lurch

Friends. -B Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

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Holy inertial slingjob, Batman. I mean holy, shit. That was the most impressive thing I've ever seen done with a helicopter. The anticipation of drop location is surreal. He doesn't bother to be vertical above the target, just incorporates the swing into one smooth move. -B Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

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Here's a documentary on the damage. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SaZ5W_Wkbx0 The War On Kids. The kids aren't blind to the fact that all the hysteria and authoritarian enthusiasm for coming up with excuses for imposing maximum punishments for made-up "crimes" that weren't crimes 20 years ago, and aren't crimes the moment they get out of school is so much bullshit. There is, as always, a great deal of handwringing on the part of adults involved with kids, about "How do we get them to stay in school and finish school?" Call me Captain Obvious, here, but how about -not- making the schools a nightmare environment they're desperate to escape from where they're preemptively treated like convicts even though they've done nothing wrong? I couldn't WAIT to drop out. Because I knew all the bullshit I had to live under, would instantly evaporate, become meaningless, and no longer apply to me the moment I was no longer an inmate of High School. All I had to do was quit, and go out in the adult world... and claim the same basic freedoms adults have. The same petty-minded punishment-happy admins, salivating at the chance to punish me for being caught with a cigarette, following me around hoping to catch me at it, suddenly rendered utterly powerless. Suddenly I can own anything sharp edged I want, and it isn't grounds for criminal prosecution... Suddenly there's nobody claiming the right to search my belongings with no due process... nobody acting as if use of swear words were a big deal... nobody claiming the right to dictate how I dress, or how I keep my hair... if I didn't like a job where those rules hold, I was perfectly free to walk out and choose to work somewhere else. Over the course of my career I once found myself in a factory which enthusiastically created an authoritarian internal culture just like high school. Constant reminders to the employees that anything and everything is punishable and that we are watching you like a hawk for infractions. I had just come from a factory in which I had the freedom of the place, almost no rules at all, and had enjoyed working there... a place where I wasn't being watched and judged every second by people waiting for a chance to impose some penalty for some petty infraction. So I made my own rules about dress, productivity, and punctuality, stuck to them, and earned all kinds of raises and awards for productivity. When I got to this new factory, where changing anything required 10 years worth of engineering studies and approval from on high before being allowed to upgrade or fix so much as a sticky feed track, the employees were treated like 5-year-olds, and they started in with the authoritarian intimidation shit on me, being used to being treated as a free, self-responsible adult, I did NOT tolerate it. They'd try doing the ominous "You'll get a week off for that" shit, and I'd just fold my arms and stare at them like, "Really? What makes you think anyone intelligent enough to be an industrial automation mechanic is going to put up with this?" I made them fire me in 8 weeks. Next factory, I got paid exactly the same, but once again, found one with freedom, almost no rules... and I am, once again, fantastically enthusiastic about being productive and contributing as much as I can to the place and they love me for it. And I love the place. Nobody in my face. No authoritarianism at ALL. No pressure. I've become the facility's technical manager, upgrading the hell out of everything I lay my hands on. I rampage around fixing everything in sight, take breaks whenever I want, and the director, who has seen me in action, tells me they're lucky to have me. The schools should take lessons. -B Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

About damn time. Of course, the assholes responsible for popularizing the whole idea put an entire generation of kids through hell, ruining countless young lives before acknowledging that maybe, just maybe, turning the schools into supermax prisons wasn't such a good idea after all... "I've got an idea! Those kids are too defiant... let's take all the ridiculously draconian excesses of the drug war, stretch them to encompass ALL behavior including all sorts of things that AREN'T crimes outside the institution, and apply it to our kids!" 15 years later, half the kids think the grownups are out to get them by any pretext or excuse they can possibly invent, have no respect for rules and laws because the ones applied to THEM are capricious, arbitrary, malicious, spiteful and pointlessly, deliberately destructive, and the adults, baffled, wonder why... "It's for your own good!" "Destroying my life, treating me like a violent felon and giving me a criminal record for "posession of a "weapon" on school property" because I accidentally brought a butter knife to school in my lunchbox is, "For my own good"? Hows THAT supposed to work?" Pretending a butter knife is a "weapon" and punishing the kids accordingly, (not to mention all the other manifestations of that set of policies) is the most overtly insane, hypocritical and unfair behavior I've ever seen from what are supposed to be institutions of order and learning. It was somehow supposed to teach the kids respect for rules and authority. Any kid, if consulted, could have told them it would accomplish the exact opposite. When the grownups are pretending a butter knife magically morphs into a "weapon" when brought on to school grounds, only for the specific purpose of applying punishments for weapons to them, the kids logically conclude the adults are insane, and out to get them. Adults have an institutional assumption that kids are pliable subjects for any and all experiments in extreme authoritarianism they can dream up, probably thinking so long as you get em young the kids will accept that as normal. They are wrong. When I was in school I thought the grownups were a bunch of idiots. Just after I got out of school when the "zero-tolerance" everything became policy throughout the land, they confirmed it. I felt like I'd escaped none too soon just before the prison gates clanged shut behind me leaving everyone else still in school, now in hell... under perpetual "lockdown"... You reap what you sow... they haven't even BEGUN to pay the price for what they've done to the kids from the mid-90's through today. Frankly I'm surprised there haven't been more cases of kids coming back and getting a little payback, doing -real- violence to the teachers and administrators who inflicted this crap on them. So far as I'm concerned that entire systemic policy constitutes institutionalized child abuse. I think there is a real need for the existence of something like a "Kids' rights advocate" to defend kids against authoritarianism run amok... except as near as I can tell the people running the system think kids HAVE no rights, treat them like property, and the idea that the kids need to be defended FROM them would outrage them. -B Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

Not reckless. Shows you put some thought into it. I recently tried backflying the exit in my Apache out of an Otter. I thought through possible variations and had a plan for what to do if it didn't go exactly as expected. As it happened, it didn't. I kept my armwings shut, but due to the fumbling unfamiliarity with launching a suit that big backwards, failed to keep my elbows tight. Even releasing that much wing was too much, and for a second the tail of the Otter was starting to get closer than I liked. I snap-bailed on "flying" the exit and arched over backwards away from it into a headdown which turned into a neat little gainer. Same move you just described but upside down and backwards. Whole thing was over in less than 2 seconds. Never actually got anywhere near the tail, just close-ER than I thought I'd be, and safely learned from the experiment. Mostly learned that its very easy to screw up a backfly exit in a big suit and there is a LOT less margin for error than you'd expect. You gotta leave room for being wrong. When I try a move like that, (canopy buzzjob, novel exit, whatever) I leave triple the margin for error that I think I'll need, that way when I end up USING that margin I'm still far from an incident. In this case, I expected to just drop away, instead I lofted back along the side of the plane without losing any altitude. If I'd truly stayed balled up, I'd have been at or under the base 100% margin. As it turned out, the result I got just from being sloppy with my elbows consumed more like 150% of a 300% margin. Using even that much of it startled me, but I had a preplanned snap reaction ready for that, and I used it. The instant the tail did -not- recede as expected, I pulled the trigger on the bail move. If I hadn't thought it through, and had casually laid out and opened wide, I'd have had 150-200% at best, and used almost all of it and barely missed. When it comes to stuff like this, embrace cowardice. Better to chicken out 50 times while you learn, than go big once, and hit something. -B Edit to add: This same thinking is why I ditched my chosen exit style out of the Caravan. Taking a good hard look at the lowness and closeness of that tail, comparing it to my experience of drop scaling and timing, I realized there WAS no way to exit poised, fly the exit, and leave a 300% margin... or even a 150% margin. That tail was smack in the middle of the space I'm accustomed to flying through on an Otter exit. Even scrunched up in a ball, with a suit this big with this much drag I'd barely clear that tail. There might have been 120%. Meaning the faintest error would hit the tail. A poised exit, this suit floats so much even shut down that I don't even start to drop until after I'm well clear of the door. All I'd have to do is hover a half second longer than expected while running into the relative wind like a brick wall while the tail of the plane overtakes me, and Bang- tailstrike. Whereas that rollout exit, gives you a nice downward inertial movement before you've even cleared the doorframe let alone begun to dig in your wings, and it prevents your wings from grabbing any air at all until the rotation of the roll is completed- by which time you're at least 3-5 feet down. Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

I'd plead guilty, but what about the balloon? That thing didn't even have an engine, nevermind a turbine... It was a giant ball of nylon and air powered by a FLAMETHROWER...

Depends on the weight of the wingsuit pilot and which aircraft. Jumping an S-bird from a PAC 750 in Germany was scary but doable. I wrapped my wings about me tightly, balled up in a crouch and hopped out sideways. Recently jumped what I'm pretty sure was a base model Cessna Caravan at Spot's place in Elsinore. I'd never seen or jumped one before... just the Grand version. The itty bitty one was the cutest little plane. But this time I was in an Apache XRW and I hadn't launched it from anything smaller than an Otter yet. I watched the others exit and noticed a bunch of em would sit on the floor facing backwards and roll out. I was last out, and being fairly experienced, started to set up for the same exit I'd used in the PAC. The seated exit looked studentish and undignified. Then I hesitated, took a good long look at that tail, first over my left shoulder, poised for exit, then turned and looked at it harder... and thought it through. The exit I'd just seen was slow and clunky, but it had one thing going for it... it was SAFE. Spot wasn't even in the plane but I recognized his handiwork immediately. My older small plane-close tail exit style had been just barely adequate in a smaller suit. The tail is CLOSE on that caravan. And I was in a much... MUCH bigger suit this time... which I've launched from balloons, otters, helis, CASAs, Skyvans... basically everything BUT a very small plane. I know an ego trap when I see one. I sat my ass down facing backward and rolled out like they did. Worked fine. When in Rome... Especially if you're light, take NO chances. The maximum suits can get an amazing amount of loft off surprisingly little airspeed. As it is, the rollout exit felt like falling facefirst onto a mattress 3 feet below the doorframe. The megasuit starts flying -immediately- with NO significant drop. To exit a 152 or similar I'd suggest sitting in the door, planting your feet on the step, hands up in front of you, elbows pressed to ribcage in front of your belly, go for the strut just for support, and allow yourself to topple out off the step at 90 degrees to line of flight while still all hunched up mostly in a ball. Its clumsy as hell but it'll get you clear of the aircraft. It's what I'd do. You can learn to make it look good, later. I'd start off with a technique 100% designed around surviving it and nevermind how pretty of an exit it ain't. Launching a suit that big from a plane that small is a rather sketchy proposition no matter how it is done but if that's the only plane you got, that's the only way I can think of to be absolutely sure of a clean exit. Biggest suit/smallest plane, with a close, low tail and a step preventing a rollout, is the most unforgiving possible combination available. You just don't have a helluva lot of options, here. By far the most important part is keeping your elbows tight against your ribs. If you allow anything like your full wingspan to open, you're screwed and you probably took the pilot with you. The way I just described is how I always exited a small Cessna with my S-Bird. I've seen people do strut-hang exits but their suits were smaller and they were heavier. If you're flying one of these megasuits you can sort out heading and orientation AFTER exit without losing more than a few feet of altitude. -B Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

Thank you, Doc. That was useful. I read the whole thing. I like to study this sort of thing in as much detail as possible- knowing precisely what mistake -not- to make and/or how exactly one of these played out may save my ass (again) someday. We had a fatality here at Pep my first year. Paul King. 227 jumps or so, landed out, boxed himself into a corner by not-seeing some powerlines, ended up hooking himself into the ground under a Sabre 190. Knowing the details, when I eventually screwed up and was forced to land there myself, I was hyperaware of hard-to-see obstacles and was looking for those lines. The thing I noticed is people die when they get surprised by something. And it is often something small. I already knew about loose brake lines and had a way of tucking the excess into the lower toggle retainer loop to keep it neat. The day mine surprised me with a knot, the only difference was that I had stowed it with the excess on the other side of the toggle than usual. Totally failed to notice one of my fingers was intruding into a space where that line was- I think my finger went in between the two strands of line leading down from and back up to the eye in the line. Formed a kind of 2-D chinese fingertrap when released. At first it was so weird it struck me as almost funny... thinking "What the fuck... (got a good look, tried to pull my hand back, whole steering line came with it and realized it was a solidly tied knot) SHIT! You gotta be kidding me!" That was followed by a fast assessment, realizing a cutaway is out of the question and I'm tied to a canopy and the tying simultaneously creates a control problem, next thought was all about splitting my attention between flying the canopy and trying to figure a way out. Not the first time, either. Had another one of these happen as a result of failure to notice I'd let maintenance slide on my old Birdman S-6. When I zipped up in the plane, the left wing zipper tab broke off. Didn't think much of it till under canopy, tried to unzip and discovered my plan to grasp the body of the zipper wasn't going to work because those zippers will not unlock unless there is something through the hole where the tab lives. Then when I tried to use the wing chop, discovered the mods I'd made to the suit had loaded up the wing tabs heavily in a few areas, which had rapidly chewed away the material on the cable, leaving my cutaway cable with a deep abrasion groove and a lot of burrs and chewed plastic debris in it. So I couldn't cutaway the damn wing, either. The biggest mental effort through the whole thing was making sure -not- to get distracted and go all single-focus... I'd work on the zipper for a bit, steer and navigate for a bit, try the cable, go back to the canopy, try the zipper again, still nothing, finally gave up on the zipper, went back to the cable, loosened cheststrap to buy me some moving space, folded myself in half to get some leverage, (Emergency yoga!) got both hands on the cable and ripped it out pulling straight down. I also had the additional time pressure of being long and low- I was going to need back risers to make the landing area, no outs, just trees, and my window in which to get at the back risers was closing fast... I kept looking around watching the bigger picture closing up while working on that wing thinking "God this is stupid..." I could reach the back risers with my wings on, barely, but with the brakes still stowed it wasn't gonna go the distance, rear risers or not. Got free with maybe 20 seconds left before a tree landing would have become inevitable. Then it was one long back-riser hang to treetop level, just cleared the trees, landed at the far edge of the airport but safely. The ability to pay attention to multiple things at once and juggle priorities depending on how the situation is evolving is one of the most critical skills a jumper can have. The lack of it can fly you right into one killer problem while you're trying to solve another. -B Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

Kind of surprised an experienced skydiver let that happen to her. I once popped my toggles only to have my (properly stowed I might add) excess brake line (which wasn't -quite- the exact same way I was used to seeing it...) throw a knot around my finger. Securely tying me to the canopy and creating a nice built in right turn. I wasted maybe 20 seconds trying to free my hand, recognized the futility of trying to untie a knot one handed under tension where as soon as I let go of the other riser to try to untie it, it started spiralling, bailed on the whole idea and went to plan B: lace the other fingers through the line around the knot so it can't come loose unexpectedly, then fly the thing to the ground, very carefully. A Sabre1 has enough extra flare to land standing from a half-braked approach. Sweet! -B Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

"They make their children volunteer", huh? Brilliant. Force them to do something while pretending it is voluntary. If they have to "make" them, it isn't volunteering. Doublethink. Teach it to em young. -B Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

Personally I go for slider and toggles only after entire suit is taken care of. My sequence is, Canopy open, hands on risers ready to dodge unexpected canopies/turn for home Set course for DZ if not directly overhead already, Unzip arms Scout for traffic Unzip legs and fasten snaps to ensure not-tripping on landing Again scout for traffic that may have snuck up on me while distracted Pop slider (I don't stow it anywhere I just collapse it and leave it) Look around again, update myself on things Pop toggles Set grip in toggles and ensure front/rear riser control Turn all attention to canopy flight. Go home set up pattern Land. If there are any complications such as navigation, distance, nearby canopies, sudden need to fight a wind, etc, I'll skip the tail and save it for last so I can free up a few more seconds and get on the canopy piloting a bit sooner. Also may omit slider till later for same reason. -B Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

Granted. But my concern was more about students or noobs misinterpreting the "modern container" statement. I scrunch up as small as I can in the Apache but those thick-wing models don't scrunch very well. And I just plain wouldn't full-flight this puppy without a HUGE Base PC. I haven't tried it, but I'd be willing to bet that full-flight deploying in this suit would suck the PC back in even with the 10-footer I've got. The PC attached to it is relatively small, 28 inch, and its the next weak link in the chain I'll be upgrading myself when I get my next suit... which goes even slower and I expect to be casting an even bigger burble. When the suit is done I'm getting at least an 11-foot 30-32 incher to go with it. -B Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

" I have personally found a modern container system does not require extended bridles" Please be careful with blanket statements like this. If an uninformed new bird decides "I don't need gear mods cause I got a modern container" they could get in deep shit really fast. This is an extremely subjective area, results depend on the user, the suit, and the way the user is flying the suit. Requirement for extended bridle has nothing to do with whether it is a modern container or not. I'm jumping a slightly dated Javelin NJ and a Tony Rebel. There is no significant functional difference between my old Jav and one bought yesterday. And I most certainly DO require an extended bridle. I only weigh about 135 lb, I tend to fall very very slowly, and I have a burble the size of nebraska. If you're always falling very fast during deployment, you may not in fact need an extended bridle. But when I first began flying my Apache, when I deployed, at sub-30's fallrates, it sucked the PC back in, and landed it on my tail where it sat and did nothing. Followup jumps confirmed the effect. For my first 10-12 jumps or so I had to manually kick the pilot chute back out of the burble to get it to go. 8.5 foot bridle, by the way. This 2-stage soccer game deployment got real old real fast. I upgraded to a 10-foot bridle. Trouble-free deployments ever since. -B Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

USA! Top Score! Fuck, yeah! Eat the rhinos. Pave the rainforests. Nuke the planet. Destroy, everything. Fuck it, its not like we have anything better to do. -B Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

Ok just to counter the heckler here, Thank you for the post. This sort of thing is useful for serious pilots to know about. So far I've only been flying Tony's gear the last few years and am likely to stay that way because his gear works particularly well for me, but I'm very interested in how the competing maximum-class suit designs are doing. I've flown with an Aura being flown properly by a serious pilot and I gotta admit, its a hell of a suit. Can easily go toe-to-toe with an Apache-class suit. I'm thinking of putting up my own review of Tony's latest rocketship myself. There's something new coming up. Another evolution of the basic Apache-type chassis he's calling the Rebel 2, I put 4 flights on the prototype and it immediately rendered my much-loved Apache XRW/Rebel 1 obsolete. Just when I thought I couldn't possibly fall any slower...

I hate to be negative, but I agree about the BS. I checked out his site and suits. I see a rough Phantom clone with an old Birdman-style tail, and a rough clone of an early Vampire. I think some of these wingsuit startups would get more traction if they knocked it off with all the bullshit marketingspeak buzzwords. It actually drives away serious pilots. They're totally meaningless and this suit's got 'em all. "vortex", "wind tunnel", "software airflow analysis" "computer models of suit flight dynamics"... All of which result in what look like completely ordinary wingsuits with completely ordinary performance no different than suits built just by skipping all the "engineer" this and "computer modelled" that, tacking together some fabric, flying it, and seeing how it works. I mean, hey, if you wanted to build a spatula as an exercise in applying engineering techniques to something, that's cool, you can load the packaging with jargon like "ergonomically designed by finite element analysis computer simulation with patented "quattro-handle" for superior efficient performance" but in the end you're still just gonna have a spatula that works about the same as spatulas made the old fashioned way. If anyone has actually applied advanced math, engineering, or computer modelling to wingsuit design in a way that has actually resulted in a perceptible improvement I have yet to hear about it or fly it. Birdman is trying to make a comeback too, and so far, all I see is buckets of marketingspeak about "Birdman brand" this and that, a bunch of recycled designs from 5 years ago, and one slightly updated design that takes a few performance hints from current suits. There's a bunch of jargon about "quattro-wing" and "DRS Drag Reduction System" and other crap thats supposed to define Bird-man (tm) brand suits and its all bullshit. There's this massive overdone obsession with branding, branding, branding, and a total lack of originality, performance gain, and if they still make em like they used to, quality. I know, its total heresy to speak this out loud, but you could take their suit, cut the so-called "vortex deflectors" off the leading edges of the wings and it will make absolutely no difference to suit performance whatsoever. Same goes for their "quattro-wing", whatever THATS supposed to be, (I count 3 wings, myself) and their "DRS" which as near as I can tell exists only as a jargon phrase to support an acronym. You know you're getting desperate when you have to start with the marketing acronyms. I don't pick my wingsuits by whether they're marketed to be sold in a mall fashion boutique between "abercrombie" and "aeropostale", I pick em based on whether they fly better than my current suit. Period. -B Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

No. To my knowledge nobody is betting on climbs yet. But there's a bunch of terrain flying going on now that is visibly betting on short term glide ratio where if you didn't set it up right you aren't gonna be flying flat enough to clear the obstacle. Valerii Salcutsan showed me some spectacular footage from what I think was a recently opened line in Romania somewhere. It involved crossing a gap and then clearing a ridgeline. From the exit, that ridgeline looks flat-out impossible to reach, let alone clear. At the start of the video, the camera was looking at it, but I didn't believe they'd go for it, till they did. If you don't get the setup right and turn the last half of the approach into the ultimate planeout from hell you will not clear the ridge and if you're lucky, you figure it out in time and bail to the left. The visuals are breathtaking. -B Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

Start focusing on tracking jumps in the last 50 jumps or so before you get into wingsuits. Start getting used to thinking of a skydive as a 3d flight path where you're going somewhere. Where you got out where you're going and where you want to be when you open. Keeping track of that at all times throughout the skydive is a critical foundation skill especially for wingsuit flying. Beyond that, just have fun your first few hundred jumps. Even for people focused just on getting to wingsuits, your first few hundred jumps you're still just working on general education in skydiving. Have patience. Get used to the idea that 200 jumps is just getting started, 200 wingsuit jumps is also, just getting started -again-, and it is going to take probably 4-700 wingsuit jumps just to start getting a really clear picture of whats going on, on any given jump. When I hit 1000, I started feeling like maybe I knew what I was doing. By 1500, I was certain I didn't. Another 1000 jumps later, I have more to learn than ever. Fly an oversized, docile canopy. I stuck with a Sabre 2 170 loaded at about .9 for my first 700-something jumps at least. Best decision I ever made. Security blanket saved my ass more times than I could count. Let me get away with all kinds of mistakes until I didn't make them anymore. Got so I could put it anywhere I wanted it in any weather. First and foremost focus especially if you wanna be a bird has to be on awareness and survival skills. Doing cool stuff is pointless if you're doing it stupidly and only surviving on lucky breaks. Never, ever let your guard down. -B Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

I think the second line explains the first. That attitude wouldn't be welcome anywhere. Being 100% bird I don't really know the freefly community but "fuck wingsuits" casually rejects the most awesome, inclusive, warmhearted and fun extended family I have ever encountered. Gonna be lonely up there that way, man. Good luck with that. -B Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

The list is long. From friends spontaneously crowdfunding my competition training, to being offered a lift down to florida via private plane, to riggers helping me out with custom work... But the single most spectacular surprise ever... It'd been a long career in wingsuit flight. I'd never been much for competing or competitive sports... but at the suggestion of family and friends I gave it a try. First year, did ok, didn't win but learned what it was gonna take to do so, and started a training campaign intended to develop an unbeatable technique. It worked. Second year, took home 1st place in the world's biggest wingsuit competition in Hungary. Most epic, triumphant experience of my life. The people in Hungary throw an event that redefines "world class". I ended up on a podium, in front of a cheering crowd of hundreds, fireworks going off behind me while the DJ booth blazes away an Iron Maiden tune somebody must have noticed had some significance for me. "Wasted Years"... ascended the podium right about the time the big guitar solo hits... Simply the ultimate rockstar champion experience of a lifetime. When I got home I was beat up, tired, sore but happy... bearing half my own weight in gear through customs coming home, I'd arranged a ride with a close friend. Up till the last second, I expected about another 5-10 minutes of hiking to find his car and just go home. I had no idea how many friends I had... real friends. The kind that are there for you at your lowest lows, and the highest highs of your life. Cleared customs, came through the doorway to the main hall at Logan and walked right into an ambush. A small army of jumpers from my home DZ organized by Rick Hough my closest brother in flight were waiting, making a huge scene in the middle of the airport, bearing colorful signs, some wearing wingsuits, and they all exploded into cheering the moment they saw me. I was absolutely FLOORED. Speechless. They weren't done with me yet. They take my gear off of me and escort me out of the airport hugged so hard I don't think my feet ever actually touched the floor. And then on the way out to the car somebody jokes about the limo. They weren't joking. Floored AGAIN... they had a freakin' stretch limo stocked with my favorite beer out in the parking lot. After a few minutes to collect myself, we all pile into the limo. On the way home, they put a laptop into my hands. On the laptop is a video assembled of pieces shot by the best of my friends from all over the world, some of them putting the camera up in front of their own entire dropzone and relaying massive howling skydiver-style congratulations from everywhere. Others with personal messages to let me know they knew I could do it and they'd been rooting for me from the start. The experience was like being group-hugged by everyone you care about on a global scale. More of my worldwide wingsuit crew present either digitally or in person than you could fit in ten limos. They gave me beer, hugged me all the way home, took me home dropped me off on my doorstep and sent me to bed. I had no idea, human beings could be that awesome. I had no idea that many people really cared. I will never, ever forget this. Rick, I owe you one. Even by skydiver standards this was so over-the-top there's just no way to ever pay it back so all I can do is pay it forward and try to take care of people as well as I've been taken care of. Everyone else who had anything to do with it, I hug you back. You people made an already awesome experience into the single brightest most incredible memory a bird could ever possibly have. To this day I plot revenge. When they least expect it and need it most, I will be there, for my friends, waiting in ambush to give them a smile they'll never forget or support them when things are at their roughest. Sooner or later, I'll get my chance.