How often does it go bad?

[MB38 0]

Most disciplines have the generic "200 jumps" recommendation before trying. Camera flying, sky surfing, camera flying, etc. With these recommendations, many experienced jumpers still recommend higher jump numbers - the number generally seems to be 500 - before trying a challenging new discipline. All the while, 50-100 jump wonders are certain that they have the necessary skills to strap on whatever piece of equipment they want to strap on to have the fun they know they're missing out on.

With camera flying, it can go very bad. There are reports of people going low, people losing cameras in freefall, helmet/canopy entanglements, cutaways, neck injuries, you name it. There are videos, pictures and reports of these events readily available to scare off an overly ambitious newbie. If that's not enough, there are incident reports to back it all up. Enough said. Camera flying is dangerous and starting it before you're ready for it is a bad idea. It's probably too much for a good number of the people that choose to fly camera at jump 200.

But what of wingsuit flying? How often does a newbie lose their shit? I always hear of _______'s fantastic first flight. Great exit, great body position and safe pull. What I never hear about are flat spins, wing cutaways and similar difficulties. I've seen a few wingsuit-related problems occur on video, but they generally seem to occur with experienced jumpers over newbies.

So how often does it all go to shit? How often does a newbie exit and spin all the way to pull altitude? How often do jumpers have to cut away their wings in freefall to regain control? Or are the BMI/PFIs really just that freakin' good?

Don't worry, I still have a long time before I don a suit. I'm just a wee bit curious.

I really don't know what I'm talking about.

[dragon2 0]

From newbies (not my students though ) I've seen: landing way way way out, hitting the plane on exit, unstable tumbles out of the door that last a few tumbles too many, nearly hitting a canopy in freefall.

ciel bleu,
Saskia

[chris74 0]

Hi Birds,
Every week-end when my wife realizes that I spend all my time flying instead of doing odd jobs !
Blue skies
Chris

[SkymonkeyONE 3]

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From newbies (not my students though ) I've seen: landing way way way out, hitting the plane on exit, unstable tumbles out of the door that last a few tumbles too many, nearly hitting a canopy in freefall.

I have seen ever one of those as well, but will include 4000 foot tailspins as well. Sometimes it's not on that first flight, but one of the subsequent flights when they really think they have it dialed. Hitting the back of the door while rear floating, not launching far enough out on a floater exit and flying straight back into the next person in line, losing a bootie, or just exiting on their back in their first attempt to launch into a backfly. Any of those can be the root cause of massive instability.

The key is righting yourself in as timely a manner as possible so that you can get on with the skydive. Some will have the natural abillty to flip out of it like a cat and others will struggle. Some struggle a very long time. I keep video of such exits and events to show my students and other visitors. It's pretty rare that a super-experienced skydiver flails for more than a couple of seconds after being hit or losing control for some other reason listed above, but it's not uncommon at all for those same super-experienced jumpers to forget about navigation and start flying north to Canada with the passing geese! In my experience, no amount of flight plan discussion will prevent some people from just having too much fun screwing around without thought of where they are flying.

Chuck

[mccordia 73]

The thing I noticed is that people with less experience tend to be more shaken up by a first spin or unstable exit etc. (if they encounter one) then more experienced jumpers, and tend to be quite harsh on themselves. Where experienced jumpers dont seem to mind a little screwup here or there, the lesser experienced jumpers seem more keen to be perfect wingsuit flyers from jump 1.

They (sometimes, not always) seem to want to give themself a lot less time/jumps to go from novice flyer, to experienced wingsuit pilot..

JC
FlyLikeBrick
I'm an Athlete?

[skyjumpsteve 0]

Yep, I absolutely agree with mccordia. On my 10'th flight I had a violent spinning malfunction at opening that required a cut-away. It was definitely a little scary dealing with emergency procedures with a wing-suit on but my cut-away and reserve opening were fine. This could have scared away someone with fewer jumps (I have 2,000+) but it just made me really really concentrate on better body position at opening time. It helped that I had already had a couple reserve rides in the past....something newer jumpers probably have not dealt with. I also opted to get a more docile canopy.

Steve

[saly 0]

Carbon copy of your experiance Steve, maybe the name has somthing to do with it

Stick to the basics, do your drills and don't deviate from them no matter how scary the situation, but most of all ensure before you start out that you have been trained by a real instructor and are comfortable with your equipment before you get in a aircraft.

Steve

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If you don't have wings you will never fly

[nathaniel 0]

IME it's been a question of proportion and control. I've jumped with a few people in ws with around 150 jumps.

There was one thing that I saw among some of the low timers that made me think--zooming about the sky. I didn't feel comfortable approaching one guy to give him feedback--I think he thought he was fine tuning, but in real life he was making huge body changes that pushed him from side with a good deal of force. I somewhat held back to avoid a car wreck at 9000'. In the grand scheme of things I don't think there's all that much feedback I could have given him in the air that I couldn't on the ground, other than PULL NOW and that wasn't an issue -- with 150 jumps you should already have a good enough sense of that not to get yourself killed, imo. But still it makes me somewhat leery of jumping with him until he gets a handle on it.

Anyway, one of the things I think you get from experience is a better grasp of proportionality of effect, nobody having > 200 jumps that I've jumped with has zoomed around like that except on purpose and in a relatively controlled manner.

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

[LouDiamond 1]

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So how often does it all go to shit?

I would venture to say that it happens more frequently when the individual hasn't received any prior training or education in contrast to those who do receive training. In fact, it was more frequent several years back before there was a base line of instructors available. I have had quite a few people come to me with their stories of things gone wrong looking for training after the fact. Not all of the stories are of things gone to shit, but of people who have 20-30 wingsuit jumps and still aren't breaking more than 60 seconds of freefall and are scared on every flight. More often than not, these are people who received no training and predominately jump by themselves. As a result, they usually have developed some bad habits and or are just flying very ineffciently and have no confidence in how to handle certain situations in a wingsuit.

It's not that it's hard to fly a wingsuit per say, it's just that when things do go wrong they can go wrong very quickly and the corrective action is often not something that is intuitive to everyone despite their previous skydiving experience. The not knowing what to expect or what to do in a certain scenario often plays a strong psychological part in the apprehension many have. Proper training addresses these questions and doubts and provides answers on how to handle certain scenarios through both verbal and practical exercises during the training. While not 100% fool proof, a students performance in the air is often indicitive of how well the instructor taught them on the ground and addressed the natural apprehensions many have. An instructor should also have a good idea of how well the student will perform in the air based off of the feedback received during the practical exercise portions of the training. If the student can't perform properly on the ground, there is no reason to believe they won't display the same issue(s) in the sky. There will always be a very small percentage of people who no matter how much training and reassurance they are given who will simply lose their minds once they exit the plane. While rare, they do exist. I have shadowed several instructors with students who for all practical purposes should of had no issues with the flight but for what ever reason, simply bombed out of the sky like a spinning top or a meat missle.

On the other side of the coin, there are people who receive no training and have no issues....initially. Sooner or later though, they will find themselves in a situation that causes them to pause and reconsider the importance of training and education and seek it out.Often this realization occurs when they start flying with other wingsuits or attempt to fly in other orientations and scare themselves.

While I doubt you will get anyone to admit to it here, there are several people who fell into this category initially, I know it for a fact(perhaps they will share their stories with everyone).So to answer your questions, I would say that now a days it happens less than several years ago but it still occurs on occasion. I think we don't hear about the bad experiences because most individuals don't want to share them and largely in part due to the fact that many realize that getting proper training is key and seek out proper instruction from the get go.

"It's just skydiving..additional drama is not required"
Some people dream about flying, I live my dream
SKYMONKEY PUBLISHING

[MB38 0]

You guys are great... thanks for all of these replies. This is exactly the kind of information I was hoping to pull from this thread.

I really don't know what I'm talking about.

[saly 0]

Noe get the flock on in 96 jumps after instruction

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If you don't have wings you will never fly

[VectorBoy 0]

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From newbies (not my students though ) I've seen: landing way way way out, hitting the plane on exit, unstable tumbles out of the door that last a few tumbles too many, nearly hitting a canopy in freefall.

I have performed all of the above after having more than
a few hundred jumps experience, while none of my students have done any of the above with the exception of landing out and that was one in one hundred.

With the exception of hitting the plane all the other items were just about intentional on my part.

[woodpecker 0]

I find this thread very interesting since I have just started wingsuit....and love it. I've done two jumps (Chucks class) and wondering what the experience suggests now?

I'm aware that stability is the only thing I've achieved so far (though I've busted 80 seconds on each of my jumps and had an average 53 mph) but I still dont know shit.

Hell, my second jump was a 7 way flock that turned into me watching 3 of the seven from above.....

So what do I do now?

SONIC WOODY #146

There is a fine line between cockiness and confidence -- which side of the line are you on?

[dragon2 0]

Flock more!

Duh

ciel bleu,
Saskia

[phoenixlpr 0]

So easy to say!

I'm a lonely bird here .

[dragon2 0]

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So easy to say!

I'm a lonely bird here .

Well quite often I am too. Wanna bond?

ciel bleu,
Saskia

[phoenixlpr 0]

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Well quite often I am too. Wanna bond? Tongue

Sure. And what to do with that 1000 km?

[dragon2 0]

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Well quite often I am too. Wanna bond? Tongue

Sure. And what to do with that 1000 km?

LOL I'll probably be in Norway for Extreme Week, close enough?

ciel bleu,
Saskia

[mccordia 73]

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Well quite often I am too.

Why?
There's mad flocking and flying in NL and Belgium every weekend..
It should take more effort to avoid other wingsuiters then having trouble finding them?

JC
FlyLikeBrick
I'm an Athlete?

[dragon2 0]

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Well quite often I am too.

Why?
There's mad flocking and flying in NL and Belgium every weekend..
It should take more effort to avoid other wingsuiters then having trouble finding them?

Well yeah but usually I'd have to go somewhere else than Teuge, and Teuge is cheapest for me

ciel bleu,
Saskia

[mccordia 73]

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Well yeah but usually I'd have to go somewhere else than Teuge, and Teuge is cheapest for me

Why is that?
At 14,50 to 17,50 jump tickets, a weekend in belgium is by far cheeper then anything all major dutch dropzones can offer?

JC
FlyLikeBrick
I'm an Athlete?

[dragon2 0]

Well yeah, but it's 900 euros to Teuge = end of cash for me. Driving anywhere is $$$$ with my van too, plus food etc. Nope, no go

ciel bleu,
Saskia

[phoenixlpr 0]

It is not yet another skydive. If it goes bad it can be really bad.

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I never hear about are flat spins, wing cutaways and similar difficulties.

I think its depends on the suit too. I've flown PF Phantom only. It has a damn wide leg stand, wider than BM suits I have tried.

I had 64 seconds for my first jump with loose wings and inefficient position and 1500m opening, but it was flying still stable.

Suits can be better. safer, but things still can go bad.

[bofh 0]

I fit the newbie category quite well.

This weekend, in one jump I lost one of the arm-wings on my Prodigy as I was "flaring" to slow down some before the pull. I had previously practised to fly without the wings and I found it easy to handle. I still pull at 1500m to give myself some time to handle such things though.

On a later jump I ended up in some flat-spin on my back, after a bad transition from belly to back flying... I found it easy to handle, but I'll practice rolls some more before trying to back fly again.