sense). That's actually the reason I've chosen the stealth2, because it seems to be one of the suits that, combined with my small weight, would give me the best results in solo flight times (not in speed though, I realize that, but that's okay). - A stealth3 is going to come out soon, better wait ? I don't know that it is the case, though maybe you guys have heard rumors. I'm sure I would still love my stealth2 but I would definitely cringe a little ;) Other than that I can't find a good reason not to get one. I've asked these questions around me, but there is not much PF knowledge in the immediate vicinity, I thought I could use the opinion of people who have some comparative experience. Of course you can't really decide from this that it's definitely the suit for me, but I'm hoping that you could tell the opposite, that IF it's definitely NOT a suit I should get, you guys can tell me now and avoid me finding out the hard way :) Otherwise, my mind is basically made up, unless you stop me, I'm going for it. So go ahead, tell me why I should'nt buy this suit :-)

Does the frequency of the tone change according to the distance to the target only ? If so how about changing it according to the glide ratio between you and the target ? The higher the pitch, the more you are in the red zone for landing back at the DZ. Another navigation mode that could be done would be to use stereo output to signify left and right as well as pitch for up and down (ie, left ear + high pitch means the target is to the left and higher than the current trajectory). One could imagine the ability to program 3D waypoints and be guided by what becomes a sort of audible ILS. Then you give the same track to a bunch of people and calculate points based on their deviation from established flypath (like, say, on a website where people can post their data). Of course, the idea of flying solely based on the information given by an electronic device instinctively makes us say no to these kind of games, and that's probably a good thing. In the case of wingsuits though, the flights can last for such a long time that it's not hard to imagine that with a few rules worked out, this could be done entirely safely (well, as safely as flying wingsuits is anyway).

>This is all well and good but as soon as we start >introducing spars and extra cables and exteneded >wings etc we reinvent the hangglider. This is what I think people are forgetting with the whole subject of "landing with a wingsuit". When we talk about adding a kevlar pads, skis, ramps, inflating cushions, and so on, what we REALLY are talking about is some kind of a device that when added to a wingsuit will let it land safely. We already have invented that device a while ago, and it works really well, it's called a parachute rig. Look at it this way: either adding those types of devices no longer makes it a wingsuit landing and it's sortof pointless, or it still does and it's being done every single day already.