PF Pants/Jacket first impressions

[blair700 0]

Yo!
I just submitted the following review of my first few skydives on the PF pants and jacket. I know this is the BASE forum, and I don't have enough BASE jumps on the suit to comment on that, but I thought fellow BASErs would be interested. Plus I'll add the BASE thoughts once I return from the Big Wall in Mexico
Tom, please remove this if it is not in the appropriate forum...Thanks

Quote

I was able to make several skydives on my new Phoenix-Fly Pants and Jacket last weekend. I have BASE jumped the suit, but only once so my views here are strictly from the experiences I had skydiving.
The first thing I noticed once out of the plane was the slower fall rate and increased forward speed. It felt almost like flying a wingsuit, I was able to stay in freefall for more than 80 seconds on the first jump from 13000’ and averaged a fall rate of 80 MPH. I then did a couple jumps from 6000’ where I was able to get 40+second delays. Again, the extra freefall time is nice, but the increased forward speed is what I was most impressed with. The body position seems similar to how I fly my GTI, however I had a whole different set of sore muscles to deal with this week
I did notice that if you don’t ‘present’ the pants quite right to the relative wind, some lift is lost, however this is momentary as once you find the right body position for your entire body, you can feel the suit fly. At deployment, again, openings felt like wingsuit deployments, very sub-terminal, but of course as soon as you deploy you are ready to fly your canopy as there is nothing to be unzipped etc.
As with the other products Robert Pecnik makes, the research, design, and finish of the products is second to none. I would recommend this product to any skydiver who wants to fly, and any BASE jumper who wants yet another perfect tool for site specific jumps. Lucky for me I’m both.
Thanks
Blair700

[yarpos 4]

sounds impressive.....can you talk a bit more about the body position you used, I am interested as I am a similar physical size to you, and also interested in this gear or the pressurised suit....

thanks, Steve

regards, Steve
the older I get...the better I was

[JaapSuter 0]

Hey Blair,

sounds like your wingsuit experience helped you find a good body position quickly. It took me a while (never flown a wingsuit) to find a good steep position that seemed to create lift.

Have you tried flying with swoopcords yet? It makes a nice difference. Just tie a shoe-lace directly from thumb to thumb, through your sleeves (not going down to your belt). That way you can create extra tension on the fabric under your armpits and create more surface area. Having it go straight across your chest instead of down to your belt (as with standard RW swoopcords) allows you to still reach risers and toggles immediately.

I first read about this tip from Han Solo in this post: http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=1329953. There's some other useful stuff in there too.

Cheers,

Jaap

[TomAiello 25]

Would you mind posting this into the reviews section?

I don't believe that there is a category for tracking gear on BLiNC, but you might want to email it to Mick, too, and see if he can put it up there.

-- Tom Aiello

[email protected]
SnakeRiverBASE.com

[iXic 0]

Blair700, so you did what I said Nice that at least some men are listening to me

I have the same experience! Ok, I'm only 5’5” and weigh 120lbs , but my forward speed was amaizing! Also can feel it when jumping of the walls...These PF toys are great!!!