Freefly or RW jumpsuit

[Markj 0]

I have completed my AFF and want to order myslef a jumpsuit but can't decide whether or not to get a Freefly suit or a RW suit with grips. I have not done any RW or Freeflying but I am sure that freefly is the way I wan't to go so I am probably thinking of getting a freefly suit. Im sure that many of you guys/girls have been in the same boat so just wondering if you had any suggestions or comments.


thanks

[CanuckInUSA 0]

At the risk of offending the ever so sensitive RW folks, if you know you want to freefly why spend money on an RW suit. I have an RW suit which does nothing but collect dust now. I wish I had known before that I was going to become a freeflier off of AFF as I never would have wasted money on this RW suit. Oh well, live and learn I guess.

One other thing though. Unless you are going to be doing a shit load of jumps off of AFF, I wouldn't suggest trying to learn to freefly too soon off of AFF. Learning to fly relative others is not trivial and neither is learning to freefly. And if you're trying to do both of these at the same time soon off of AFF, you might find things tough. Freeflying rocks, but it's not easy to learn and it's recommended that you've got some experience flying relative to others before you come to the dark side.

Try not to worry about the things you have no control over

[judedre 0]

belly suit is waste of money...... just order a nice freefly suit and belly fly in it Untill you are ready to start freeflying....u need at least 50 to 100 belly jumps b4 u start thinkin bout freeflyin u can also jump in cargo pants and a sweatshirt.. remeber Its ALLLLL about how good u look NUFIN else matters....
come be a tumblefuq... we even entered in the NSL belly comp all wearing our freefly suits... dont worry bout offending anyone .. no belly flyers even have computers so they wont be on here..... FLAME On yehaa..

[skybytch 259]

Unlike the others who've posted in this thread, I would suggest getting a basic RW suit. It doesn't have to have booties or competition grips or inseam grips or any of the other bells and whistles. I know of at least one jumpsuit manufacturer that can get you a basic RW suit for under $200. You can also buy used and save quite a bit.

Why? First off, it's easier to belly fly in an RW suit and you'll find learning to freefly with others easier if you've got some experience flying with others on your belly. Depending on your body size/type you may find flying relative to others on your belly difficult in a freefly suit or in "street" clothes. Basic freeflying can be learned in a baggy sweatshirt and jeans.

Second, you never know, you may decide that you don't want to be a "one discipline doofus." You may decide to learn to do more than one thing in freefall... in which case you'll eventually need both an RW suit and a freefly suit.

[rehmwa 2]

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you don't want to be a "one discipline doofus." .

Sanity from SB. And shame on all you close minded wonders.



A good skydiver can do a little bit of everything. It really stinks to see a freeflyer flail about in a simple RW jump. It also really stinks to see an RW-only type not even be able to stick a simple sit or stable headdown. Or either refusing to learn or try the other discipline That's the worst.

Get both, even if you get a used RW suit. You need to be a least a little decent at RW. They really do feed each other. And FF includes both belly and back to earth moves in addition to vertical.

You can also Freefly in just plain loose clothes. So why purchase either if not both? Also, a FF suit is much easier to make yourself than an RW suit.

The only thing I'd recommend avoiding is buying a "sit suit" - some are still out there and it's a crutch and whoever is selling you one is just trying to dump a poor investment on you. Best to learn without, go with jeans and an XXXL sweatshirt if you need the assist.

And again, the "Darkside" is CrW. Freeflying is just another form of flying as fun as it is. You guys are about 20 years too late to claim that title.

And 4-way RW absolutely kicks butt if you are even a little bit competitive and driven.

In other words, you don't have to choose, you can do it all.

...
Driving is a one dimensional activity - a monkey can do it - being proud of your driving abilities is like being proud of being able to put on pants

[gcalder 0]

You may want to learn to do both RW and freefly. I travel alot and have jumped at many different dropzones. Some dropzones that I have been to have have people that do only one or the other. I feel lucky that I can do both otherwise I may have missed out on alot of jumps.

[Brains 2]

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Second, you never know, you may decide that you don't want to be a "one discipline doofus." You may decide to learn to do more than one thing in freefall... in which case you'll eventually need both an RW suit and a freefly suit.

Listen to her! i own two rw suits, one ff suit, and two pairs of ff pants. Last weekend, i think i wore almost all of them for different dives. Learn to do it all and you will have more fun in this sport. Just my .02

Never look down on someone, unless they are going down on you.

[nightjumps 1]

From my RW experience, judedre is giving you excellent advice. Really good Freeflyers learn about movement by learning good RW skills first, then migrate to FF'ing.

You can do RW in a FF suit... in fact, back in the 80's that's what we wore, 'cept they were called silly suits. In the early 90's booties were attached to regular suits to provide additional drive with the legs extended. Once that became popular, RW suits were designed more efficiently and focused on RW needs.

When FF'ing came along, sitflyers would buy skin tight shorts and wear shirts that were very baggy to help with the drag on top. Then baggy pants and a skin tight shirt were worn to do heads down. Over the past decade(ish), things migrated back to full baggy suits for FF'ers.

From this RW (which I like to be called a horizontal flyer ), if you think your goal is FF'ing - get a FF suit. Just realize that you'll need more positive legs than those wearing an RW suit when driving to a formation and more emphasis on your turns while doing RW.

Blue Skies

[nightjumps 1]

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...we even entered in the NSL belly comp all wearing our freefly suits...

And for a 'throw-together" did a helluva job, I might add.

[CanuckInUSA 0]

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At the risk of offending the ever so sensitive RW folks.

Told you the belly fliers would freak out.

Freedom means choice and I choose to do:

1) Freeflying
2) Swooping
3) Tracking

These are the only discipline's I am currently interested in (who knows maybe I'll change in the future). Am I a complete skydiver? Hell no. But I have my freeflying, swooping and tracking goals and until those are realized, I choose to concentrate on just these and only these disciplines. I have almost zero interest in RW.

Once again the original poster asked what sort of suit should they buy (keeping in mind they said they thought they were more interested in freeflying). If money is no issue, then sure buy everything and anything to equipe yourself in this sport. But if money is an issue, why buy something you may not use?

Try not to worry about the things you have no control over

[Brains 2]

If that is what you are interested in, great. At least you don't have the attitude that belly flying is worthless etc, etc. etc. More that you are just not interested in doing it.

Never look down on someone, unless they are going down on you.

[CanuckInUSA 0]

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At least you don't have the attitude that belly flying is worthless etc, etc. etc. More that you are just not interested in doing it.

Yes and if you read my original post in this thread, you should notice that I recommended to the original poster that they spend some time on their belly learning how to fly relative to others before they venture into freeflying.

Try not to worry about the things you have no control over

[Markj 0]

Cool guys, thanks for all the responses, I would defintely like to have some experience in both RW and FF but I think that I might try do more FF so I will probably buy the FF suit first, As you guys say you learn RW with a FF suit but its probably not suited as much for the job as a RW suit.
If I end up really enjoying RW I will probably try get another jumpsuit for that also, when I get some extra money
thanks again

M.J

[dayle 0]

After I completed my training, I did a bunch of belly flying, then started to get a good sit together. I was jumping back and forth alot and one of the things that I found is that I was not progressing as much as I though I should in either disipline.

I stopped doing that and cranked out 50 to 100 jumps of sitting standing, and some attempts at head down and progressed alot better.

To get to your question though, I'd go with some of the advice that was posted earlier.

Get really comfortable jumping on your belly before you progress to freeflying. #1 reason, you still pull on your belly and you want to be able to come out of anything, and get stable quick if required.

Reason #2 BIG WAYS!!!

I don't care how much of a freefly fanatic you are, nothing compares to completing a 20 + person formation, and for that you need to have good belly flying skills.

When it comes to getting a suit, if you decide that you want nothing to do with big ways and just wanna be a lawn dart, lol get a freefly suit and just fly on your belly for awhile, then progress onward and upward to wherever you want the sport to take you.

Dayle

[Markj 0]

I know that I will need to get fairly good at RW before I can really even think of FF, but hopefully I can do all that practice on my belly in my FF suit that I get. Hopefully it should be alright. If I change my mind half way though I will look around for a 2nd hand RW suit, I am sure I could pick one up for fairly cheap.


thanks

M.J

[CanuckInUSA 0]

I think the only real hurdle to doing RW with a FF suit is that there are no gripers. But if your FF suit is floppy enough, the other people should be able to grap onto your floppy suit. But if it's a skin tight FF suit, it could be hard to grap onto anything. So the next question is, are you a reasonably big person and thus would be using a floppy suit) or are you a small person (using a tight suit). If you are small and want to do RW, then you will likely need an RW suit. But if you have a floppy suit, then you may be able to use it on RW jumps.

Try not to worry about the things you have no control over

[pilotdave 0]

If you know you'll be doing RW for a while, get an RW suit. It's gonna be a lot easier to learn RW, and get to the point where you can start freeflying, if you have a good fitting RW suit. Struggling to belly fly in a freefly suit is just not going to help.

I almost always do RW (or whatever you wanna call chasing people around the sky on my belly
Dave

[Markj 0]

Good point, I am not a very big person no, + - 65 kgs I am not sure how baggy the suit is going to be, I will have to find out from who I get the suit from. decisions, decisions.. I will have to give it a bit of thought. On that note has anybody bought a Jumpsuit from Icarus.co.za? http://www.icarus.co.za/jumpsuit.asp If yes do they have any photos?

cheers

[Markj 0]

Ye maybe you are right, I will have to give it some more thought then, I am not going to be buying it for a few weeks still so untill then will just have a think about it and decide what will be best for me. Its going to be my Xmas present to myslef


cheers

[CanuckInUSA 0]

I am a fairly big guy (in the skydiver's world) at 190-200 lbs and fast fall rates have been one of my bigger skydiving challenges (especially when head down). Believe it or not, a couple of months ago while in Rantoul I asked a very experienced freefly tunnel coach how I could slow down. Now you think he'd give me this answer of doing a daffy this way (or some other way to slow down my body). But no. His response was to wear baggier clothing. So I ran out and picked up myself an $8 XXXL sweat shirt and it has done wonders to my head down freeflying.

So ... I'm mentioning all of this because you don't necessarily need to run out and spend a bunch of $$$ on a freefly suit. You could get yourself a sweat shirt (maybe not a XXXL like me though) and some tight pants around the calves and thighs when learning to sit and baggy pants when learning head down (by the way, doing head down jumps is not something you should be thinking about at this time). And if you'd like, you could then spend the saved money on an RW suit. But don't forget, when it's time to buy a freefly suit, flashy colors earn you brownie points.

Try not to worry about the things you have no control over

[darkwing 4]

I am pretty much just a belly flyer, but I think it is far more more myth than fact that your jumpsuit restricts reasonable activity in a discipline other than its designed discipline. The jumpsuits that were used for RW a few years ago looked pretty much like freefly suits do now. Buy a freefly suit, and don't be afraid to do some RW in it. I'm not afraid to do some freeflying in my RW suit--all I do is rubber-band the booties into a wad at ankle level.

-- Jeff
My Skydiving History

[webracer 0]

you really need both, but the belly suit will be more useful early on. Get solid belly-flying before spending too much time freeflying. Hell, I just did a head-down jump yesterday in my comp bellysuit with the booties on. Being solid on your belly may save your life someday. Get that first. Freeflying will always be there. Used freefly suits are more friendly than used belly suits too, since they generally fit looser, and need a little less tailoring.
You can also get a belly suit and then just throw on shorts and a longsleeve to start sitflying.

Troy

I am now free to exercise my downward mobility.

[skygrl70 0]

As a newbie, I can only say this....think about this as much as possible before buying any suit at all. I purchased my RW suit in September and it rocks....it's absolutely gorgeous, and Leiah (sp?)totally rocked helping me pick my colors. I really do love it. However, I'm kinda thinking I want to get into FF and am wishing I didn't put the $$ into that at this time in my training...only 35 jumps so far. However, the measurement sessions are pretty arousing! Love ya girl, if you're out there!!!! I guess I would suggest if you are going to buy, buy used. Having said all this, I wouldn't trade my RW suit for anything!!! When I'm 90 yrs old, I'm going to be sitting in my rocker wearing it still, telling my grandchildren about how awsome this time in my life was!!!

[scottjaco 0]

I just ordered some freefly pants from firefly.

I just want the pants. In southern california it gets hot in the summer and I definatly would not want to be stuck with a full body suit. With the pants, you can wear whatever top you want, and in my humble opinon, I think it looks cooler to just have the pants cause you can wear whatever top you want, depending on the temp.!

scott

[skygrl70 0]

I agree, it does look cooler
My two cents