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lurch

First Flight Review: Tony Suits Apache Rebel

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My focus was getting to know the suit, not producing engineering data to satisfy the petulant heckling of nitpicking netsurfers demanding that I throw down proof to their satisfaction before my fucking underwear has even dried from the LAST flight.



Brian, you are the one that made several very long posts about the virtues of the suit - before your underwear was dry! Such fantastic claims were sure to draw interest (you seem surprised by this?). I’d love them to be true but am a bit jaded from the long history of previous claims (boy who cried wolf etc) - hence my interest in the FlySight logs. It's pretty core to this entire thread so not really nit-picking.

I’m sorry if you feel I’m heckling you, it’s not my aim.

No one requested “engineering data”, a simple upload of the text log file(s) you recorded was politely requested (not demanded). It would take seconds and allow people to make objective comparisons to other log files. I bet I'm not the only one interested is seeing the data. I also asked a few additional simple questions that it appears you don't wish to answer.

Looking at what you've now said about the GPS data, it does indeed appear that your review is a bit over enthusiastic.

That is all.

P.S. The trial version of Paralog allows you to load a log file, analyse it and upload to PPC if you wish.

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Luke please pardon my exasperation...
My problem is with the first impulse being "Nah aah, did not unless you back it up wit GPS so lets see it!"

That review was not written FOR you.
It was not written for any of the birds whose first impulse is to demand charts and graphs.

Its a review of my impressions of the first three flights, a description of what it was like, a report that its extraordinary enough to have produced an extraordinary altimeter result appearing to indicate the climb I felt and an expression of my opinion of the suit, not a rigorous comparative performance analysis.

If I have to justify every little thing and turn of phrase to you to get you to stop calling bullshit, consider this then:

Multigen jump: Taken literally, thats about how it plays out. Take an XBird and have em fly with a Classic. The Xbird will look like I looked flying with Skwrl, folded in half and still outfloating it. The Xbird will struggle to stay down with the Classic and outfly the classic the second it opens up a little.

The Apache just did the same flown next to an Xbird piloted by an experienced cameraman.

What I got from the experience of the first three flights was that with this suit, it was easy...so easy... to planeout to speeds that produced the same zoomy-uppy sensation of a climbing high speed exit followed by a zero-G hover sensation as my speed bled off at the top accompanied by windblast that died away to near-total silence and a dramatic shift in the direction of travel of everything in my visual field that you'd normally only see when you flare a canopy to a popup stall at medium-high altitude, all without tearing my arms off the way any other suit would doing a maneuver twice as strenuous for half the reward. Now, my eyes say I climbed. My ears say I topped out by the silence at the top.

Whens the last time -you- flew a suit that could turn off the windblast just by opening up and bearing down a little? My inner ears say I got the same boosty-uppy shit a high speed exit gives you and my altimeter seems to think the same, plus a GPS that, although just as doubtful as the altimeter, also appears to agree that something climbey took place.

At the end of the Gransee comp, Oliver was congratulated on his run for having showed a climb as well...on the GPS even. I never even bothered to look at the trace...I believed them. I didn't bother to crow that I think its bullshit unless they let me see the numbers myself to prove it. I was competing against this suit, or rather its immediate predecessor, and I'd got a pretty good idea what it could do from seeing it in action. I was excited about it even then.

Over enthusiastic..? Really? Try one yourself and judge again.

If that wasn't a climb, it was the best most convincing illusion of it reality has thrown me yet. The sudden change to the landscape sight picture REALLY got my attention.

If it wasn't a climb it was so close TO it in sight, sound, feel, result, and effect on my hardware that to all available senses, -including the GPS- it appears to have BEEN one. This is the part where I stop quibbling over whether and how accurate my gear is and whether I can prove whatever to whoever and just go "Holy shit the suit goes back up"

I think the people who will come out looking a bit silly in the long run are the pedantic who will continue to insist "going up isn't happening unless you back it by GPS" even while SEEING wingsuits regularly climbing past canopies as these things become popular, enough people start messing around with them and a large database of their results is accumulated.

We have a suit here of a scale thats starting to get awful close to Luigi's microcanopies... do you really think having the suit be able to flare to a stop or a minor climb is so farfetched? I'll make you a little bet: That over the next few weeks or months, sooner or later I'll be able to produce an actual video, from a canopy flyby, visually SHOWING the suit in a climb, and somebody can sit and do a frame by frame analysis proving the visually evident climb rate exceeds the canopy's descent rate just to eliminate any possibility of illusion, with a GPS track that still says it never happened... and people like you will refuse to believe their eyes and ears if the fricking gadget doesn't say it happened.

Not only that, lets change the picture a bit. I'll bet I can do a canopy ride, flare the canopy to a popup or an outright crumpling stall at a given altitude, and half the time the GPS will say THAT never happened either.

In fact I think I will go and DO just that thing, just to establish for myself what I can and can not expect the GPS to actually see. If the GPS tells us that my canopy does not in fact actually flare or go up, are you going to believe that over the evidence that yes, it does, and I typically land with it?
Lets find out.
-B
Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

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I just got a message incidentally, telling me I've got the GPS configured wrong anyway, the stock setting is apparently already proven to be confused by climbs and the 2G mode model is the more accurate for this kind of thing. I haven't done anything to the settings yet, the thing is stock, I simply added some juice to the battery without bothering to charge it all the way, turned it on threw it in my wing and went.

In other words, the one thing you'll accept as evidence, for these three runs, isn't. Turns out I was using it even wronger than I thought I was.

So I'm going to go set it, try it again, and see if I can get you the track you ask for. I'll be fascinated to see if I do the same maneuvers with the different setting what exactly is it going to show? Stay tuned kids...

I'm not bothering to put the early stuff I've collected up on PPC because I see no need to clutter the system with what may or may not be garbage tracks on introductory flights where I wasn't trying to produce a recordingworthy flight anyway. When I have a decent result worth bothering to put up and crow about, I will.

Theres nothing wrong with skepticism... but just because I feel like I'm being heckled, I AM going to see if I can get enough results to beat MY point in with a lead pipe ASAP.

Whos going to eat their words...you, or me? Probably me, really, but the experience provided by that suit, says maybe not. ALL my gear says I climbed, the GPS just says I didn't climb, MUCH. And it was set wrong. Be interesting to see... set to mode 2, will it show no climb at all and I'm full of shit? Or will it show that yeah, it was a helluva climb but the first setting rendered the gadget almost totally blind to it? Few more days and I'll stop by this thread again and report back.
-B
Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

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I think yes, thats the one. I never actually looked at it before but it looks exactly like what I'd have expected to see on my own track. Now that I know to try another setting lets see if I can produce a track like that myself on demand... Just to make the Lukes of the world happy.
-B
Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

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No problem, without tone it's easy to take things the wrong way. No offense taken or meant.

I'll look forward to seeing the results of your Flysights tests, and if you can achieve "a clean smooth rampdown to 0mph, continuing past baseline through the teens to -20, -19, -21mph, gradually slowing and reversing once again past zero into normal flight as I went over the top and bled off what little speed was required to get this." I'll be very impressed. I don't see how you can make a video demonstrating a climb with a sinking canopy as a reference...

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do you really think having the suit be able to flare to a stop or a minor climb is so farfetched?

without diving (you stated "An actual dive is not even necessary. ")... yes i think it's very farfetched.

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I just got a message incidentally, telling me I've got the GPS configured wrong anyway, the stock setting is apparently already proven to be confused by climbs and the 2G mode model is the more accurate for this kind of thing.



I don't think that is correct, I think that that only applies when performing a radical manoeuvre like Oliver's long dive to flare. Your flight was a gradual transition from normal flight mode? I don't think it's necessary to change the mode in that case, but it probably won't harm things too much.

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Thats why i said frame by frame analysis...I'm sure somebody like Spot, expert in video data, could produce a piece of video where a frame by frame of the canopy's movement allows its descent to be precisely quantified and subtracted from the wingsuit's "visual climb" and any vertical separation velocity remaining has to BE a climb.

And who says it has to be a high performance canopy in front risers? I'd only do THAT if I WANTED to create an exaggerated illusion of a climb. What I want is the opposite, so people stop claiming it IS illusion. To minimize the differential illusion, I'd try it relative to a big, slow-ass lightly loaded 260 student ride thats barely moving at all, even have the pilot ride in deep brakes so its the next best thing to a standstill balloon platform. If the pilot of that canopy then sees me rocketing on past, at a 45 degree angle doing 30 UPWARD relative to that canopy, subtract that canopy's 5-10mph floaty descent (and hang a GPS on HIM too just for the sake of thoroughness) and you STILL have an unmistakable undeniable and totally provable climb.

Lets see how thoroughly I can prove this.
-B
Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

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do you really think having the suit be able to flare to a stop or a minor climb is so farfetched?

without diving (you stated "An actual dive is not even necessary. ")... yes i think it's very farfetched.



Agreed. For that to be possible from steady state flight, we would need a wing loading comparable to a canopy.
www.WingsuitPhotos.com

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Thats why i said frame by frame analysis...I'm sure somebody like Spot, expert in video data, could produce a piece of video where a frame by frame of the canopy's movement allows its descent to be precisely quantified and subtracted from the wingsuit's "visual climb" and any vertical separation velocity remaining has to BE a climb.

And who says it has to be a high performance canopy in front risers? I'd only do THAT if I WANTED to create an exaggerated illusion of a climb. What I want is the opposite, so people stop claiming it IS illusion. To minimize the differential illusion, I'd try it relative to a big, slow-ass lightly loaded 260 student ride thats barely moving at all, even have the pilot ride in deep brakes so its the next best thing to a standstill balloon platform. If the pilot of that canopy then sees me rocketing on past, at a 45 degree angle doing 30 UPWARD relative to that canopy, subtract that canopy's 5-10mph floaty descent (and hang a GPS on HIM too just for the sake of thoroughness) and you STILL have an unmistakable undeniable and totally provable climb.

Lets see how thoroughly I can prove this.
-B



I appreciate the idea Lurch, but I don't think any amount of video expertise will be able to make a falling camera (i.e. on a canopy pilot's head) provide proof of a climb. Especially since the only reference to use for frame by frame analysis would be the horizon.

An airplane in level flight might provide a good reference, but again you'd have to prove (assuming you want to shut up the naysayers) that it really was in level flight. I myself am neither a naysayer nor a believer. I agree with you that a video would provide more believable evidence than a GPS, but I cannot think of an easy way to implement that video proof.
www.WingsuitPhotos.com

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Luke, take another look at how Skwrl saw the suit as I was flying it. I wasn't diving...I was simply flying scrunched trying to stay down with him. The resulting rebound was not a result of putting the nose down, diving hard, piling on the speed and then punching it like I'd do in competition, all I had to do was stop trying to keep up.
So far as this suit's physics go, the suit appears to consider simply flying dirty and staying down with others to BE a dive since its so far out of the suit's range the only way to jack the fallrate that high without pointing the nose at the ground is to scrunch up in a mess.
Anyway this is all so much noise till I get more data and back it up to the satisfaction of you and every other naysayer out there and this, I will do. Stay tuned...
-B
Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

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I see no need to clutter the system



Klaus actually put a lot of work into making the website easier to navigate through tracks last weekend. You can have 500 tracks online, and still not clutter the system. All tables are now also able to be sorted by suit, person, and even per person, sorted per time/distance/speed score. Klaus put a lot of hard work into the website and paralog, why not use it?

As to the altitrack showing climbing.

Attached is an Altitrack graph that (on playback) shows a 9 mph climb.
In reality it was just a flare seperating from a flock that didnt even get close to a flat glide (according to the GPS). Even a simple transition from front to backfly shows strange results with brief drops and/or climbs already. Even though GPS data on flaring is far from accurate as well, its at least more accurate than any pressure based measuring device.
JC
FlyLikeBrick
I'm an Athlete?

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Now that I know to try another setting lets see if I can produce a track like that myself on demand... Just to make the Lukes of the world happy.



Lurch, you were claiming climbs based on data you collected, you didn't just say the data looked like a climb, you said it was. You even said this "Playback of the records it is producing show flight results so impossible that last week I'd have laughed at any pilot claiming them.". You are one of the Lukes of this world, so maybe you should lay off his case;)


(For my part, I remember a few years ago when SkyMonkeyOne claimed something like a 45 second average of 18mph only to later post a graph that showed like 2 spikes under 20mph. I'm sceptical of anyone's interpretation of their own data without actually seeing it.)
Do you want to have an ideagasm?

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[url]https://vimeo.com/28187656[url]
https://vimeo.com/28187656

X-bird that looks like it legitimately flies up at two points in the video as compared to static objects. Lift is proportional the the square of speed, the faster the dive, the more stored energy. It's not sustainable anyway, so who cares, but I fully believe in flying a wingsuit up briefly.

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I also agree that it's feasible to make a small climb after a sufficient dive, and just as possible with prior suits. That is very different to saying that this suit is so special that at will from normal flocking speed it's possible to climb at 20MPH! That's a pretty wild claim.

It's pretty difficult to say if what's happening in a video where the camera height and angle are changing and ground is sloping. You shouldn't always believe your eyes. Here is video "proof" of a car rolling uphill https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fYARQoBUdxs

I didn't say it didn't happen just that the claim is so amazing I find it hard to believe and I'd like to learn more about it. I don't see why it's ruffled so many feathers.

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more enery stored but also more force to overcome. the suit has been out for a while whilest i believe lower averages and slower stall speeds are possible due to more fabric from what i have seen glide has not improved much if at all for a very large fabric penalty.

as for increased internal pressurisation would be cool if the manufactures went to some trouble to measure it. doubt the apache would have much more though same vents and internal sealing. there is only so much ram air can do the slower you go the less it can do

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is no one thinking that with all this XRW with ''relatively'' normal size swoop canopies going on that the suits are very slow?

they have very good "slow speed/floaty" abilities., but apparently also good high speed capacities too.
scissors beat paper, paper beat rock, rock beat wingsuit - KarlM

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is no one thinking that with all this XRW with ''relatively'' normal size swoop canopies going on that the suits are very slow?

they have very good "slow speed/floaty" abilities., but apparently also good high speed capacities too.



from what i have heard they can be flown fast but not naturally ie, instability (yaw etc) the faster you go. i could sort of see it in garys flight lots of wabbling as he tries to speed up and falls below and infront of the camera man and then stops wabbling as he planes out and sets up for flair. kinda like the death wobbles on a skateboard

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:)Er, um, no, actually I kinda didn't, the best I could do at the time was kinda wiggle like I had an itch in a funny spot.
However, I did figure out how to shut the damn thing down today so pulling just got a whole lot safer and easier, and fixed my deployments too. I took it up twice today, with the specific intention of gathering solid GPS data. I talked some good trash in here.
Now I can back it up.

I just got 3 climbs in two skydives, on demand, one of them a climb of 6mph from a fallrate of 78 plus one planeout to 5mph from a fallrate of only 45 mph just to show the outside edge of the envelope, show the "can't quite planeout to zero or climb from here" speed.

It looks like my altimeter was not being fooled. Played back it shows climbs where I expected to see them, and so do the tracks. Altimeter playbacks appear to neatly agree with Flysight tracks. Theres a lot of slop in there, Alti says -2mph while Flysight says -6mph but this stuff crosses the line at will so clearly its undeniable. I got these when I wanted em and the exact speeds I needed to do it are all there.

And I got it all on GPS.
I'm gonna start a new review thread, put up some GPS track screengrabs plus the stuff I figured out about deployment and shutdowns and let the critics have at it.
I got challenged to put my data where my mouth is in here.
Challenge Accepted.
-B
Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

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