Jump Numbers For First WS

[mrken 0]

Hey,

If you're impatient and have a few extra bucks you may not want to overlook a track suit. Or a high drag FF suit and spend some time learning to fly your back. Backflying skills will help pretty much with every discipline in freefall.

plus theres something totally zen about keeping your heading on a back track and relaxing into it. OOoOooOOhhhhmmmmmmmm OOoohhhhhhmmmmmm

[fasted3 0]

I agree with you. Some are not impressed with using a tracking suit, but I was.
I think it made the transition to a wingsuit easier for me, plus I had a lot of fun with it.
As only 50 jumps are recommended for it, I think it's a great tool for the impatient aspiring wingsuit flier.
Surely better than making 140 hop and pops.

But what do I know?

[BenediktDE 2]

Great idea! Tracking suits are a lot of fun and you can practice flying patterns already.
Try to get a coach tell you how to set up a good pattern and you will be amazed how that suit flies. Maybe after a few jumps on it that coach will tell you how to pull out of the track safely. Then you are extremely close to the wingsuit experience already.

When your experience meets the coach's expectations one day, you will be able to show off with one of the best first-flight videos there are. (Once had a guy that greatly flew the wingsuit on his back doing his second jump in it. - 1000 freefly/VRW jumps might have helped him.)

For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.

[forteenerdaddy 0]

John,

Excellent references!

At 20 some WS jumps (700 jumps total), I imagined that I might fly in the same ballpark next to bird-folks with 5-10 times more bird-flights in real wingsuits!

Well, after 5 days of SOS big-ways, I exited forgetting my jumpsuit had morphed into a Tony-Into. Fell 1K below you, but I will never forget the sight of you warping past me, after I pitched, in your X-bird. Never believed those glide-ratio claims until then.

Yes, I'm hooked, but will take my time. Sometime after making far more wingsuit jumps than I think necessary, I will meet you up there in an X-bird.

Blue Skies!

[marolam 0]

I want to thank you "Mrken" for your post and also the posts after it. This is the heart of what I was trying to get at.

I say this with ultimate humility, but the previous posts seemed to have slightly negative conotations. I know this is probably because of the "gravity" (no pun) of the sport and the care that people show each other through experience. Advice gets "serious" quickly. And rightly so. This is one of the most dangerous activities known to man. And lessons ARE learned in blood.

I guess my eagerness and love of the sport gets me thinking impatiently. Haste is not good in this sport and I can see that I will be constantly checking myself in that regard. However, my ego is ALWAYS out of the picture, and I welcome stern lessons as they get me to think the way that I should be...

The reason I am thanking the posters is that they gave me actual things that I can work on instead of saying why there is a 200 jump requirement. I also thank the posters before them because they DID answer my question. And now I KNOW... 200 is the minimum for a reason. A time-tested one. But baser skill suggestions make my point. They are the things that need to be worked on regardless of jump numbers. So again, thank you.

[yeyo 1]

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....Yes, I'm hooked, but will take my time. Sometime after making far more wingsuit jumps than I think necessary, I will meet you up there in an X-bird.

Hey dont worry! After only 75 wingsuit jumps you are considered an EXPERT pilot and you can easily fly the XBird....just ask the manufacturer!

HISPA #93
DS #419.5

[SuperGirl 0]

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....Yes, I'm hooked, but will take my time. Sometime after making far more wingsuit jumps than I think necessary, I will meet you up there in an X-bird.

Hey dont worry! After only 75 wingsuit jumps you are considered an EXPERT pilot and you can easily fly the XBird....just ask the manufacturer!

but hey, that's not even a BSR, it's just a recommendation... so if 200 jump BSR still gets questions of 100 jumps and feeling ready, guess what number that 75 will soon morph into

[fasted3 0]

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but hey, that's not even a BSR, it's just a recommendation...

Absolutely. I wonder he would be more comfortable with a BSR stating that a higher number is required?
I sure as hell wasn't ready for a big suit at 75, but I didn't need any rules to enforce it. Maybe some will be ready, or not... None of my business!

But what do I know?

[mrken 0]

No problem man. As far as track suits goes I had tried out both the PF Track and Birdman Impact. Both are very the good and have advantages over each other IMO. The PF I seemed to cover more distance/get more spee because you can use it at inflation while in the "bullet" style track. My legs felt like they were on power steering. Plus its purdy :)

The BM requires you to be in well, a more mock wingsuit body position to get proper inflation...legs and arms out more. It allows for a very stable track. You will know when you got it right because you will feel the mini sail wing and the jacket will puff up; like someone suddenly pulling on you and going "No No, you fall slower now." It reminded me of like Marty McFly's auto drying jacket in Back To The Future 2 (NERD ALERT). Another side factor is it does simulate wingsuit flight in that it adds another chore to deal with; which is unzipping the leg wing. You don't have to but I felt like it was good practice and a heads up for me. As an OCD person the most stressful part of my first flight was unzipping the arms and getting the legs out and booties tacked up (after looking for traffic, of course). I found it easy to lose track of my altitude those first few jumps because I was struggling with trying loosen a chest strap, getting a leg zipper unstuck, a snap to stay, whatever. I mean you're adding extra crap to what is now statistically the most dangerous part of the jump; the canopy flight.

I'm still very naive and the whole experience of wingsuiting has me back to that feeling of being in AFF again.

Those tracking suits are powerful, definitely learn the lay of the land and making a flight plan. I would not suggest visiting a dz in europe, getting on a 15 minute call, not looking at an aerial photo, deciding to put on your track suit because hey..im a good tracker and totally badass..exiting, tracking to the wrong hangar...and crossing the autobahn at 300 feet and actually seeing cars freak out to land in a pile of rose bushes on the other side. Not that any of that exactly happened to me in 08 :) (Cough, Sorry Nuggets, Cough)

K sorry ive had alot of espresso and started drinking.

In short, don't be in a rush to play on HARD mode :)

[marolam 0]

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Those tracking suits are powerful, definitely learn the lay of the land and making a flight plan. I would not suggest visiting a dz in europe, getting on a 15 minute call, not looking at an aerial photo, deciding to put on your track suit because hey..im a good tracker and totally badass..exiting, tracking to the wrong hangar...and crossing the autobahn at 300 feet and actually seeing cars freak out to land in a pile of rose bushes on the other side. Not that any of that exactly happened to me in 08 :) (Cough, Sorry Nuggets, Cough):)

Oh my god, just laughed for about 10 minutes.

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In short, don't be in a rush to play on HARD mode :)

Quotable...Hope you don't mind, but I'm adopting this...

[LouDiamond 1]

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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.

Nice post Lurch. I'm glad to see someone else "gets" what that saying means. More importantly, excellent description of the saying. Kudos

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

[jakee 1,254]

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....Yes, I'm hooked, but will take my time. Sometime after making far more wingsuit jumps than I think necessary, I will meet you up there in an X-bird.

Hey dont worry! After only 75 wingsuit jumps you are considered an EXPERT pilot and you can easily fly the XBird....just ask the manufacturer!

but hey, that's not even a BSR, it's just a recommendation... so if 200 jump BSR still gets questions of 100 jumps and feeling ready, guess what number that 75 will soon morph into

Well, when Tony visited my DZ the recommendation for the S-Bird magically changed from 50 to 5 - so for the X-Bird I'm guessing 7 1/2

Do you want to have an ideagasm?

[Butters 0]

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The reason I am thanking the posters is that they gave me actual things that I can work on ...

You would have found plenty of things to work on if you would have searched ... stop being lazy.

"That looks dangerous." Leopold Stotch

[mccordia 73]

In general...learn to skydive..
Fly your body...aquire skills..not numbers..

JC
FlyLikeBrick
I'm an Athlete?

[lurch 0]

Yo, Butters, might wanna ease up on the guy a bit. He's still new. I doubt he's being lazy, more likely overwhelmed with too much info. Actually finding the specifics he's looking for laid out simply, often isn't as easy as "do a search".

We want to be welcoming, instructive and helpful. If we come off all negative and shit, by the time he's ready for a wingsuit he might not want to be one of THOSE guys.

Marolam: You're still a ways out. I'd suggest throwing yourself into everything skydiving you can for now. Put the desire for wingsuit on the back burner for now and know that it'll be waiting when you get there. If you focus too hard on "How does this activity serve to get me ready for a suit" you can get a kind of tunnel vision about what you learn. You need to get your head fully in the game thats on right now, not the game you will be playing in 140 jumps. At this stage in the game you need to be open and paying attention to everything. I'd say do lots of RW, get in on some small tracking dives, pay particular attention to developing solid canopy navigation skills, and location awareness skills in general.
To be fit for wingsuit you need to be very aware of where you are in the sky relative to the dropzone. The bigger the variety of dives you do, the better idea you will develop about where in the sky you are, where you want to be and when, and how to get there from where you are.

Watch the other canopies in the sky with you and learn to predict their movements based on where they are right now. For example you know that a bunch of canopies hanging out upwind are unlikely to suddenly fly downwind until they are low enough to get ready to land, and even then they won't go far downwind if at all. Learn to anticipate their speeds and patterns as well. Big slow student canopies tend to fly wide conservative patterns and stay up longer, without moving around too much. Small fast canopies chuck around like dragonflies, fly tighter patterns and come down a lot faster so sort your sight picture accordingly and learn to know what to expect from what you see. Smaller canopies will overtake you, and you will overtake bigger stuff.
Remembering to make a habit of keeping your shoulders level during deployments will also serve you well.
The most important skydive of your life is THIS one, the one you're doing right now. Immerse yourself totally in the here-and-now, enjoy the incredible adventure of the next 140 jumps and you'll be ready for a wingsuit before you know it.
Good luck.
-B

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

[Butters 0]

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Yo, Butters, might wanna ease up on the guy a bit. He's still new. I doubt he's being lazy, more likely overwhelmed with too much info.

I would have responded differently had his post come across as do you think doing this will help me prepare or what can I do to prepare instead of I want to wingsuit, I don't know what to do, I don't think doing a large amount of hop and pops to fulfill the jump recommendations/requirements will help me prepare, so can I just start wingsuiting now ...

"That looks dangerous." Leopold Stotch

[steveorino 7]

I have yet to figure out why people want to do the minimum when it comes to skydiving.

Or worse ... less than minimum

steveOrino

[Skyjester 0]

The answer is easy for the people who know

Some brothers love the fun more than a long life

No risk- no fun... so sometimes is more risk, more fun, maybe not for long, but who knows...

If you talk to somebody, who get away from the grim reaper with a smile on his face...

like bottle diving/ speed boating across the ocean/ drag racing, all without any coaching, he can tell: there is no bigger kick .

Everybody should do with his own life whatever he wants, if he knows whatever he wants...



Sorry, for just another way of thinking sisters

don´t pester the jester . . or better: WHY SO SERIOUS ? ?

www.pralle-zeiten.de

[steveorino 7]

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In general...learn to skydive..
Fly your body...aquire skills..not numbers..

BINGO!!

steveOrino

[Butters 0]

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Everybody should do with his own life whatever he wants ...

What happens when doing whatever he wants with his own life affects your own life?

"That looks dangerous." Leopold Stotch

[mccordia 73]

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Everybody should do with his own life whatever he wants ...

What happens when doing whatever he wants with his own life affects your own life?

Pussy...what do you care if a wingsuit noob with no previous skydive experience looses track a bit and crashes through your formation, deploys a canopy underneath it, zooms through the tandem with your grandmother, lands of the dz, gets injured and causes a ban on wingsuitjumps at your dz, headbumps the rear stabilisor of the plane and on top makes sure the cypres guys get a new ferarri for christmas from the revenue on new cutters...

I say lower the first jump experience, as it makes us look safe and experienced!

JC
FlyLikeBrick
I'm an Athlete?

[DSE 3]

Read Ray's letter to the editor in this month's Parachutist.
A person with zero skydives should be allowed to jump a wingsuit in his view. The fact that our discipline's fatality and/or incident ratio is going up very fast seems to be lost on some.
It isn't just jump numbers. It's training, it's talking amongst ourselves, it's sharing information, it's working as a community to further our knowledge and knowledge base from our experiences. And our experiences tell us that people need some real experience (that they *might* be lucky enough to gain inside of 200 jumps) before flying a wingsuit.
I have seen several people with 5000+ jumps lose their bearings and stability in a wingsuit.

Yet one former member of the BOD seems to think that someone with no skydives should be able to fly a wingsuit.

[base851 0]

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Read Ray's letter to the editor in this month's Parachutist.

I just finished reading that letter. My first reaction was "A former BOD member and current DZO can't possibly be that big of a moron." Now, perhaps I'm wrong on that, but I think the real point of his letter isn't that wingsuiting is safe but rather his objection to the onus for a new wingsuiter's safety being on the DZO by policing jump numbers.

I'm interpreting his comments about wingsuiting in general as sarcasm and a bit of pushback to the wingsuiting community.

In this sense I agree.

My attitude about DZs, DZOs and safety have toned down quite a bit after taking up BASE jumping. To me, it's really quite simple.

1. There's only one ass in a parachute harness.
2. Don't write a check that your ass can't cash.

When you buy a jump ticket, a DZO owes you one thing... a seat on an airplane. Everything else is your choice and your choice alone.

All of this said, a 100-jump-wonder is writing a mighty big check if he decides to huck himself out of a plane in the skydiving equivalent of a straitjacket.

Why? Because you will need every bit of confidence, calmness, awareness & knowledge of the principles of flight to keep your ass check from bouncing. And, as luch said, a 100-jump wonder doesn't know what he doesn't know. Hell, I have around 600 skydives and 250 BASE jumps and the only thing I know with certainty is that I don't know shit.

[DSE 3]

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When you buy a jump ticket, a DZO owes you one thing... a seat on an airplane. Everything else is your choice and your choice alone.

Could you expound on this a little more? Taken literally, I can't agree with you. I expect the DZ to owe me more than a plane ticket, I expect the DZ to foster an environment of safety for their own benefit as well as my own.

[base851 0]

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Could you expound on this a little more? Taken literally, I can't agree with you. I expect the DZ to owe me more than a plane ticket, I expect the DZ to foster an environment of safety for their own benefit as well as my own.

I'll try. Basically all I'm saying is that everything we do is ultimately our own choice and responsibility. But choices should also be informed ones.

A DZO who fosters an environment of safety is going to naturally also create an environment where I and others feel comfortable jumping, and of course that benefits the DZO. But the fact remains that the DZO doesn't force me to get onto the plane, exit the plane or ride down with the plane. These are all my choices which I alone make and which are ultimately my own responsibility.

So if I go off and do 140 hop-n-pops in order to meet a technical requirement, get into a wingsuit, jump out of a plane and wind up frapping in for whatever reason, who's responsibility was that? Personally I think it was the jumper's.