0
WickedWingsuits

Independent Wingsuit Coach Database

Recommended Posts

In our rental business every day we get asked by skydivers "where can I find a local wingsuit coach"?

We currently tell people where the existing wingsuit schools are in the country (SDC, Zhills, Elsinore, Jumptown, Pepperell) but not everyone can or wants to travel.

We are going to start answering this question with a neutral list of coaches. If you are a wingsuit coach and have a USPA teaching rating or country equivalent then we will accept your name and details for our database.

Just send me a PM or email with at least your:

Name
Email
Phone
Home DZ
City, State (For the map)
Wingsuit Rating
USPA or governing body rating
Years Wingsuiting
Wingsuit Jumps
Comments\Notes
Are you willing to travel?

If a complete list already exists please point me to it and we won't reinvent the wheel.
Summer Rental special, 5 weeks for the price of 4! That is $160 a month.

Try before You Buy with Wicked Wingsuits - WingsuitRental.com

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
PF and FYB both have an up to date listing for coaches. Both companies are 'neutral' in that aspect, and only advocate a teaching method, not what brand to be used for the actual training.
Unless a listing also includes currency (in flying and training) and up to date teaching methods its about as random as any list of names of BMIs from back in 2003 who havent touched a wingsuit since than.

USPA coach equevalent: few countries have one. Most dont..
JC
FlyLikeBrick
I'm an Athlete?

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Quote


One of the key questions we get is about where is the "closest" place for me to learn to fly a wingsuit. So location and ability to travel is going to be an important part of the list.

I am happy to maintain such a list, getting people in the air by giving them access to educated resources benefits us and the industry.

I actually think someone that was a BMI in 2003 is still a better option than someone just throwing themselves out of a plane and flying back up jump run. We try and avoid that but there is never a guarantee that a wingsuit won't fall into the wrong hands.

The goal here is to help our customer get in touch with local wingsuiters that have a clue about keeping the activity safe and maybe even fun.
Summer Rental special, 5 weeks for the price of 4! That is $160 a month.

Try before You Buy with Wicked Wingsuits - WingsuitRental.com

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Quote

I actually think someone that was a BMI in 2003 is still a better option



I dont. Outdated or even non present knowledge and flying skills should never be 'better than nothing'. Rather send them to someone else who IS a good coach, instead of the 'least worse'
Whats the point if such a list is not 100% validated, good, current coaches?
If people look up a coach for safety reasons, make sure they all are safe and not coaches rated over a beer or their ego/years in the sport.
JC
FlyLikeBrick
I'm an Athlete?

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Quote

Quote

I actually think someone that was a BMI in 2003 is still a better option



I dont. Outdated or even non present knowledge and flying skills should never be 'better than nothing'. Rather send them to someone else who IS a good coach, instead of the 'least worse'
Whats the point if such a list is not 100% validated, good, current coaches?
If people look up a coach for safety reasons, make sure they all are safe and not coaches rated over a beer or their ego/years in the sport.



Not here to debate, simply to compile a list.

For the purposes of the list we are going to use the USPA definition of a Wingsuit Coach which is found in SIM section 6-9:

"Note: As used here, "Coach” describes an experienced wingsuiter."

We will present to the customer at their request a non-prioritized list of experienced wingsuiters with their experience and ratings. As you see we have decided that a USPA instructional rating or equivilent is necessary. For example, if you are an experienced wingsuiter and have a TI or AFF rating we will accept your details for publication. I suspect other countries have similar instructional ratings and I know for sure the UK, Australia and Canada do.

Our waiver has always required the customer to agree to:

"I will seek wingsuit coaching"

This is our way of helping them meet that requirement. Non-wingsuiters tend to not know about the network we belong to.

Again, if you would like to be on the list please send the requested details to me. There is certainly a demand for such information. If you don't want to be on the list then I would say there is no need to add any input.
Summer Rental special, 5 weeks for the price of 4! That is $160 a month.

Try before You Buy with Wicked Wingsuits - WingsuitRental.com

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Quote

"Note: As used here, "Coach” describes an experienced wingsuiter."



YEAH! Lets make a list of ALL experienced wingsuiters everywhere! So you want to rent suits to everyone, that's great, it helps people learn and get hooked on an awesome sport! Whatever happened to providing a freaking reference? It's pretty easy and simple. Anyone I've coached or taken for a first flight can reference me anytime, and somewhere in the volumes of wingsuit history between grids and records someone might remember me. For example:

Hi,
My name is Jon Murrell, I had wingsuit coaching with/have a first flight planned with Yuri (no last name) :P). His email/phone #/facebook is (012)-345-6789 ."

...if someone wants to seek out a manufacturer and utilize its instructors, then those are available and ungodly easy to identify.
...if someone wants to find an experienced wingsuiter then we're fairly easy to find.
...and if someone can't be bothered to contact a manufacturer or find an experienced wingsuiter to teach them then, maybe they can't be bothered to pay for a wingsuit in the first place.

That idea is almost as ridiculous as this one: http://www.flockuniversity.org/coaching/fwc/ :S

p.s. what level coach can I seek wingsuit BASE preparation from? I remember an April fools joke... is this like a twisted continuation?
This isn't flying, its falling with style.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
I stopped at ...

Quote

FWC course is $200.00 dollars with a $35.00 rating fee.
Rating fee is renewable every year
Level 2 course is $75.00



... because I'm not paying $310.00 (plus $35.00 every year) for a Wingsuit Coach rating.
"That looks dangerous." Leopold Stotch

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Quote

I stopped at ...

Quote

FWC course is $200.00 dollars with a $35.00 rating fee.
Rating fee is renewable every year
Level 2 course is $75.00


... because I'm not paying $310.00 (plus $35.00 every year) for a Wingsuit Coach rating.


But I hear they give you free AADs :P

To the OP: good idea on a unified list. manufacturers keep their own, but a generalized place surely wouldn't hurt. how about also incorporating a feature to submit user ratings and reviews? like ratemyprofessors.com
That would, in fact, be a good thing to have for all skydiving coaches/instructors in all disciplines.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
I think linkedin shows why user rating wont work. Nobody posts negative stuff, or the subjects remove it, or the studentsget bad coaching but write good reviews for favours or just because they dont know better.

In the end, the image people build for themselves with good coaching/instruction wil be the best listing they can come up with.

This list wil most likely also only be partial, and 'indepenant' hardly...its also a company promoting its product.
Indepenant would be a seperate website, with only the coaches. No branding, rentals or product promotion.

Good initiative, but it doesnt sound like a realistic concept
JC
FlyLikeBrick
I'm an Athlete?

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Quote

That's more for a non-existent rating than a real one!



Ummmm.... If you're saying that USPA doesn't recognize them, aren't ALL of them "non-existent"?
Skwrl Productions - Wingsuit Photography

Northeast Bird School - Chief Logistics Guy and Video Dork

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Quote



Whatever happened to providing a freaking reference?



If someone wants a reference from their coach they can ask the coach for one, can't they?

Also, the Comments section of the list could be used by a coach that wants to promote their experience and background, couldn't it?
Summer Rental special, 5 weeks for the price of 4! That is $160 a month.

Try before You Buy with Wicked Wingsuits - WingsuitRental.com

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
I can't help but point out the differences in this discussion with out pulling it further into a side bar...
First off Wickey wants to build his own data base of people willing and capable of giving proper instruction on flying a wing suit safely. This is a pretty simple concept. If you are a wing suit coach and meet the USPA standard get on the bus. You might get a knock on your door from someone that wants to give you money in hopes that you can teach them to safely fly a wing suit as well as you do.

Now let the counter mudslinging begin... The school of thought or rather the method or brands involved with the teaching method has little to do with the individuals who want to teach. In other words, whether you support the grid or not isn't a direct reflection on the ability of the coach. Currently PF is the manufacturer that has the most inclusive training program, but that doesn't necessarily negate what a former bmi knows and can teach a new wing suit pilot. Additionally there are clubs, teams and schools that aren't associated with a manufacturer that are doing great things for our discipline. It's more important that we standardize what we need to teach a fledgling pilot. I make my legit claim as a wing suit coach based on my skill, my ability and accomplishment as a winsguiter, and eh people who have taught me along the way. If I allowed my skill to go stagnent right now then I would be doing an injustice to any future students of mine. Bottom line instead of dumping on each other or firing latent insults towards a person that you don't know all the facts to, let's come together and standardize our discipline before the USPA decides we aren't competent and takes matters away from us.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Quote



We will present to the customer at their request a non-prioritized list of experienced wingsuiters with their experience and ratings. As you see we have decided that a USPA instructional rating or equivilent is necessary. For example, if you are an experienced wingsuiter and have a TI or AFF rating we will accept your details for publication. I suspect other countries have similar instructional ratings and I know for sure the UK, Australia and Canada do.
ut.



Sales of suits tied to/relevant to training have already been proven to be a fatal incentive.

Rented suits have demonstrated themselves to be a problem regardless of any "waiver/agreement."

If you want to rent suits, great. I can see how it can be a good thing ON LOCATION. How do you know that this potential FFC student should be in a Prodigy or Impact vs an Intro or Tbird when they're on the Internet? How do you know they're seeking coaching?

I coach/teach wingsuiting every day of the week, all day. All students are not created equal. We've twice grounded people flying rented red suits. They didn't have the ability to manage the suits and were there a liability issue, we'd be the first ones dealing with a bad recommendation at a legal and ethical level.

There are a lot of guys with self-ratings and self- inflated abiity to teach. There are a few people that actually have earnestly sought out instructiont to teach at some level or another. They don't parrot information; they have developed their own methods based around sound principles.
Attached are pix of "coaches" in the past couple of months. They're some of your best. Is it OK with you to promote this lack of knowledge?

I respect what you want to do (honest, I do), but there is more to it than "Here, rent a suit and there is a guy here that will teach you."
At least...at the professional level, there is more to it.
There *is* a standard. Unfortunately, most can't/don't/won't adhere to it, and common sense (as these photos show) isn't so common.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Probably worth mentioning I wasn't the coach on that first one, since the pic has my logo in it. I haven't, as of yet, ever coached or instructed anyone, ever. I personally felt comfortable jumping in those conditions. Whether or not it was appropriate for a student wasn't my call; it was between the student and her coach.
Skwrl Productions - Wingsuit Photography

Northeast Bird School - Chief Logistics Guy and Video Dork

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
I can see an arguable issue with the first photo (depending on background of the jump).

The second photo is fine unless it's a FFC (again, depends on the background of the jump). Climbing out in a suit does need to be taught at some point... just not during a FFC.

The third photo is the only one that scares me a lot. Realistically speaking, they will "probably" be ok because the extra weight of the passenger will force a very headhigh orientation (just like collapsing legs solo). Fundamentally though, extra insurance (maintaining collapsed arms) is always smart.
www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Ok just some thoughts...
Am -I- legit?
Serious question. I've got an old expired PFI card from back when that program was current. I did Rob Laidlaw's Skydive University coach rating to learn how to REALLY teach. I've got an expired USPA Coach rating... its not that I haven't been teaching, its just that as of last time I tried, USPA does not recognize wingsuit instruction as a valid use of that rating and does not consider wingsuit instruction acceptable to renew that rating... if I don't take off the suit and do a minimum number of non-wingsuit instructional jumps just to satisfy that, I can't keep the rating. The only reason I HAVE the rating though is to bring some credential to my game, the only thing I teach or am interested in teaching is wingsuit. I don't do enough wingless jumps to be anything like a competent freefall coach, so I have no current ratings at all.
I'm not working under any particular group, logo or suit maker. I currently fly a Tony suit but I teach with whatever I have at hand... mostly a rather dated old fleet of Birdman suits, or Intros if the dropzone has any kicking around.

I -am- largely a self-declared independent wingsuit instructor. The curriculum I teach is my own. I'm as current as any wingsuiter out there... about 2,500 flights total, I've been in virtually every significant record setting flock for the last 6 years, I just got back from competing in Germany, been flying wingsuits for 8 years now, I have never gone uncurrent since the day I started skydiving and I understand wingsuit flight enough to have built and flown my own suit designs. If anyone ever made a list of the happy, safe and satisfied students I've taught, that list would speak for itself. By now my former students are everywhere.

I have had no student incidents of any kind, ever.
For the last few years we had a well known Tony rep and rather gifted promoter as the public face of our school. He has moved on from our dropzone and we are rebooting our local school as a kind of partnership between myself and the other remaining senior wingsuit guys around here, the goal being simply to keep teaching and watching out for the new birds, welcome them in and educate them.

So far as I know I am still the only one around here to have held a recognized wingsuit rating at all that was not self-issued. But thats as dated as a Classic 2 and I haven't taught by a Phoenix-Fly standard since Phantom 1's were popular. I don't advertise... what students I get, seek me out based on our reputation for having a good school here.

My question is, do we really need to standardize? Right now I'm happy doing what I do for the joy of it. I take the responsibility very seriously. I have nobody judging or second-guessing me because I -am- the local authority in the art.
But if things get bureaucratic and we start requiring papers, where does it stop? Am I going to have to start proving myself once a year to somebody else who may not have 1/10th the airtime I do? Am I going to have to apply yearly for ongoing permission from somebody else to be allowed to do what I've done all along?

I am not on Skydive Pepperell's payroll yet they tell me I am definitely considered Staff at the DZ for my role in maintaining the safety of our wingsuit community. They don't care if I've got papers to show, they just want me to keep doing my thing. I didn't start teaching out of a desire for status, I started teaching because the people at my home dropzone -asked- me to.

I suggest that instead of standardizing, with all the jumping through hoops and bureaucratic requirements it involves, that we embrace our variety and promote a wingsuit instructional culture based on individual instructors sharing a sense of personal responsibility about what we do. Being safe, not because someone made us, or someone issued us a card that SAYS we are, but because we care.

Right now the wingsuit instructional game belongs to those of us who created the wingsuit scene itself.

When the day comes where somebody finds a way to force me to jump through their hoops and tells me I'm not allowed to teach without paperwork granting me their permission to do so, I quit.
-B
Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

0