petetheladd

Having jumped about 25 times on ye old classic birdman, I am pondering which suit to get. A GTI or a SF3 ? Now I reckon I could get by with either but I get the impression the GTI is a good all around suit and the SF3 is great if you are trying to fly the limits of slow fall etc. I see the new suits people are buying most here appear to be SF3's even if they never jumped a suit before. Why ? For casual flocking it would seem the GTI is a better pick ? No, Not without incident

How can these gross deviations occur ? Explain why a chest mount will give an incorrect reading. Theres no burble on my chest. Its easier to read a chest mount, why bother trying to sneak a peek at a wrist mount. P.S. My primary altimeter is my eyeballs though i also carry an audible around in my helmet and an altimeter on my chest strap. No, Not without incident

I use a chest mount on a wedge and so does the guy I borrowed the suit from. granted if I'm flying on my back I know its reading incorrectly but I dont see me flying on my back in the basement anyways I see no reason for the wrist mount preference and can make a few arguments against them, most to do with it being behind the wrist and wing. Until I hear some concrete reasoning otherwise, I give my thumbs up to it being somewhere other than the wrist and the recommendation in the manual being some personal bias leaked in by the writer. No, Not without incident

I dont get this, assuming you are flying normally, there is no burble on your front so why would your chest mount altimeter read wrong ? As I'm using my arms for flying, its more viewable/'out of the way' being on my chest. Clue me in with the reasoning please No, Not without incident

Crossfire2 139 loaded at 1.3 does great, harness turn to DZ while undo-ing zippers etc.. and its soft opening help out too No, Not without incident

TRibutes etc.. do not belong in the incident forum. This would be better placed if it occurred in talkback/base/wingsuit where there are already threads doing this Read the Incidents Forum Posting Guidelines No, Not without incident

I'm with ya Drew - not refuting your advice just adding an addendum. I only left out the last option as that is flying the standard pattern and should not cause any problems. DAmn - here comes the rain again , methinks this weekend is a washout See ya up there next time No, Not without incident

Just a note : dont do this when canopies are close to you and remember for beginners there Idea of close is a lot different than yours - scareing the bejazus out of them usually causes them to act erratically. Swoopers have to sometimes accept that traffic will prevent them doing their swoop. Someone 360' ing a final landing when I'm parallel to them on final gives me the heebee geebees. Its as bad as a s-turning sashaying large canopy blocking you on final No, Not without incident

Running into it with your head or arms - like a soccer header, would certainly move it around Well the danger might be two people tackleing the same ball. No, Not without incident

Just tried that out today. Rock solid body position for opening Sweet thx This is actually more common than you may think with new wingsuit pilots. Arch more and relax.. Welcome to the flock! No, Not without incident

Well having done my first flight(self taught) this weekend, the opening can be tricky. I was rocking up and down after suit shutdown, giving me much more verticle speed on opening. That with my body angled down about 40 degrees swung me up near verticle on the other side. Opening was very ... snappy .. on my xfire2 which is normally a soft opener No, Not without incident

Did my first 3 birdman jumps this weekend. A buddy of mine has almost the exact same dimensions as me and an original birdman suit with only about 40 jumps on it so I managed to 'borrow it' for the 1/2 day. It has so few jumps on it as apparently Bm flying is a lonely sport at my DZ - never see them on loads Biggest problem I had was when I shut the suit down for opening, I started rocking nose up and down like a ship in swells at sea so when I chucked I got harder openings than normal and a penduluming effect as I swung down and up the other side. At the end of the day, Another guy came over and said he had a BM suit so maybe I can get a flock of 2 going at the DZ. Coz, man did everybody do a double take seeing me in a BM suit at the pickup area, I reckon I'd have been less noticed if I had showed up naked Anyhow I plan to rack up a lot more jumps even as a flock of one P.S. It was uber cool and boy do you get a long time under wing even though I was pulling at 5000 No, Not without incident

Hardly a fair poll when you present the view you most dislike in such low mannered speech. What about I prefer to jump without an AAD Doubt you would have been happy with an option I'm scared stiff to rely on myself so I must have a cypress to jump or I stay on the ground and cry myself to sleep. A bit of hyperbole but you get my drift... No, Not without incident

Here's another good article on device dependence with some real life examples of dependence run amok. http://www.ranchskydive.com/safety/ke_article11.htm No, Not without incident

Very well put Bill. I think you got across the point, that a jump where you are completely responsible for the pull is like a progression jump. The added risk will heighten perceptions, drive a lesson home and also bolster self control. I also am from the old static line round school. After my dummy pulls, it was time for a 3 sec freefall. The Instructor scared the crap out of me(intentionally) telling me how unreliable the fxc AADs were, how when they sent theirs to the factory for testing, half of them were out of spec and I better be planning on saving myself on the jump. Everybody doing his first solo freefall was very apprehensive about it. The transition to squares was again very nervey. No AAD of any way, shape or form. The CCI led me into his office, pulled out a stack of fatalities, and proceeded to explain that everyone of them went in with a perfectly good reserve on their back. He finished off by saying, you will die on the next jump if you dont save yourself - and if I need to use my reserve 'I better pull handles and no matter how bad things become, keep pulling at stuff, even to pulling my socks off, I better go in naked. Let me tell you every neuron was focused on the pull and reserve drills, as was anyone doing their first AAD-less/square jump On my first reserve ride - no RSL - I absolutely had a mindset of no matter what, the reserve handle was gonna get pulled or I am going in. So where am I going with this - just trying to relate some of my early experiences skydiving, certainly it was a more direct instruction than today. Now I would bet that anyone who has never made a jump without an AAD and was confronted with actually doing one from say 4,000 ft. They would be treating it as an extra special skydive with all the apprehension and nervousness that goes with a progression jump i.e. the unknown. Now I am not advocateing anyone to throw their cypress away, I have them now in both my rigs. But I am advocateing doing that extra special skydive with it turned off to cement the idea of - its all you, now pull goddammit pull. Now pick the bones outta that. P.S. Add to this - dynamic stalls, downwind/crosswind landings for that extra special feeling No, Not without incident

Just got my kurupee suit. I got the flash hunter suit(the $209 fancy model) and man but it looks sweet. I'm gonna be in danger of being labeled a poser strutting around in that thang. I also had it done in taslan so its lighter than the polycotton. The fit is good though its a little snug around the crotch. The hands and legs are double fastened with Velcro providing a very secure, if a little awkward, fastening. However, I still have to jump it and see how it copes with the wear and tear of regular skydiving. It took 3 1/2 weeks so thats pretty speedy and the package had urgent stamped all over it so I guess $20 postage in paraguay goes a long way. I'll stick some pics up when I go jumping with it. PtL Just to note, the color scheme was exactly as I ordered No, Not without incident

It might have been better to ask who is the Worst. Its a bit like a poll on the number of jumpsuits sold. Nobodys complaining about a suit so assuming everybody's happy with their suit its just a 'who has what' game No, Not without incident

Just found out my new suit cleared customs today Update on actual suit will follow No, Not without incident

Do you know if he did a pin check before putting the rig on ? Well, anyone who does'nt should start doing so No, Not without incident

Anything you must have will not be optional on the rig. After that its just a matter of taste/percieved bang for the buck for your skydiving. I just got a rig and the only options I got was Unisyn harness and B-12's(yes I'm old school) No, Not without incident

Because of the cypress, This guy was saved - hands down no argument. However, compared to all the skydives made, his incident was pretty unusual. Not only that but the circumstances were also unusual. Now if you want to use this as the poster child for always having a cypress when skydiving and refusing to jump without one is cool - then go ahead. You could then point to the rare occasions when someone went in due to double mal, got side-swiped undercanopy, rig sabotage and say this proves you should never jump as These people did everything right and still died. However I would refute it thus - Look at all the skydivers on a DZ. P.S. and Yes, If this happened to me, I would be ecstactic I had a functioning cypress. No, Not without incident

Having initially trained on static line where you had to buy your own dummy handle to do practice pulls and when you were finished with it, you sold it back. It was the same with the ripcord deployed mains back then, 'lose it and you pay for it' This gave you a natural urge to hold on to a handle. Also given the fact, I have been trained from day one to put a hand on each handle for reserve drill, its kinda natural - all going well on the cutaway - that I would end up with both handles. On my only cutaway I landed the reserve with both handles still in my hands - without any conscous thought to do so. However if something requiring my hands needed doing in the midst of a bad reserve deployment, its not hard opening your hands. Certainly, guys with the radical elipticals that tend to spin up every so often always seem to land with handles. However if you are a 'two hands on one handle' type of guy, lose the cutaway pad but I'd hold on to the reserve handle after pull - again all going well. No, Not without incident

Well, I've been waiting over 3.5 weeks so far and apart from an initial 'we got your order' email, I have'nt heard Jack since. Their web site and email address has been down for days twice in that time. Their online web-based tracking of a suit through their processing has not worked for me at anytime in those 3.5 weeks. I'm hoping the suit arrives soon, though they said in the initial email they would email me a UPS tracking # and like I've said , nothing so far. No, Not without incident

A general consensus ( which I'm am with ) is if you can afford one, get it. Maybe it'll help one day ??? However, Not jumping because you perceive too much risk not having one is 'Not Good' - kinda says you have a dependency built in on a cypress saving you. I have one in both my rigs but I've borrowed friends' rigs and jumped them without a cypress and apart from ticking a little checkpad in my head, I go jump it. Mind you my first non AAD jump was number 23, plus a further 350 or so mostly without an ADD No, Not without incident

If you are worrying about getting hurt or dawdleingly unsure if you are gonna get hurt Its PLF time No, Not without incident