wingsuit upsizing criteria

[aber_aos 0]

Hi,
I was wondering whether people had any suggestions on when a wingsuit flyer should consider upsizing to a bigger, higher performance suit, based on demonstrable skills. I guess what I'm looking for is some equivalent of Bill von Novak's list for downsizing a canopy (http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/safety/detail_page.cgi?ID=47)

I'm asking really as a way of planning my progression; I'm currently thinking of selling my Phantom next spring (when I should have about 100-120 wingsuit jumps) and getting a V1 or a V2, but wouldn't want to do it if I was going to be out of my depth. I jump at a small DZ where there are only 3 wingsuiters; myself and a couple of guys with S-Fly Access suits, so I don't have anyone to compare my flying ability with. I feel 'perfectly' in control of the Phantom, and I'm getting my average vertical speed for entire jumps down to 47-52mph when I try slowfall. I don't know if that is good or bad; as I say, I have no-one to compare myself with.
Exits, slowfall, fast tracking and pulls all feel fine, but maybe I don't know what levels I could be achieving.

So, does anyone have suggestions on what skills I should work on to prepare to upsize? (or should I not even be considering upsizing in the spring?).

Cheers!

[bodypilot1 0]

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should I not even be considering downsizing in the spring?).

Umm, that would be upsizing.

IMO, if you have about 100 WS jumps, feel as though your in control of your Phantom, you should know enough to fly the V2 safely. Order it.
Be safe
Ed

www.WestCoastWingsuits.com
www.PrecisionSkydiving.com

[dragon2 0]

Sure you can upsize. However, if you want to fly with the guys with the access suits, you may want to keep your phantom around... Flying very dirty isn't that much fun, I think, if you have to do it all the time with non-beginners. Or, get the others to upsize too

ciel bleu,
Saskia

[nathaniel 0]

IMO for skydiving (no comment on BASE, that's not my thing) the skills are pretty much transferable from whatever suit you learn on. Every suit I've flown has had a comfortable range in which it could be safely navigated & controlled.

Unlike flying a canopy, pretty much all you need to do with a wingsuit to be safe is
1) point yourself in a direction clear of airborne hazards incl other jumpers
2) deploy safely

As long as there's some degree of control, you probably already have this skillset if you can fly whatever suit you're in. Flying inefficiently IMO won't change your safety level--you shouldn't be jumping out of the plane if there are obstacles like gliders or air traffic you may not clear.

Different styles eg grippers, palm up, palm down, palm in, etc use different muscle groups & it'll take you a while to get used to flying any suit of a different style before you can fly it well (read: with other people) and not end up drained by the end of the jump.

Having said all that, there are marked differences between all the suits on the market & those suits that are under development. You should choose a suit based on what you want to do with it & perhaps your body type as well.

My advice is to do what your parents did; get a job, sir. The bums will always lose. Do you hear me, Lebowski?

[dragon2 0]

So the out-of-control tumbles I saw from people just learning to fly a big suit didn't happen?

A big suit can take you for a much bigger ride.

Deploying your canopy with a big suit can also be quite a challenge.

You make it sound easy, and for a lot of people, it is. But for others, it's not. Trust me on that.

ciel bleu,
Saskia

[nathaniel 0]

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So the out-of-control tumbles I saw from people just learning to fly a big suit didn't happen?

Tumbles happen, even sometimes to experienced ws pilots in beginner suits. Esp when they get taken out by someone else's burble.

The question to me is whether it's likely to introduce significant risk for someone who's already acquainted with ws flight to fly a bigger suit, and the answer is no. Taking tumbles, flying poorly, getting tired are all likely, but where is the risk? And where is that risk due to a large suit vs a small suit? It's always a good idea to avoid groups until you're comfortable with a new suit, and this applies whether it's a large suit or a small suit.

Perhaps tomorrow some manufacturer will introduce a suit that can't be flown without dozens/hundreds of ws jumps, IMO that suit has not been invented yet.

My advice is to do what your parents did; get a job, sir. The bums will always lose. Do you hear me, Lebowski?

[nathaniel 0]

Reading through what I just wrote...maybe I'm being too narrow here.

IMO the question of whether you ought to feel safe with a bigger suit is the same question of whether you ought to feel safe in any suit.

To feel safe at all in a ws IMO one should be able to

*) fly relative to others, probably incl taking and holding a dock
*) plot your flight away from hazards
*) spin/tumble & recover
*) reach your hackey & emergency handles at all times
*) deploy at a reasonable altitude
*) move partially in and out of someone else's burble without losing control, or otherwise demonstrate awareness of where someone's burble is

My advice is to do what your parents did; get a job, sir. The bums will always lose. Do you hear me, Lebowski?

[JohanW 0]

A couple hundred jumps total and hundred jumps on suits should be enough to fly any suit on the market.

But there definitely are suits that can't be flown safely without a couple dozen suit jumps. Any Birdman Skyflyer suit requires experience. No personal experience in a Phoenix-Fly suit, but my educated guess from looking at them is Vampires are just as bad. Good. Well, if you know what to do with them.

My opinion is *not* humble, and I'm *not* apologizing for it.

Nathaniel, experience matters *a lot* especially when flying in someone else's burble, instead of getting taken out by it. Taking tumbles poses a significant risk. Recovery is easier and faster in a small suit.

Andy, ever have had to do some recovery? If not, try .. up high. You might find your reflexes are wrong, and it takes a lot of cool, thinking, strength and altitude. Read up beforehand! If you have, and it worked, go for it!

Johan.
I am. I think.

[JohanW 0]

This is the Profile Police!

Nathaniel, would you please fill out your profile?

And I still think not all wingsuits are created equal.

Johan.
I am. I think.

[Pendragon 1]

Nathaniel is cool - and knows what he is talking about. He was at the Flock & Dock 2.0.

Bigger suits can actually be more stable, it depends how they are balanced. Bigger - and wider - leg wings (relative to the arm wings) make for stability (think about riding a bicycle; slowly it's unstable etc) so Skyflyer 1 bad, Vampire 1 good.

If someone has >50 wingsuit jumps, never has issues at pull-time, flys steady (without radical movements, washing in/out etc), nails exits and barrel rolls and consistently flys a good pattern then, like others, I can't see any reason (from a safety aspect) why it would be unreasonable to "upsize"

However, it depends why you want to. I have a V-1; I have just taken receipt of an Acro. If I'm flocking, I'll have more than enought forward speed in the Acro. V-2 is a really fast suit - and is quite strenuous. It's made to cover as much horizontal distance as possible. It's also really hard work to fly. Is that what you want? That's not a judgement BTW, just a question you should ask youself.

--
BASE #1182
Muff #3573
PFI #52; UK WSI #13

[Professor 0]

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Hi,
I'm currently thinking of selling my Phantom next spring (when I should have about 100-120 wingsuit jumps) and getting a V1 or a V2, but wouldn't want to do it if I was going to be out of my depth.

With 100 jumps on a Phantom, you'll be fine in a Vampire. Be aware, however, that the Vampires are probably a 20ish% increase in performance, for a sizable increase in hassle, and you'd probably see a larger increase in your personal performance if you spent that money on jumps.

Also, I found the S3 I flew a month ago was less stable than my V1 and V2.

Ted
Like a giddy school girl.

[nathaniel 0]

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experience matters *a lot*

No quarrel there. But I don't think any number of jumps over around 50 (assuming they weren't 50 solos, reasonable feedbackreceived from time to time, etc) will give a safety advantage when moving from any to any suit currently on the market.

Experience will help you learn it quicker and rejoin flocks & get into accurate maneuvers quicker. You'll start off with better performance etc... You'll look better on video and, being hundreds or thousands of jumps older, you'll be more risk averse.

But on a safety basis I just haven't seen what there is to pick up. Someone with 25 or 50 ws jumps on top of 200 minimum total jumps should already know how to deal with turbulence, spins, to pull high, not to fly a spinny canopy etc.

That said...some people would generally prefer to get coaching, take their time and max out each suit before progressing to another. Nothing wrong with that...it's probably a good idea to get coaching no matter what your experience level / wing size is.

My advice is to do what your parents did; get a job, sir. The bums will always lose. Do you hear me, Lebowski?

[Pendragon 1]

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Also, I found the S3 I flew a month ago was less stable than my V1 and V2.

I can believe that. The V1 (and V2) are immensely stable suits IMO.

--
BASE #1182
Muff #3573
PFI #52; UK WSI #13

[JohanW 0]

On a safety basis, 25 wingsuit jumps and 250 total jumps to me seems rather on the low end to fly a suit, prevent collision courses on or off level, keep flying in a burble rather than cannonballing through, navigate and deploy stably consistently. This still goes for flying any suit.

Upsizing the suit raises the stakes, because it raises the speeds. They are also harder to fly, not so much when everything goes well, but when the fit hits the shan, things go from bad to worse a lot faster and to a lot worse than with a less-high-performance suit. At that moment, suit flight experience as well as total jump experience helps in having more attention span to spare to deal with the situation, as well as being better equipped to actually resolve the situation.

Staying out of trouble is great, but things do go wrong sometimes - you said so yourself. You need to be able to solve those problems, and that is where experience really helps. I see parallels with the Stiletto as student canopy thread (here) - everything is great as long as everything goes great, but when things start to happen, you want some forgiveness in your equipment until you can deal with 'things'. Higher performance equipment requires higher performance pilots, and performance comes with experience (and training, and coaching). Upsizing wingsuits isn't fundamentally different from downsizing canopies - learn to walk before learning to run. Make some mistakes on more forgiving equipment.

Not all currently available suits are appropriate for a beginner (in wingsuits), we agree on that, but in my unhumble opinion the learning curve is both flatter and longer than you are saying.

Johan.
I am. I think.

[JohanW 0]

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Nathaniel is cool - and knows what he is talking about. He was at the Flock & Dock 2.0.

But I wasn't.

Short of reading all his posts (no, I'm not taking the time to read 789 posts) I have no way of estimating his frame of reference. He might be a current BMI and PFI with thousands of jumps, or he might be same who has forgotten how it was to be a student. Or he might be a student himself still who hasn't gotten beyond 50 suit jumps and just can't believe he has anything left to learn. (Nathaniel, no, I don't think you are that!)

Oh well, any opinion on here is worth what you paid for it. Still, I think the discussion about the learning curve is worthwhile.

Johan.
I am. I think.

[VectorBoy 0]

Do it!!!!!

Whats the worst that can happen? More chicks?!? Up sizing a wingsuits is not like downsizing a canopy. Do you even know BillVon? He is one of the most insane "over- the-top" wingsuits guys on the west coast. Bill didn't wait for hundreds of wingsuit jumps before getting a big suit himself.

I'll tell you what Bill would do.... Bill would go big!!!!!

PS have seen BillVons chicks? Even they have big suits.

[lurch 0]

Billvon is a duck. He can do whatever he wants.

Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

[tr027 0]

I would recommend that you consider first what type of flying you want to do the most of. I think your pace towards upsizing is prudent. However, if you prefer flocking with others or performing acrobatics, you would be best suited (no pun intended) by staying on the phantom or getting an acro.

"The evil of the world is made possible by nothing but the sanction you give it. " -John Galt from Atlas Shrugged, 1957

[VectorBoy 0]

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Billvon is a duck. He can do whatever he wants.

A duck or not, he is to be reckoned with thats for sure.