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KrisFlyZ

Would you encourage this?

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Ed never have I heard talk of banning wingsuit flight



Well I can tell you from first hand experience I have heard those very words said to me at Last years Rantoul and at Eloy, two of the countries biggest events/locations where skydiving is done and I could give you a few more smaller places as well. I have also had people who have never flown a suit try and tell me how they thought things should be done when it would of been blatently obvious to them that it was erroneous if they had flown a suit. Unfortunately, many of the people who make decisions at DZs(DZSOs,owners,S&TAs) have never flown a suit and until recently there was no guideance or source of information available to them to make sound decisions. I personally don't want people who have no idea what we can do in a Wingsuit dictating how we do fly or telling us what is and isn't safe. Being Proactive is going to ensure we continue to enjoy this discipline and we don't see restrictions placed apon us by governing bodies. A manufacturer taking responsibility and providing sound information/instruction for the products they produce is not only good customer service, it also ensures that the people buying the product know how to use it safely and properly.


Funny how the same topics always seem to come up on certain subjects in all the forums. I know we covered this exact topic ad nauseum almost a year ago among the many others. Education and proper training is key to everything we do in skydiving so why do we always question it (rhetorical)? If I had a nickel for everytime;)


Kris, I jumped with Bolas this weekend and the suit fits him perfectly. I didn't get to talk to him before I left but I think you may have a sale:)
"It's just skydiving..additional drama is not required"
Some people dream about flying, I live my dream
SKYMONKEY PUBLISHING

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Kris, I jumped with Bolas this weekend and the suit fits him perfectly. I didn't get to talk to him before I left but I think you may have a sale.



Thanks Scott.

I almost for got what this thread was originally about! :ph34r:

Ed
www.WestCoastWingsuits.com
www.PrecisionSkydiving.com

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Ed never have I heard talk of banning wingsuit flight



Well I can tell you from first hand experience I have heard those very words said to me at Last years Rantoul and at Eloy, two of the countries biggest events/locations where skydiving is done and I could give you a few more smaller places as well.

My reply---->

So Scott you are now the third person who has mentioned it. It's still a BMI exclusive statement. Is there anybody else out there who feels this way outside of the structure..... DZOs, S&TAs, Pilots, Loaders, AFF & tandem Instructors.. bartenders.. lurking this forum. Who feel that wingsuits are dangerous, a menace waiting to be unleashed and should be banished from the dropzone. We want to hear from you, represent your thoughts and emotions. Be heard. Our operators are standing by.

Now to be fair I did hear Brain B who is a safety cautious S&TA at both WFFC and of course ELOY Say and I quote " I don't think that high traffic events should be a place for specialty jumping. Ie: tandems AFF and birdman". This was in regard to the WFFC madness which there is enough of between the various aircraft operators.
I will Guarantee they will NEVER ban tandems and AFF at the WFFC, and I bet they could care even less about bird-manning it there.
There was some confusion at the Eloy holiday boogie in regards to wingsuits, also a high traffic event, I imagine the same S&TA was in volved. BUT Brian never mentioned banning wingsuits there ( doubt the thought of even curtailing them during the boogie even entered his mind ). But again it was the BMIs who were pretty quik to mention banning wingsuits on this here forum.
Carefull what you mention ladies and gentlemen, you may just get your wish. The sky is falling chicken littles.

We will just keep operating same as always from first flights to flocks, above board, safe and sane, groovy and styley. Keeping everyone happy. Never drawing that hatefull eye. Maintaining everbodys trust. All without having to threaten someone with spending a "night in the box".

;)

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BUT Brian never mentioned banning wingsuits there ( doubt the thought of even curtailing them during the boogie even entered his mind )




How come I feel like I am leading a horse to water? What I am saying is that I have heard those EXACT words from Brian and others who have a huge influence over the skydiving community as a whole. Wheather you choose to believe me or anyone else, I can tell you if it wasn't for the BMIs getting involved wingsuit flight would of stopped at last years WFFC and probably this years. The Eloy holiday boogie wingsuit flights almost came to a screeching halt becasue of 1 individuals failure to follow the rules. Had someone not been there to talk to those individuals and those violating the rules, I know without question the people in charge would of shut wingsuit flights down completely and probably for future events as well.Think what you like but I challenge those who think this is not the case to take your head out of the sand and realize that wingsuits are seen much like FFing was in it's infancy. Many see it as a fad and more of a pain for a relatively small number of people who make a small # of jumps in comparison with normal skydiving operations( almost verbatim words I personally heard from an involved party). It is far easier to for go us than to incorporate us into the daily operations of a dropzone if we are seen as a nuisance. Get involved, travel to other DZs and talk to the DZSOs, S&TAs and you will see that many have no clue or are resistant to change,especially if it means they have to do something in addition to the 100 others things they have to do to run an operation. If we take care of ourselves we won't even show up as a blip on anyones radar. However, if we don't I sure wouldn't want to be "that guy" who ruined it for all wingsuiters everywhere.
"It's just skydiving..additional drama is not required"
Some people dream about flying, I live my dream
SKYMONKEY PUBLISHING

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Glen, I am not sure why you think there is some conspiracy going on, but I can tell you for a fact that wingsuiting was nearly shut down at both WFFC 2003 and Eloy last year because of problems with individuals flying back into the pattern. We had less problems with "zoomies" this year at WFFC, but still had some close calls which got the attention of the staff. If you did not hear that at either event it was because you were not involved with the air meetings every morning like I was, nor did you have Bryan Burke come to your vendor tent and express his disdain nearly every day. I am pretty put off that you think "the establishment" would be making this shit up. The bottom line here is that there is little room for error when the skies are crowded. Safety is paramount.

Chuck

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Chuck's dead on. Long story short: skysurfing.

In regards to Eloy. There were like 40+ wingsuit pilots. The only people who were told directly about ban potential from Bryan were those at the BirdMan booth, because Bryan has better things to do than track down everyone with a wingsuit.

Rather than tell everyone, "play nice or else," the LOs were more positive. When you're trying to put together a nice 10-way+ and keep up the energy, the last thing you want to do is start bringing up DZ politics. LOs just opted for more dirt diving and repetitive briefing, and it worked. It's the kind of self-regulation we need to maintain the trust and acceptance we've earned in skydiving.

I've definitely been on the end of "play nice or get out" when travelling to DZs that are seeing wingsuits for the first time. We all play nice, and by the end of the weekend, we are a welcome bunch. We don't see bans right now because we all have, for the most part, been playing nice. Probably best not to experiment with pissing off DZOs. :)
"¯"`-._.-¯) ManBird (¯-._.-´"¯"

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The only people who were told directly about ban potential from Bryan were those at the BirdMan booth, because Bryan has better things to do than track down everyone with a wingsuit.



Thanks for noticing and mentioning it Steve. Having spent well over a year plus working these issues with Brian and many others via e-mail(Some who's first response was to not allow us to fly any more) and meeting with them every day some times more than once during events has brought them to where we are today. Which is why this years WFFC went relatively smoothly but was still a delicate balance that I had to attend to everyday so that everyone involved was happy.Now where we once were faced with not being allowed to jump there is a Birdman school and the Dropzone is holding a Birdman specific Boogie. Every DZ I visit I make time to talk with the DZSO and staff members and answer any questions they might have and give advice. In the big picture of things, this task should be undertaken by everyone who flys a suit at their DZ. If you fly your suit like a jackass at your DZ or a DZ you're visiting, the people you piss off are going to assume all wingsuiters are the same and that only makes it harder for everyone. The relative ease of flying which many are now enjoying has been paved by the hard work of myself and others who have had the fore sight and intestinal fortitude to take charge and responsibility when no one else would. So that should explain why not everyone knows or hears about potential bans or problems and why what you do hear tends to come from BMIs.
"It's just skydiving..additional drama is not required"
Some people dream about flying, I live my dream
SKYMONKEY PUBLISHING

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Ok I will try to reply to all of this. Chuck as far as conspiracy goes, conspiracy is a bad word to describe what I'm talking about. Its just a different perception of the sentiment out there. That is all. The words of wingsuit bannishment is something I've only heard from the BMIs, never anywhere else.
I was personnally at the bird-man booth the first morning. This is after I asked his ground staff about patterns they saw the instructor patch on my suit and said they would get back to me after asking Brian. When Brian came over to discuss flight patterns and I heard him say that the WFFC is no place for specialty jumping. Never heard him say banning wingsuits. Granted I never sat in on airspace meetings every morning.
As far as the incident in arizona Brian figured out who it was and talked to him. It was a pretty simple discussion and that jumper never heard the word banning. This is the same Brian that if he sees you do something dumb under canopy in his pattern ,you will absolutely get an earful about it.
Even when we had the otter strike, by a first gen BMI no less, no body ever talked about banning it here and it would have been easy as there were less than a handful of suits here at the time. Those were some tense moments for the DZ, the pilot of the struck aircraft, the chief pilot in the chase plane.
The DZ manager at the time, who had had it up to his eye balls with accidents and incidents of other types and wasn't going to put up with anything high risk, never mentioned banning wingsuits or even canceling the first wingsuit boogie and visit from bird-man that was to come in a few months.
The pilot of the struck aircraft didn't want to run wingsuits off the property he wasn't even angry. In fact he found a new appreciation for them ( I find this true for a lot of pilots). He was a non current jumper from the old days that thought of recurrency just to jump one. In his words they were pretty awesome and he wanted to try one.
The chief pilot, who was in the chase plane, has gone on to become a wingsuit jumper.. Its something he and his wife do.

Now mine was an open question to non BMIs about banning or any negative feedback. Other than the BMI response, I've heard none but I'm still waiting.

I wasn't around during the early days of freeflying so I can't tell you what trials they had to go through, real or perceived. I'm positive that freefly grudge is and always was non existant at some dropzones and I'm sure there are some DZs that still just can't figure it out. In most cases its probably a jump culture and not a DZO safety issue.
And I reply to Steve's statement with: Skysurfing, what? explain? I wasn't around then either.
I'm just around now and have never heard anything about banning wingsuits.
Skysurfing, as far as I know, is not banned, come to think of it neither is HP canopy flight. Which BTW is a very dangerous, highly emotional, charged subject of many actual fatalities. Way more than the wingsuit dilemma. The sky is still not falling.

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Skysurfing, as far as I know, is not banned

Show of hands... DZs that don't allow skysurfing? There are a LOT. Perris isn't one of them. The space taken up on the plane, the amount of time they take in the door, and some incidents had them kicked out of DZs all over the place. Basically, inconvenience for DZs and a bad safety record. It became a "specialty" jump, not a regular discipline, and this was a big factor in the demise of skysurfing. The more we can fit in, the less wingsuit flying will be looked at as "specialty" jumping.

But wingsuit flying, still, is considered a sort of weird thing. If we continue to behave in a way that we fit into DZ operations as well as RWers and freeflyers, then we maintain the longevity of our unique discipline. A lot of skysurfers never figured out how to fit in properly. So it went away.
"¯"`-._.-¯) ManBird (¯-._.-´"¯"

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But wingsuit flying, still, is considered a sort of weird thing. If we continue to behave in a way that we fit into DZ operations as well as RWers and freeflyers, then we maintain the longevity of our unique discipline. A lot of skysurfers never figured out how to fit in properly. So it went away.



I always thought the decline of skysurfing was more as a result of the popularity of freeflying. No longer bound be gear and limited to to a second person on camera, you can bring two or more friends along all with cameras, and share the jump that way. But that could just be my perception.

OK If you are skydiving in an unsafe or suspect manner , regardless of discipline and it is obvious to those around, then that sounds like an individual behavior or procedural problem. It is not a short coming of an entire discipline and all of its practitioners at every location. It should be dealt with on an individual level. I'm sure that wingsuiting will not be practical at every venue for a multitude of reasons and it should be curtailed at the local level based on events on a case by case level. The very jumpers wanting to do it should be the ones with the wisdom to stand down as they have the knowledge.

Which wingsuiters are misbehaving? Now granted the wingsuit world off the dropzone is a perilous place and there have been instances resulting in fatalities. None of which were attributed to lack of flight skills but rather other choices by people who could absolutely maintain stable and safe flight otherwise.
Back in the regulated jump world there has been one wingsuit related fatality due to lack of control during deployment. I couldn't say if this DZ considered or expressed banning wingsuits. I don't think the presence of a BMI in a ground training or flight instruction capacity would have changed the outcome one way or the other in this case.

Chances are if someone jumps wingsuits at a given DZ and they have 50~200 safe wingsuit jumps, they are familiar with the local environment and pilot operating practices, then they should be a fairly good resource to mentor somebody who wants to get into wingsuits. Using past history as a guild, with a few comical but not too blatantly unsafe exceptions, this has worked wonderfully and represents the bulk of new birdies. Thats how it was in the beginning. It is much safer than just going alone IMO. I recommend this over learning it alone regardless of jump numbers as the manufacturers say is OK with more than 500 jumps. I'm not referring to just my personal situation I'm referring to Ohio, Colorado, Nebraska and Texas or where ever ( name your country). That is unless of course that your specific DZ or that DZs governing body has a problem with that and has rules above and beyond.

Based on history with one exception all of wingsuiting's black eyes are as a result of decisions by competent pilots. They are not as a result of new jumpers failing to realize that this discipline is beyond them, which it is not, just about anybody can do this. Or as a result of new jumpers failing to control the suit during flight and deployment.
Historically the availability of BMIs or a structure would not have changed a thing. That isn't to say that the BMIs don't serve a function. If they are entrusted by the coordinators of an event to provide the safe operating standards, conduct all of the first flight training, and distribute briefs and information related to safe wingsuiting at that event, then I am all for that. And I can't deny that they don't focus on safety and sport longevity. But we should all do that regardless of discipline ( and rating) and believe it or not most do.

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If they are entrusted by the coordinators of an event to provide the safe operating standards, conduct all of the first flight training, and distribute briefs and information related to safe wingsuiting at that event, then I am all for that. And I can't deny that they don't focus on safety and sport longevity.



Hell Glen, I think you may be gettin' it! :)
We'll lead the way, and you follow. ;)

Fly safe!

Ed
www.WestCoastWingsuits.com
www.PrecisionSkydiving.com

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I guess I can feel safe now.



I'm sure your safe, since your a great mentor. :)

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Wait a second, do you base?



Yes ;)

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Specifically wingsuit base?... oh oh



No.

The A and the S aren't high enough, though the trips to Norway are fun. ;)

And that would be for the BASE forum. ;)

Be safe
Ed
www.WestCoastWingsuits.com
www.PrecisionSkydiving.com

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