Wingsuit night jump

[Cantoral 1]

I'm planning to do my first WS night jump next week, and wondering how much extra care I need to make this jump.

At the time I have around 20 night jumps.

Thanks in advance

[mccordia 73]

Mostly, pay attention to other people on the load.
Quite often people tend to open stacked between 4k and 6k (varies per dropzone of course) and encountering high canopies would severely ruin your day

And dont wear the cool dark/sun-shades/tinted glasses for this one

JC
FlyLikeBrick
I'm an Athlete?

[lurch 0]

How much extra care? A lot.
You planning to fly with any others or alone? First time out, I suggest you go alone, last out, unless you have an experienced escort-and if you're asking this question here I'm guessing you don't.
At Zhills they use strobes under canopy- I strongly suggest sticking flashlights inside your wings or lightsticks all over it. I did a night jump at Zhills awhile back while escorting 3 first-timers who'd asked me to lead em. I had a good friend who was flying with us try to alter the dive plan 5 seconds prior to exit and insist that my students and I turn on the strobes in the plane and I damn near detonated on him for trying to pull a poorly-thought-out last second change in plan. I never did get a chance to explain to him what that was all about, and I did feel like an asshole for yelling at him but there was no time for manners and I was scared shitless he was about to guarantee we were all limited to 30 foot visual range-(so if you find this bro, now you know what that was all about) Don't turn on your strobe until after you're under canopy if you're flying with other wingsuits. Having it on in freefall guarantees visibility from a distance if you DO get separated, but flying up close to a wingsuiter with a strobe turned on will limit your vision to the strobe's 30-foot blast radius and if theres a canopy ahead of you and down a ways you'll never see it till you hit it. Being rendered functionally blind in freefall is no fun. Dim lights in freefall, bright under canopy. If you're in freefall with another wingsuit, keep it tight till pull time, stay close.

You do not want to lose visual lock on those you fly with. Also suggest no more than two "newbie night wingsuiters" at a time, preferably no more than one. This is both to cut the chances of getting confused and losing a guy, and to make sure you can keep everyone in your flight in sight at all times. Too many targets to track is bad mojo.
Make sure you really, really know the landscape well. Good navigation has never been so important, you do NOT want to get clotheslined out of the air by powerlines trying to land out, in the dark somewhere. It is entirely possible for normal freefallers to get disoriented, be lost in the sky without a clue and still make it back once they figure things out under canopy since they DID get dropped almost directly overhead. This is not the case with wingsuits-your odds of reaching the ground safely are very very low if you blow it and get lost up there. Spend as much time as you can, studying the layout out the windows on the way up. Jump in daylight at the same DZ and study the available outs with particular care-note any subtle obstacles, powerlines, poles, slopes and such. You get lots of bonus survival points for being creative in anticipating hazards so be thorough about it. Consider scrounging a bigger canopy for the day if you're running something small. You may be a past-master with whatever you're flying and can land it on a postage stamp, but are you sure you can do it on a randomly selected out with a totally unknown surface...in the dark?

If you've already got 20 night jumps you know how the patterns of lights shift in brightness and perspective as the plane orbits its way up... You can be 1 mile south of the dz and everything looks familiar, then look away for a minute or two, look back and you're 3 miles north of it and everything looks totally different. The same ability to travel long distances that makes a wingsuit fun can get you into deep shit at night if you don't know exactly where you are and where you're going.
And have fun!
For those obsessed with how "extreme" they are, night wingsuit is about as extreme as it gets, so max caution and zero complacency all the way and you'll make out alright. Flying above a city light grid under a full moon is eerie, awesome and mindblowingly beautiful. Most people, the closest they ever get to this is watching that scene with Neo hauling ass across cloudtops at night in Matrix:Reloaded.
You'll be doing it for real.
Let us know how it goes, eh?
-B

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

[bdrake529 0]

Quote

Coming soon: Hardcase 2.0. Just when you thought it couldn't get any harder....

That's the funniest thing I've read here recently. Thanks for the laugh Lurch.


And I agree, night wingsuit jumps are awesome, but can be very dangerous so take care and don't bring a group of inexperienced flockers. If they can't fly their slot consistently during the day, have nothing to do with them for a night jump.

Brian Drake

[Cantoral 1]

Thank you guys for the responses, they have been helpful.
My plan is to make a solo, last out, pulling at 4k jump, normally we do 3 pases of 4 skydivers each, so I will talk with the other 3 jumpers and plan a safe jump.

Thanks again

[monkycndo 0]

To follow up what lurch said about landing out. I would suggest wearing a mini headlamp. I wore one of these sitting just under the front of my helmet on my forehead. Turn it on after you deploy. If you end up landing out, there might not be any light in your new landing area. Landing in a dark area on black asphalt makes it very hard to judge when to flare. That headlamp will come in handy. I speak from experience.

I was pleasantly surprised how much light that sucker put out. It also made it easier to see the zippers to unzip and my alti was easy to read.

Stick a bunch of glowstix in the cells of your wings. Makes for a nice show for the people on the ground.

50 donations so far. Give it a try.

You know you want to spank it
Jump an Infinity

[ScottGray 0]

Taking a page out of Lurch's book ---

INTRODUCING THE HEAD CASE !!!

(see pic)

For superior post opening illumination, the Every Ready Head Case has no rival.

Warn off other jumpers with a becon of light unmatched.

Bath your landing area with the brilliance of your own personal sun.


Not for use during flight, else ye blind your fellow flockers.

WSI-5 / PFI-51 / EGI-112 / S-Fly
The Brothers Gray Wing Suit Academy
Contact us for first flight and basic flocking courses at your DZ or boogie.
www.thebrothersgray.com

[lurch 0]

NICE!!!
Scott that made my morning. Laughed my ass off.
Back in the day, Tom Noonan, one of Strong's tandem I/Es asked me if I could whip up something for night jump video... bright but not -too- bright, gotta fit on a helmet...

I made him a disposable one-shot light grenade out of:
a flat rectangular 65 watt automotive high beam,
A cd case,
some note cards, (put em over the bulb to use as a photographer's light diffuser)
silicone sealant
and a dozen expired Cypres batteries.
Cypres batteries are lithiums designed to supply very very small current loads, forever.
BUT
If you stack em to jack the voltage, then stack more in parallel to handle the current requirements they can be forced to give up their charge in one big burst. Although I'm not big on math, an intuitive understanding of ohm's law goes a long way.
It actually worked. The thing would burn at full brightness for 5 minutes, then go dim and go out over the next two, by which time the batteries were hot enough to be just shy of smoking.
The thing was never actually used in freefall, can't imagine why...
-B

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

[Trae 1]

in reply to "how much extra care I need to make this jump.'

.....................................

all the advice here sounds spot on.
Just to add if you feel like doing things in stages perhaps try to do your first nite -wingsuit on a close to full moon where you're less likely to get disorientated.

Then later do one in the pitch dark .

just to emphasise .. REALLY watch out for high openers and stay well off the dead-drop flight-line