JohanW

I jumped that 120 (@1.8) for less than ten jumps (with a wingsuit, that is). It would always swerve left and right while I was unzipping, and on wingsuit jump #9 on it, it spun up, dove to the ground and I left it to land on its own this time. I made some more jumps on it, it's a lovely canopy if you can handle it, but no more wingsuit jumps. My Tri flies straight in up to at least five linetwists.

4 Speeling misstakes in that last sentense? You could have made your point with just one! You realy dont know anything, don't you? Sheesh, 300 jumps is getting less and less these days. Damn turbine babies .. I bet you jump a 7-cell canopy too. Haven't seen you in far too long Brickie. Time for some hop'n'pops and some poker. Is it winter yet? Johan. I am. I think.

They are not just slower. You are oversimplifying things. Johan. I am. I think.

I *just* started reaching for the rears again, almost as if by accident. I have done it before, two or three times when I had about a thousand jumps. When I feel current, say after the tenth jump of the weekend, the weather is nice, not too much wind, and I come out just right after a swoop and have the time, I find myself going to rears. If you want to land with rear risers, maybe do not induce extra speed, just set up a nice long final, take the time to go to rears, take a deep breath and level it out on rears. Flare on toggles. This sets you up with more time and inner calm than when inducing speed. All of this is not a substitute for high H+Ps, a lot of them (find a friend! do CRW!), and slowly building the sight picture for your induced speed landings without any rear risering for now. I haven't seen you land. And it's very different from person to person. But if someone says you should go easy for now, I think he's right. Work on accuracy, flaring itself (keep it flying and finish your flare), flat and flare turns, cross- and downwind landings, and do not use rears to extend your surf for now. If you really want to hear a number, 500 for swooping, 500 swoops for rear riser swoops. Those are minimums. But currency is important, and experience, time, talent, coaching. It's really hard to pin a number on it. I really shouldn't. And the next guy will have a different opinion. This is just mine. A Pilot 190 is really not an ideal canopy to perform these kinds of stunts on BTW, its recovery arc is too short and the risers are too heavy. You have to set up low and giving exactly the correct amount of input is difficult. Johan. I am. I think.

Sounds like the Australian horseshoe vid. After exit, someone is yelling "horseshoe horseshoe." When he clears it, someone says "oh he got lucky" or something. ISTR it not being in full colour. Should be on skydivingmovies.com, but that site's not working. I have a video called horseshoe.avi, but I'm not getting any picture, sound only, probably some ancient codec. I put it here; maybe it works for you. Johan. I am. I think.

Yes. Update your profile or stop considering a Diablo. Please.

For wingsuit flights, you may very well want the impossible. Obviously, you look at the biggest accelerations, positive for exit and negative for deployment (or the other way around - depends). But exit a Skyvan, pop up, fly, flare the suit halfway down, fly, deploy, spiral the canopy down, and you just can't see from the data what happened when. I know I can get higher instantaneous speeds under canopy than I can get in my wingsuit. That's a Triathlon 120 vs a Skyflyer 3S. Lots of people fly bigger suits and smaller canopies (some even at the same time ). Can't be done, not perfectly. A quick and dirty approximation should not be too difficult however, and refine from there. How complicated do you want your algorithm to become? Johan. I am. I think.

Sounds like pretty effective ground-to-air communication to me. Something like that's what I meant anyway. Radios are overrated.

There's no fool like an old fool .. (I gave that T-shirt to my father!) [IRT John] No plan survives two minutes in the trenches .. sh*t happens during demos. If ground crew can't clear the field, land off or don't jump. (You have ground-to-air comms for that, don't you? No absolute need to know before take-off.) But any truly unavoidable sh*t is supposed to happen to *us*, not spectators. Johan. I am. I think.

I suspect it's on the island of Texel NL, or maybe the Dutch mainland North Sea coast. I recognise the names, not the place. Johan. I am. I think.

+ 1. Except I'm not ashamed of not knowing who's who. I had heard the names though. I think both of the ladies might appear more graceful in different dresses. Not to mention boots. Johan. I am. I think.

Your simple example seems wrong. Team B wins, with 175%, vs A's 166%. Johan. I am. I think.

Just ask the PDFT what they have lying around .. Johan. I am. I think.

I voted canopy control. That may simply mean I have lower standards for mastery of canopy control than I do for freefall skills. I don't see how experience and talent affect the ease of mastering something BTW. Johan. I am. I think.

Dont count us out just yet My arms .. my poor arms .. I get muscle cramps just thinking again of the Stealth 2. I'd need an exoskeleton to fly your extra-ludicrous-Bird. Define "wingsuit" ..

It may. But there is a reason the biggest bird is only so big. Our build restricts us to a certain maximum wing area. That area, and our weight, restrict us to a certain minimum wingload. That wingload restricts us to a certain minimum stall speed. We are not built to meet the earth at anywhere near that speed. We were not built to fly in the first place, of course, we build planes and parachutes for that. We can land wings, but not wingsuits. The wingsuit that might one day be landed needs to look very different from today's wingsuits. Will that still be a wingsuit landing as we speak of it now? So it may not. (Thoroughly enjoying the half glass that is here, now.

Above certain contact speeds, water is like concrete. I don't see it as a viable landing surface, unless you want to skip across it... Water isn't compressible so doesn't have a very good cushioning effect. I know. Nobody ever mentions what speed that is though. Would body position and/or surface area presented affect that speed? If it's possible to get total airspeed under that value after a flare, you could just flare over the water, then stall into it. More options for body position as well. Skipping landings are not as appealing to me, need to get flare height right a little too precisely. Either way, I am not a volunteer. Don't want to land less than 117 sq ft. It may take a while before that gets made as a wingsuit. Johan. I am. I think.

How deep would you have to dig the stuff out of your nose if you went in feet first? I like the way you think though .. Spot on! Johan. I am. I think.

I have no problems with ramps (you don't blame a swooper for needing the ground to set out the course, do you Bernard?

James Boole nearly tried it. But it wasn't such a good idea after all. A reasonable approach towards an article on landing a wingsuit is explaining what makes it damn near impossible. Yet, thousands of people thoroughly enjoy flying one at altitude. A related topic is flying very small parachutes BTW, on the order of 21, 25 or 27 sq ft. It's about as dangerous and they haven't been landed either, if for different reasons. But the science is fascinating. (Well, it is to me.) Johan. I am. I think.

Good luck. Do you have access to cheap or free repacks? Seeing how you profile says you normally jump an FX 79 (at a whopping 500 jumps - but not in the mood to be canopy Nazi today), I suspect you have a more or less reasonable wingload on a 105. Would be interested in knowing your exit weight though. And would like to see some video of landings (the average ones, not the perfect ones). Personally, I prefer my Triathlon for wingsuiting. But if an FX-89 worked for you, no reason why a Cobalt-105 would not work. Did you downsize the FX and is the -79 not working? Johan. I am. I think.

Going from memory here .. we did a cross-country a couple of years back from 6 miles out, exit altitude 12000'. The Triathlons did not make it back, most of the 9-cells barely made the dropzone, the Crossfire made the DZ at about 4000'. There will have been wind, but not howling, it was not that kind of XC. Best you can say from that, of course, is that the Crossfire is trimmed flatter than most other canopies. Size or wingload is not really important; you can "upsize" by riding in brakes without affecting your glide ratio. That is a fact, Brian Germain has the supporting data. (This is about brakes affecting glide ratio. It's not about suicidal downsizing "but that's OK, I'll fly it in brakes." Have to be careful here ..) Johan. I am. I think.

Could you expand on that a little? Johan. I am. I think.

Or just get another S-Fly Expert. If you liked it, you're probably good enough in it to keep up with the Joneses (not to say you might just be bad-ass without knowing it.) Or get a 2nd-hand S6 or Blade or something. If you can really fly that, you can keep up with most anything. But the rigging on the PF suits, oh, the rigging ..

130 or so. Still jumping the rig and reserve, downsized the main in the meantime. Johan. I am. I think.