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bergh

Floking Weekend at JSC

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Damn, boy, you just beat me to it.

This past weekend was awesome. Photos have been uploaded at http://www.jsc.co.za/Photos.aspx?Show=photos&Mode=0&Cat=Wingsuits

Basic stats:
# WINGSUIT SLOTS FILLED: 101
NUMBER OF PARTICIPANTS: 10. Taya, Tonto, Riaan (Newbie) Bergh, Bernard van Biljon, Simon Murray, Mark Riesnik, John Mackay, Dian Kemp, Pierre (Mare) Badenhorst, and PJ Eales.
MOST WINGSUITS IN THE PORTER AT A TIME: 10
SUITS IN ATTENDANCE: 7. S3, PHI, GTi, Classic, SugarGlider, GS-1, S-Fly
LARGEST SUCCESSFUL FLOCK: 9-way in perfect tight formation

Despite a very windy morning on Saturday, the group decided we'd give it a go and see how the landings went. It was a good call: there was certainly no swooping in the high wind, but we ended up doing 8 full loads Saturday, alternating with a group of 27 tandems. The combination of brave wingsuiters and tandems kept the plane running.

We started the day with two teams of 5 working on diving approaches and discipline in flying a particular slot. The teams did 4 jumps together with comprehensive briefs and debriefs before and after every jump. We then selected the most consistent "point of the arrow" to lead the combined flock: Riaan led the flock with Bernard on his right and Pierre on his left. Four wonderful 9 and 10-way flocks resulted in a spectacular end-of-day 9-way flock in a perfect "V" formation that could be clearly seen by spectators on the ground. This was definitely a JSC record.

Sunday we completed 4 more flocking dives, this time working on the 3-dimensional positioning essential to much larger flocks that will be possible with December's AFFC planes. This kind of flock looks more like a cone with the flock leader at the tip, rather than a "V" where everyone is flying in the same horizontal plane. We nailed it, and on the last jump of the weekend the grins were so big you could almost hear the flapping of lips on teeth in freefall.

Our accomplishments would not have been possible without a different run-in that took us up to 2 and a half miles out so we could fly straight back to the dropzone rather than flying a pattern requiring multiple turns. Such a pattern, while necessary if wingsuits exit on the same run-in as other jumpers, sacrifices a lot of altitude and precision. Thanks for the excellent run-ins all weekend go to the pilots, who never believed we'd make it back but did it anyway, and to Tonto's spectacular manual spotting on every jump.

Big thanks go to Sam at manifest and to Barry, who took our cause to heart and made sure we were able to get the lift capacity we needed to achieve what we did. The Johannesburg Skydiving Club Committee and Skyhigh Express (the aircraft operator of the Porter) were very supportive in their sponsorship, and we appreciate their recognition of wingsuiting as an important emerging discipline in South Africa.

We look forward to another event like this, and to meeting the challenges of even bigger-way flocking to come at the AFFC at the end of the year. After this weekend I truly believe the international organizers coming from Europe and the United States will be impressed with what we have built down here.

... in short, yee ha.

Everyone who was there totally rocked. Organizing this thing took a lot of work (we're in Africa, wingsuiting is still really new), and all the fun made it totally worth it.

Blue skies, -T

Edited to add pic showing how badass we are.
It's the Year of the Dragon.

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It also needs to be said that Riaan was an awesome base all weekend. He flew: 1. A Classic 2. A GTi then 3. an S-Fly and in all of them he was totally consistent. He also managed to lead us on the slowest 5-way flock I've ever been on--it was his first jump on a GTi I think--which was averaging around 55mph. Awesome.

-T
It's the Year of the Dragon.

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http://www.jsc.co.za/Photos.aspx?Show=photos&Mode=0&Cat=Wingsuits

Clicky ;)

What a sick weekend! Taya, thanks again, your organising skills are to be praised from on high. I learned so much and was SO stiff on Sunday not even the camera stuff could cure it. :S

In the words of a certain baby dinosaur: "again, again!"

Take care flockers.

Advertisio Rodriguez / Sky

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Thanks--see I was inspired and figured out how to edit it to be clicky in my own post!

Quote

was SO stiff on Sunday



Yes--wow. The soreness. It was a workout of note but I'm sure I'm seeing muscles in my shoulders that never existed before :P

I'll definitely try to organize one more day of flocking before the dropzones close in December. Then it's boogie time! So excited.
It's the Year of the Dragon.

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Quote

Quote

and was SO stiff on Sunday.....



:D

yes... I enjoyed it too... but not so much it made me stiff!
Bwhahaha!:D

t



Hey man, it's like having a vertical stabiliser on the underside of a fighter jet! :D:D:D

Advertisio Rodriguez / Sky

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Seriously, what amazed me is how so many different types of suits and a bunch of different body types can all fly together with a bit of practice. We're really short of PF suits down here, and the 1 Sugarglider and 2 GS-1's is because the suits are locally made.

Simon's super floaty breakoff procedure amazed me on the SG and GS-1! I was zipped out of my suit and stowing my slider before he was deploying alongside sometimes - and that from a breakoff at 4500 and a pull around 3000ft!

Although I was in a borrowed S3, (S3-S is in production..) I still love the oportunities those long dives and hard brakes at the end allow.

You need to work on back flying that PHI, so we can get cool pics of us chasing you down! Something to work on.. even if you're going Skiing in December! (Yuppie!)

t
It's the year of the Pig.

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