notsane

MEDUSA you wild man! Don't tell me you're going to miss Flock and Dock 2.5? It won't be the same without the flying belly-cam o' death!

Bob, I'd consider this to be a complement if you guys didn't already buy one or more of everything.

I agree that the 200 jump guideline is generally a good idea ... in that someone needs to be comfortable in the air first. That's not so say that there are folks that are heads up much earlier(or later). I've trained folks with 200 jumps and watched the vast majority of them do great. I also trained folks with 1000+ jumps who struggled against the suit the entire way. Sometimes overcoming all that muscle memory can be difficult.

I was watching Danny fly the Tony suit and he was hanging with the flock easy. But I've seen him fly that new V2 like a champ too!

You guys are too f'n funny. I haven't registered yet, but I'll be there.

I know there are a few of you headed to Rantoul. I'll be there Friday through Monday. Let's find some tailgates to jump!

Jenn, I'm just curious whether your S&TA person understands that exiting 30 seconds after the tandems doesn't increase the safety factor. If you get out right after them or wait 30 seconds they are still the same size target down below. If the intent is to protect tandems from wingsuiters I can think of several more effective ways to do it. How about "Stay away from the f'ing tandems or be grounded" ? Sounds pretty reasonable to me.

Imagine taking something like this http://www.skymall.com/webapp/skystore?process=prodDisplay&action=&pid=102135333&catId=10800 out the door and actually getting it to fly. THis one seems to be a little more stable than the Manta. If any of these things could be coaxed to fly instead of fall slowly you'd really have something. Openings might be a little dicey with the huge burble, but with a wing loading like this ... maybe you could land it. I will personally buy a beer for the first person to do it (I'll bring it to you in the hospital too if needed).

Bear in mind the photo is of a prototype and the final suit may look nothing like this. I found the integrated webbed gloves interesting, but I'm not sure how much they affect the flight. Tony is still experimenting with the arm wing inlets. As you can see in the photo, the ones on this model weren't that effective. It's really exciting to see new ideas being tried out. I wish Tony and Jeff lots of luck! Scott

Allright Matt! All those years as a struggling, starving artist have finally paid off!

Tony and Jeff are pursuing a parallel development path playing off the ideas of each other. They both have some very interesting ideas, for sure. Tony's suit flew with us very well last Sunday and I've also flown with Jeff in his. It's really great to see their innovative ideas in the air!

Add my name to the list. I ordered mine from Rob at Morpheus just the other day. I hope it gets here in time for summer cloud flying!

Jumping a 7cell feels like I've riden the Delorian back to the 1980's. A moderatley loaded 9cell flies much better, flares better and opens almost as well as a similarly loaded 7cell IMHO. There are a number of choices for a less aggressive 9cell ... the Pilot, Sabre2, Lotus and others are all in this class. Try them all and find one you like. Never, never purchase your canopy based on someone else's opinion.

Count another vote for the Aerodyne Pilot

I suggested some Meshuggah, Mastodon and Mudvayne (I'm in my "M" phase) to Matt, but he started crying when he listened to them. He's a little too sensitive for that kind of stuff.

Is that guy on the powerball web page having some type of siezure?

Awesome job, Matt!

FYI .. I saw a preview of the video this weekend. WOW ... Matt has done one hell of a job on it. He tells me it should be done and online sometime this week. I don't know if he'll also be offering DVDs for sale. Scott

cough - cough "Did they say exit?" cough - "I don't know! I can't see!" cough - cough "Go! Go! Go!" cough

You guys should keep your tongues in your own mouths.

I think Macca's got this whole scarification thing down to a science. Makes the whole tattoo thing look sissy.

Macca, Glad to see you back in the air. Remember, don't look for the fences, look for the fence posts.

If any of you didn't see Jason's (Voodew) smoke bracket, this is one fine piece of engineering. I would offer the Z-Flock stamp of approval if it meant anything. And I don't know what type of smoke that V1 formation was using, but it lasted the entire dive and even after landing (making that smoke-cutaway handy). One of the folks wearing smoke carved a sweet left hand circle directly overhead that was AWESOME. That smoke was thick and extremely visible. When you guys were coming over it looked like that video of space shuttle Columbia's breakup over Texas ... gave me the shivers. It almost makes me want to jump smoke again ... almost.

I want to thank EVERYONE who attended and helped out making Z-Flock and Dock 2.0 a roaring success. The winds held us down on Saturday and the clouds did the same on Sunday but we still had one hell of a time! TK and crew, Rob and Kathy, Chris, James thanks for the hard work. You camera flyers got some killer shots! Perry, Avery, Scotty, Matt, Omar. Hey Perry .. are you okay? You Texas flockers, Yuri, Brian, Jenn, Larry, Rebecca, Mike, Richard, Paul, Sam, Nate and on and on ... you guys ROCK! I'm reminded of the first time I jumped the New River Gorge Bridge. I landed on the beach, my hands shaking with adrenalin and my breath coming in gulps ... my first thought was "I've got to do that AGAIN!" Let's do this AGAIN! I know we all got a bunch of dives on Friday with a 2 plane formation (40+ wedge) in the afternoon. Saturday we put up another 2 plane formation (40+ wedge) before the winds came up. A few hardy souls braved the winds and made a handful of dives. Sunday we made a few more flocks along with a 2 plane (30+ Vee) in and out of the clouds. On the down side this year we had some weather issues, but we worked around that. We were also barely short of putting up enough people to have a 3 plane formation(TK was ITCHING to do this!). On the up side this was one hell of an event. Right at 50 people were registered, some great prizes were handed out and a ton of great skydives were made. I can't wait until next time! Scott

Careful Chuck ... let's be politically correct. We can't exclude all those father, brother, sister, etc fuckers that may be attending too!