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michalm21

Wingsuit water emergency landings

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Hey all,
Just read a comment about water landing and PR boogie and combining the two with wingsuits drew my attention.
As almost impossible as I think it is to place myself in this situation, it may happen as I am just a human and tend to make mistakes. So I realized I need to refresh my water training procedures with addition of a wingsuit in the picture.

I did some search, found an old thread from 2002 - water emergency procedures. In this thread I can find great advice from
a) birdman manual:
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Avoid waterlandings at all costs! Without immediate help it is extremely dangerous to land on water with the wing suit. If that should happen, keep your hooknife ready, cut your wings away, undress the suit and gear, be prepared to use the hooknife to get rid of the suit. All this can be extremely difficult or in same cases impossible. Once again, avoid waterlandings at all costs!


b) Chuck:
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UNZIP out of the wings, making sure the zippers are ALL the way up to the stops. You are not getting out of the suit unless you unzip the arms, so pulling your arm cutaways first would be counterproductive in my mind.

UNZIP all the way out of your legs also, then ball your leg wing up and stick it in your vent hole (SkyFlyer specific).

UNDO your cheststrap completely, then UNZIP both front zippers completely down, letting the center fabric portion just drape down between your legs.

From there, you should be able to flare, being prepared to do a PLF if the water is shallow. Once you are in the water, lay forward out of your harness and arms. Next, reach down with both hands and loosen your legstraps enough to swim forward and free of the suit and harness. I have made quite a few intentional water jumps in the past 20 years, both freefall square (and round) and SL round. Keeping a cool head is the key to making it out of your gear.



My questions: Since that thread (2002) has anyone been in a situation that required water landing?
What was your procedure (e.g. flotation device, cutting wings, swimming in a suit, etc)? Words of wisdom/anything you would want to update from that thread?

[edit] found another thread for more reference from '04 - Landing in deep water

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Try a search on "flotation devices" in this forum. A lot of info has been discussed about water landings in conjunction with floatation devices that may be of interest to you.
"It's just skydiving..additional drama is not required"
Some people dream about flying, I live my dream
SKYMONKEY PUBLISHING

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Michal -

One note I would make to you as well, since you are flying a Tonysuit now...

The typical after flight procedure on a tony suit is to reach down and pull the zipper toggles UP. In the case of a known water landing, this will SEVERELY inhibit your egress from the suit.

MAKE SURE to zip the chest zippers DOWN from your neck to around mid calf. Then zip the lower zips up to mid calf to give your feet the ability to slide out of the suit.

All of this is in addition to unzipping your arms and undoing your chest strap completely.

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Just a point of correction - that was Ray ("Stoney") Stone, not Tony. It happened at Skydive New England's boogie this year.

And the chick with her shirt off the whole time was a nice bonus.
Skwrl Productions - Wingsuit Photography

Northeast Bird School - Chief Logistics Guy and Video Dork

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My questions: Since that thread (2002) has anyone been in a situation that required water landing?
What was your procedure (e.g. flotation device, cutting wings, swimming in a suit, etc)? Words of wisdom/anything you would want to update from that thread


been there, got wet.. 3 times., no floatation device besides my reserve canopy which floats great.
BUT.. it was intentional, with rescue boats, divers etc etc...
scissors beat paper, paper beat rock, rock beat wingsuit - KarlM

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The ONLY caveat to my original post way back then concerns suits with one-piece (neck to feet) zippers such as Tony Suits and S-Flys:

Tony Suits: Unzip arms fully, undo chest strap and then zip DOWN the main zippers all the way to the feet and then kick your feet out. Once you touch the water lean forward out of your harness, loosen your legstraps, and swim free of the rig/suit.

Fly Your Body (S-Fly): Pull your central, secondary arm release to release your arms instead of unzipping. Reason? The handle will have to be out of the way to get out of the suit anyway and pulling the handle releases the arms along the same axis as the arm zippers. Next, completely undo your chest strap. Next, unzip both main zippers all the way DOWN and kick your legs out of the booties. Lastly, as with all other suits, upon water entry lean forward out of the harness, loosen your legstraps and swim free of the rig/suit.

I have all brands of suits at my school and I have put a LOT of thought into these procedures. Be prepared for every situation! Rehearse these procedures EVERY time you might possibly have to use them.

Chuck Blue

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First WS BASE jump ended up in water, WS was a crossbow. I could swim well enough with just the arm zippers undone to get back to the shore, 15 meters away, dragging my canopy full of water.

But that was in standing water. same thing in running water would probably have gotten ugly.


Fabien
BASE#944

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Yo dude, Here's my two cents worth.

I 've had several WS water landings, 3 of wich were full on swimming, deep water type stuff. I jump an s-fly by the way.

If at all possible, don't land in the water. Take a tree instead. If you had to choose between water and powerlines... Ok, so the water is a little better.

I've found that trying to swim with the arm wing cut away and the leg wing still fully hooked up, it is nearly impossible to move anywhere. You can kick and swim, but making any headway is pretty damn difficult ( this was with me trying to pull my canopy with me) .

If you don't have time to undo all your stuff and swim out of it, Here's my best advice: First, try your best to land in the shallowest water possible. Get as close to shore as you can, even if you have to downwind your landing. Remember, busting your leg or looking dumb whilst hanging from a tree is better than drowning and being dead and stuff. Second, it is way easier to swim with all your wings hooked up and not have a god damned parachute pulling you down to davey jones locker. Cut your canopy away and loose the damned thing and live another day. Third, If you have time, listen to Chuck and ditch all of your gear and live another day, cuz living is rad.

It is possible to swimwith your wings cut away and pulling your canopy. Ask tr027, he's real good at it. Just make sure that your in good shape, that shit will wear you out.

anyways, hope that helps, and for fucks sake i hope you all have dry landings.

later
-tom

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Well, interesting. At least PhoenixFly and Bird-Man do not recommend to land into water....



Noop..and its also not recommended to put small dogs into the microwave, drive faster than the allowed speedlimit, fart on airplanes, spend the rent-money on jumptickets, eat greasy hamburgers, smoke, stay up till late when you have to work tomorrow or jump out of airplanes and off of fixed objects...but still people do..B|

The more you say dont..the more people do;)
JC
FlyLikeBrick
I'm an Athlete?

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Noop..and its also not recommended to put small dogs into the microwave, drive faster than the allowed speedlimit, fart on airplanes, spend the rent-money on jumptickets, eat greasy hamburgers, smoke, stay up till late when you have to work tomorrow or jump out of airplanes and off of fixed objects...but still people do..Cool

The more you say dont..the more people doWink


Thanks! I try to keep in mind.

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