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marolam

Jump Numbers For First WS

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I am very interested in demoing a wingsuit soon. I read that the minimum amount of jumps is 200. Here's my problem with the jump number requirement. I have 60 jumps right now. I could technically make 140 hop and pops in a row and have 200 jumps. I would be no more ready to demo than I am right now. Alternatively, I could make 40 tracking dives in a row, practicing body position, leg waveoffs and two-armed pulls and be much more ready at 100 jumps (half the requirement!) I would appreciate some opinions from experienced WS flyers. Thanks.

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Hey Marty, I wouldn't recommend your plan. The reason for the 200 jump recommendation (or higher if you're not as current) has little to do with tracking skill or the ability to wave off wingsuit style. It's much more about overall awareness. In my opinion, you're better off making a couple hundred RW jumps. Learn to play well with others... :)
Dave

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Alternatively, I could make 40 tracking dives in a row, practicing body position, leg waveoffs and two-armed pulls and be much more ready at 100 jumps (half the requirement!)



yea, right... sooo much more ready at 100 jumps... ready enough that you'd get overly excited and forget your legstraps. that's how ready people are at 100 jumps!

sarcasm aside... "more ready" doesn't mean "fully ready"... there is a reason there is now a BSR for a 200 jump minimum. Tracking helps, but it doesn't provide you with a fast route towards higher overall experience

as for 140 hop n pops, I would surely hope that any wingsuit instructor faced with this situation would turn you down and kindly suggest another 140 *freefall* jumps before considering you again for wingsuit instruction.

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A wise person would recognize that the requirement is there for a good reason (the BSRs are "written in blood") and not try to weasel their way around it.

And then there are those with Mad Skilz for whom the rules don't applky.
...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

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I understand the need to be aware and overall comfortable in the air and would definitely always take the advice of someone more experienced than I. However, the only point I was trying to make is that it seems like more should be taken into account than just jump numbers when considering a new skill. I feel that progression down any skill pipeline requires practice in other more basic skills. That combined with the fact that individuals will progress at different speeds in different areas leads to a lot of subjectivity.

Lets take my theoretical 140 hop and pop example. If I were to make 140 hop and hops and only practice canopy skills, maybe then I would be ready to start trying advanced canopy maneuvers or maybe downsize.

However, I would also pale in comparison to the person next to me that made 140 RW jumps.

I guess what I am trying to say is that it seems that jump numbers are very hard to equate to experience in different skills in this sport as there are SO many of them!

But I am still a newbie, and I suppose I will learn in time, whatever the case may be.

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the only point I was trying to make is that it seems like more should be taken into account than just jump numbers



You are right. More should be taken into account. The numbers are a bare minimum. Track your ass off and do practice pulls, in addition to meeting those numbers, and you'll have a great first flight.
www.WingsuitPhotos.com

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please say wingsuit BASE, please say wingsuit BASE, please say wingsuit BASE....



The irony of this is that I'm a more-or-less retired BASE jumper and never did wingsuit BASE. Now I'm into wingsuiting and sometimes feel like I'm the only one at the DZ who really doesn't have a big interest in BASE jumping in one.

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I am very interested in demoing a wingsuit soon. I read that the minimum amount of jumps is 200. Here's my problem with the jump number requirement. I have 60 jumps right now. I could technically make 140 hop and pops in a row and have 200 jumps. I would be no more ready to demo than I am right now.



a) You would be slightly more ready since you have far more experience with your canopy's deployment sequence.
b) 200 jumps is the minimum! No one said everyone is ready to fly a wingsuit then. You wouldn't be the first one with over 200 jumps getting the advise to do some more jumps before flying a WS.

Since you said "I would be no more ready to demo than I am right now.", I hope you would not search for WS training then, since you are smart enough to know it would not be clever already now. ;)

To make it clear: Minimum means that there is no way to get the needed experience in less jumps. You are right that jump numbers is not the only criteria to use. That is why there is no guaranty that you are ready then.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.

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Yah im going to say just wait on the wingsuit, and especially the wingsuit base if thats actually the case. We are losing a lot of good people through proximity flying lately, and exploring the limits of wingsuit flight in the base environment. People see awesome stuff on youtube and cant wait to fast forward to flying 4 feet from cliffs. I do just about everything in a stupid accelerated manner, but I actually waited to wingsuit base, and im glad i did. Once youre dead, youre dead, take your time, itll come. Just think how much more awesome the sport will be when youre ready.

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WS reqires freefall skills, 200 jumps at a turbine DZ will represent 200 mins of FF time ( 1min per jump) 3h 20mins
Small group RW will develop more precise flying
Larger group RW, will teach you, approach to bigger formations, floater track, swoop for later divers etc
Free fly will help with recovery from instability( balling up so as not to cork)
Group Tracking dives should help with body position, flying a pattern , and break off procedures
Remember 200 jumps is a minimum

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Here's a piece of perspective for ya:
You've probably heard it before, but think about it in detail:

You don't know what you don't know.

At first glance this looks like a statement that says nothing, only intended to sound stubborn and annoying. I had a cousin who used to do stupid shit: Take my stuff, I say give it back, he says no, I say why, he says "Because." Because why? "Because." (cue stupid smirk from cousin)

But think a little deeper. Put a different way, there is knowledge, awareness and experience you gain with time through a million little events. How to counter linetwists. How to know at a glance if you're not making it back to the DZ. How to avoid mistakes you didn't have a clue you were even making at 150 jumps.

You do not know, what it is, that you do not know about. There are levels of awareness that someone at 100 jumps does not even know exist. They can't even seek to train or gain that knowledge...because they do not know that knowledge exists. What you know at 100 jumps LOOKS like a complete picture... until you have 1000 and realize it wasn't, and there were a million little details you were not controlling for.

No amount of hyperfocussed training can be a shortcut to the experience and awareness you need to survive wingsuit flight. The only way to be as aware as you need to be is by accumulated experience. That 200 jump number was not an arbitrary limit somebody pulled out of their ass to frustrate aspiring wingsuit pilots. It is an approximate success threshold below which the incident rate caused by lack of awareness and experience goes up dramatically. Hyperfocused training specifically for the skills required for wingsuiting can help you be ready when you reach that 200 jump threshold, but it is not in itself enough. Any one poorly developed skill can bite you at that level. Wobbly body position on openings. Frequent canopy control issues. Poor awareness of winds, location, direction.

I was one of those 200-jump wonders when I started on wingsuiting. I DID hyperfocus on getting ready for it. And still, the things I didn't know nearly bit me a hundred times. What kept me out of trouble was, I KNEW there was all kinds of shit I was unaware of, and I set myself up with enormous margins for error everywhere I could. I bought a brand new Sabre2 170. I weigh only 135 lb. It was one of the best decisions I have ever made. It was loaded at .93 with gear and descended very slowly. I got line twists all the time because of subtle stuff I didn't know about packjobs, but that huge canopy let me get away with it until I learned better because it flew straight and slow even with 6 twists in it so if it took me a couple minutes to get untied, untangled and untwisted that was ok, I just hung there, going nowhere, slowly.

The oversized security blanket canopy choice saved my ass more times than I can count. I said fuck canopy progression, learned to fly that thing in any conditions. I did not whine about being unable to make penetration in winds as an excuse to downsize early. I learned to plan ahead so I didn't need penetration. I flew that thing for my first 600+ wingsuit flights while I learned about all that stuff I didn't know about. To this day I experience a sense of laughing relief that out of all the stupid stuff I've done in the sky, at least I had the sense to listen to my elders and choose accordingly, so when my luck ran out and my normal margin for error was all used up, I still had an ace in the hole that saved me... more nylon, more time.

That 200 jump minimum is another of those limits, written in blood and endorsed by the experienced jumpers that should NOT be pushed. You don't learn how smart you aren't, until your luck runs out. If you're as ignorant and cautious as I was, maybe your oversize canopy saves you. If you don't have one, it doesn't.

A friend of mine once laid out a hierarchy of learning that goes like this:

First you are unconciously incompetent: You're ignorant and don't even know it.

Then you are conciously incompetent: You learn that you don't know a whole hell of a lot so you play it safe till you learn better.

Then you are conciously competent: Now you've got some skills but you have to really focus on using em and try very hard to stay aware every second for fear of some creeping mistake you might miss.

Finally mastery comes when you achieve the state of Unconciously Competent: You fly like a master and are automatically aware of everything you need to be aware of, without even having to think about it. Navigation is automatic and if you're in a bad place, you abort and fly home early without even thinking about it. Your pull is automatic. You don't have to think it through, because when you go for the handle, you never miss. Body position is automatic for the same reasons. Awareness works for you the same as muscle memory, without concious thought. NOW you have time to play while flying wingsuit because your habits have become built in survival instincts.

This is why some wingsuiters are comfy doing docks and fooling around below 3500 feet and others are scared to pull below 4.
If you're impatient to get into wingsuit, frustrated and don't know what you are waiting for, THAT is why you are waiting. When you've built enough experience to understand why you had to wait, THEN you are ready for wingsuit.

I hope this helps you understand that jump number minimum. It exists in the hope that your sum total experience by then will be at least the bare minimum for you to have a chance to survive without incident. The lower your numbers, the lower your odds of surviving to 400, 600, 1200 jumps. The later you start, the better the odds you already know how to deal with trouble, automatically, without panic and without having to spend precious seconds thinking about it.

In the race to get to do the advanced stuff, the tortoise always wins. ALWAYS.

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

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To me this is akin to my becoming more stupid in my daughters eyes as she gets older.. She is 10 now and I get that roll the eyes look more and more. Oh well, maybe I will be smart again someday in her eyes ;)

As for humping through 140 HnP's, sure you could do that and the base line numbers might be there but most any responsible wingsuit "facilitator" will talk with a first flight candidate to see what their background is before letting them participate in a WS FFC. A well rounded background goes a long way to being a more effective and safe WS flyer.

"He who Hesitates Shall Inherit the Earth!"

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To me this is akin to my becoming more stupid in my daughters eyes as she gets older.. She is 10 now and I get that roll the eyes look more and more. Oh well, maybe I will be smart again someday in her eyes ;)

.



When she's in her early 20s you will suddenly become remarkably smart.
...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

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It's posts like this that make me wish we had a voting system for individual posts on this site. This one should be voted up to the top.

Well-said.



I think andreea wrote it with Kallend proof reading. Way too coherent for Lurch.:P

This should be a sticky or as part of the FAQs.
50 donations so far. Give it a try.

You know you want to spank it
Jump an Infinity

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Hey Lurch - thanks for saving me a whole lot of typing!!!!

Marty - I agree with you totally that pure jump numbers is not a good measure of skydiving ability - that is one of those things that becomes more and more obvious the longer you are in this sport. Some folks are "naturals" at this, and others are how shall I say it... "Slow learners" ;) . The smart folks realize that we are all perpetual students as there is always more to learn. Unfortunately, jump numbers is the only objective yardstick that we have been able to come up with to help the newer jumpers understand that wingsuit flight is an ADVANCED skydiving skill, and you need to learn the BASICS first! Jump numbers is far from perfect, but it is the best tool we have at this point.

Also, please read the SIM carefully - the minimum jump number is actually 500, with a caveat that if you have 200 jumps in the past 18 months COMBINED with one-on-one instruction from an experienced wingsuit pilot, then you meet the USPA minimum recommended experience level to attempt a wingsuit jump.

As Lurch so eloquently described, the real issue is getting to the point where the skydiving part is second nature, so you don't have to think about the survival skills, they just happen. Then, you MIGHT be ready to add the complexity of wingsuiting to your bag of skydiving skills.

Anyhow, that is my 2 cent's worth... No need to hurry - the sky will still be there when you are ready!

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Also, please read the SIM carefully - the minimum jump number is actually 500, with a caveat that if you have 200 jumps in the past 18 months COMBINED with one-on-one instruction from an experienced wingsuit pilot, then you meet the USPA minimum recommended required experience level to attempt a wingsuit jump.


Fixed it fer ya. :P
And at 500 jumps with an instructor, some aren't ready/able to manage a wingsuit.

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Hey, thanks, you guys. I was a bit worried cause this was even more long winded than most of my input to this forum but it needed to be said in detail.

Every time I see somebody raise raise the questions the OP did, I get the creeps because they are openly proposing to short-circuit the process that MIGHT keep them alive. The only difference between me and every other 200-jump wannabe skygod is, I knew damn well I was going to get in over my head.

Marolam: A few final thoughts on the matter:
There is nothing wrong with wanting to get into wingsuit early. But if you are going to, I suggest you do as I did: Don't model your behavior on the hotshot swoopers and tiny canopy pilots...You're going to be a wingsuit pilot, not a swooper, model your behavior on the behavior of those who have survived long term in the sky. Eventually you will be able to swoop your wingsuit canopy anyway.

Do not attempt to short circuit the experience curve by hop n pops to build numbers. It is elaborate suicide. Just skydive.

You WILL get in over your head. You WILL find yourself in deep shit many times in your first thousand wingsuit flights. Do not bet your life that you are badass. Bet that you will be stupid and plan ahead accordingly.

If you want to get into wingsuiting at 200, stick with bigger canopies. Aggressive downsizing combined with a wingsuit just makes you a crater waiting to happen. If anybody asks why you are so slow to downsize, tell them you are in training for wingsuit flight. Anyone who knows what they are talking about will applaud your decision.

I chose my long term training wheels this way: a 210 was still student gear. A 190 was fun but got closed end cells a lot because I was underloading it too much. I stopped downsizing at 170 when I found it opened cleanly at that loading, just barely loaded highly enough to not be a handicap and open well.

I did not downsize to my current 135 for years. Once you're loaded enough that you don't get closed end cells, STOP THERE. You will likely feel this canopy is too big, too slow and boring... right up till the day you desperately need the thing, it saves your life and allows you to land in a tiny backyard 50 feet across, unharmed. Repeatedly. THEN you can feel as badass as you like because you were smart enough to plan for the day that was gonna happen.

On a canopy of that loading, rear risers will get you home from impossible distances. Learn to use them.
Don't just hang from the thing like a potato in a harness. Once you have committed to flying light loadings long term, fly the shit out of it! Stay upwind. If you need penetration, learn to hang off your front risers to hold your ground. When your life depends on it, you'd be amazed how long you can hang by your arms. If the wind is too high for you to get penetration under that canopy, stay on the ground!

Ask about "The Accuracy Trick" from a canopy instructor. If you know it, it will tell you if you can make it home or not. It will keep you alive. Use it.
Get canopy instruction in the techniques I just described!

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

----------------------------------
If any of the mods think my first post actually merits being made a sticky, let me know and I'll edit it a bit for that purpose and send it back to you or something.
-B
Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

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Numbers don't mean a lot. When I take jumpers on a First Flight Course 200 is okay if I know them, jumped with them already and feel good about letting them fly. If I don't know them, never jumped with them before and have no idea how to feel about it, I insist on doing one check jump together first. This can be tracking or RW, just to make sure their awareness is well enough. However 200 jumps are the pure minimum and would apply even for best friends who I jump with every weekend.

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If you want to get into wingsuiting at 200, stick with bigger canopies. Aggressive downsizing combined with a wingsuit just makes you a crater waiting to happen.



I'd rather say a square or semi-elliptical canopy, WL <1.3 if jumping around the sea level. The higher WL the less time you send under canopy, e.g. I usually have 90 seconds under my Cobalt Competition105. There are several reason why I don't jump wing suit with that canopy (yet).


Swooping with wing suit might yield to patches on your favorite suit.

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