Bluhdow

15 hours ago, JoeWeber said:

"Can you show where it (swooping) has grown the sport to such a degree that the fatalities and horrendous injuries are worth it?"

Your question cannot be objectively answered because it teeters on a subjective measure. That is, your personal opinion on what constitutes a level of growth that is "worth it."

The logic can be extended to anything and everything. Is driving really "worth it" with all the fatalities and injuries? What about running? What about living? 

Stupid question. Stupid thread.

Done it. Recommend it. SRBA does solid work all the way around.

Compare the measurements of the Apex slider to the other sliders available to you. You might find one that is very close.

My experience is there's a fair bit of wiggle room in slider sizes, but as Tom said above, always best to test somewhere safe before earning a red card at Brento.

Give a call to Apex BASE. They have a ton of F-111 and may have what you're after. 

That's one very expensive marketing stunt/ego stroke. 

They could have gotten Brad Slums to do it for a sliver of the time and money, I suspect.

On 12/17/2022 at 8:32 PM, Sam Bankman Sauteed said:

I am 20 and have about 150 jumps and have been contemplating a career in skydiving. I would love to see how some of the commentors feel now about there decisions. Currently, I am going to school for piloting airplanes but there is still that yearn to be a skygod instead.

Don't do it. 

Get a real job and skydive for fun. You'll jump less and enjoy it a lot more.

You are correct, of course. 

If there were 1500 performance wingsuit pilots I'm sure we would see certain physical patterns that align with this idea. 

That said, I highly doubt a very small slice of a small discipline in a small sport is ever going to reach an N high enough to play real moneyball. It's just a thought exercise. 

If it made economic sense to hold a lot of stock, manufacturers would do it. They may be skydivers, but most are not stupid. 

As someone who used to work in the industry on multiple fronts I can tell you the gap between actual manufacturer revenues and the perceived revenues (by the general jumping public) are large. 

Companies spend a lot of time/money to R&D/manufacture/market a product that will be sold to very few people at a very modest profit margin. Then, once the product is out in the wild it will be active for decades...often passing hands multiple times competing with new gear sales along the way. 

The industry is a money-maker for very very few, and the supply side is crowded. Most are in the industry out of passion, not profit. 

We're lucky it's as good as it is, but I suppose these threads are mostly for complaining so fire away!

The N of the entire sport is too small. The N for performance pilots is like 15 people.

Again, the people that wingsuit the most are the best wingsuiters. 

The body type/ape/whatever theory makes academic sense, but without enough pilots who are identical (or substantially similar) in experience and different in body type you will not be able to isolate that variable.

1 hour ago, mark said:

I disagree.  Harness/container manufacturers may have at most 8 or 9 different freebag sizes, and they can look in their records to see which sizes they have shipped separately from rigs.  Ditto main bags. High-demand items should be available for immediate shipment.

Some have two reserve pilot chute sizes, most have just one.  These should also be available immediately.  If you have an exposed pilot chute (e.g. Racer, Javelin, etc.) it might make more sense to wait for orders instead of having some in stock, I'll bet many customers would be okay with basic black if they could get one right away -- the new colors aren't going to match the sun-faded colors anyway.

Likewise, they know what riser lengths they have been shipping.  Running a few more for spares when you're making a batch anyway shouldn't be an issue.

Ripcords and cutaway handles are frequently custom, but most of our customers would be happy to have a metal-handle ripcord and a red cutaway pillow if it would get them back in the air by the weekend.

Disclaimer:  I am not a manufacturer, just a whiner.  Perhaps someone who is can chime in to explain how scheduling and production work, and why having ready-to-ship spares ties up too much capital.

To have a product sitting on the shelf, the manufacturer most absorb the cost of the good well in advance of collecting the revenue. Investing a lot of money into something that might sell someday is not as efficient as dedicating resources to something which has already sold (e.g. orders). And in this little world, resources are thin. 

The quick-delivery business model works super well...in industries that have high volume. Skydiving is not that type of industry. 

Could they stock a ton of inventory for quick delivery to all the "whiners" out there? Totally. But it would add cost to the end product. How do "whiners" feel about that?

The sport is probably not big enough to be able to tease out data at this level of detail. The best wingsuiters are the ones that wingsuit the most. 

On 10/7/2022 at 4:00 PM, BMAC615 said:

DZs are sky families the way strippers are your girlfriend.

Hahahaha 100%!

Best post in the thread. 

On 10/17/2021 at 4:11 PM, riggerrob said:

Dear Bludhow,

I stand by my original statement.

I have only done two BASE jumps. They were both from the same 600 foot bridge and they were done during the mid-1980s, before specialized BASE gear was readily available. Since then I have done repairs (FAA Master rigger) for dozens of young BASE jumpers.

I am so old that I started skydiving when military-surplus parachutes were still fashionable. I jumped (6,000 plus jumps) for total of 40 years, the last 30 years most (4,000 plus) of my jumps were tandems. I earned a couple of USPA instructor ratings and all the CSPA instructor ratings, jump-pilot, two sets of military jump wings and a long list of rigger ratings.

I still maintain that the vast majority of young BASE jumpers do not understand the physics or risks involved.

You can stand by it, but it's still wrong. 

I don't disagree that most HUMANS (myself included) do not understand the intricacies of the physics involved...but the risks are well documented. My other comments regarding BASE stand. 

As you were.

On 1/28/2021 at 11:57 AM, riggerrob said:

People who jump BASE rigs out of aircraft, then open low rarely have the first clue about the physics involved.

BASE jumpers pull low for two reasons.

First, their fixed object may not be very high.

Secondly, to experience ground-rush, they need to pull below 2,000 to see the horizon in their peripheral vision.

BASE jumpers survive pulling low because they are usually falling at much less than terminal velocity. Pulling low, at terminal velocity removes the margin of error for slow openings.

Pretty much everything about this post is incorrect:

"People who jump BASE rigs out of aircraft, then open low rarely have the first clue about the physics involved." 

Speculation...at best. 

"BASE jumpers pull low for two reasons.

First, their fixed object may not be very high.

Secondly, to experience ground-rush, they need to pull below 2,000 to see the horizon in their peripheral vision."

Third: Separation from a solid object. 

Fourth: To improve heading performance (for example, on a sub-terminal slider-up jump).

Etc., etc. etc.

"BASE jumpers survive pulling low because they are usually falling at much less than terminal velocity. Pulling low, at terminal velocity removes the margin of error for slow openings."

This statement ignores entire subsets of BASE jumps (terminal, tracking, WS) as well as the aforementioned differences between sky and BASE canopy openings. It also ignores the opening characteristics of slider-down/off packing techniques.

I'm not going to read 15 pages about (or add any value to) an FAA/legal conversation about BASE rigs and aircraft in the USA, but I do think you've got a lot of misconceptions about BASE jumping.

It's a nice saying but reality is more complicated than that. 

"If you find a job you love, that doesn't pay enough income, you'll work your ass off until you don't love it like you used to. But if you find a job you love that pays enough income, you'll never work again."

That might be more complete. It's up to you to determine what "enough income" means.

Pay for passion, work for income. 

When you turn fun into work, fun just becomes work. 

I've done both. For me, it's a lot happier/healthier to separate work and play.

They want increased net revenue (pun!), not necessarily "time sales."

Margins on experienced flyers are low. First time flyers, birthday parties, etc. That's the time they want to book in order to maximize profit per operating hour. 

Coaches suck up bulk time and pay lower rates for it.

Not saying I like it, but it is what it is.

It's been out for a long time, just under the name "Onesie Power."

I burned out on TI work way faster than that. Good on you for sticking with it so long. 

The logistics of working in this industry make burnout easy. Always having to be available, no (or low) pay when the weather is bad, no benefits or paid time off like a "real" job, zero hopes of building up a retirement fund, etc.

The lifestyle is part of the "compensation," and I think it will always be that way. If the lifestyle isn't your jam anymore, go get a proper job with a proper wage and jump for fun again.

I spent 3 years as a TI and loved it. I'm so glad I did it. That said, I'm back in the real world and if I never pickup another tandem rig it wouldn't bother me one bit. =)

In related news: Pickup trucks absolutely suck. They are literately slow as balls. I can out race one in my sleep with something even as simple as a sedan. Anyone who recommends a pickup truck clearly has absolutely no experience with performance driving.

Anyone who compares a Havok to a performance suit clearly has absolutely no experience with acro flying.

I've owned about 12 wingsuits over the years. The original Havok is the only one I KNOW that I will never sell.

People who bash Havoks are usually fanatics about speed being the only metric by which a WS should be measured. They are also usually choking on light blue Kool-Aide.

You should be able to get it cheaper than $500. If you do, it will be the most fun-per-dollar WS you'll own.

My first WS BASE jumps were on a Havok. If you're at the more mellow, "intro" exits the Havok is a great, forgiving choice to get your feet wet.

One of you is saying "speed is important." The other is saying, "control is important."

You are both correct. It's just that the underlying preferences are being highlighted. PF is known for precise, clean flying suits. Hence the tunnel and control focus. Sq is known for fast suits, hence the speed focus. 

For what it's worth, I've flown a ton of stuff and I'll never sell my original Havok. Pretty much everything else has been rotated through.

I don't think anyone will argue that a couple/few are not doing it right. Marketing, that is.