The111

Not trying to argue with you Chrisky, but if you read the reasoning behind what Hook and myself posted... it actually takes a lot of effort to be as aware of your rig as we strive to be. It takes little effort to toss your rig on the ground for a packer, toss it on your back, tighten it all up in the plane, and then ask the guy behind you for a pin check. I've seen experienced people do this and it scares me. I put a lot of effort into my reasoning and actions, and while it is true that a 3rd party pincheck would require a bit more effort, I opt out not because I hate effort, but because I'm not really comfortable with someone else opening my flaps. I know there are great jumpers at DeLand, but I don't know a lot of them... if I do get a pin check (which is rare) it will be from someone I know. EDITED TO ADD: Every pin check I have ever received (from experienced jumpers and even AFF instructors) has been followed by a forceful hand-pat on top of my main flap. This jolt to my rig is usually the hardest jolt it encounters on the entire plane ride. Think about that a minute. EDITED TO MAKE FUN OF HOOK : 6) You can count to 5. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Heh, I am aware that the arguments against me aren't intended to be attacks, but life-savers. Thank you. :) And maybe I'll take you up on your bet one day. You might even win. You might even change my mind. I don't blindly believe that experience equals knowledge (though I do respect those with high jump #'s for their time in the sport), but if someone, less or more experienced than me, can physically show me (or explain) a loophole in something that I've spent a LOT of time thinking through, then I'm open to that. I've been packing my rig since my first solo jump, and I cock my pilot chute when I do that. Could I forget? Yes. There's a lot of room for mistakes in skydiving, and I realize that the point of a pin check is an extra failsafe to prevent one of those mistakes (such as me forgetting to cock my PC), but I've thought through the options and my preferred decision path is packing my own rig, and being very aware of it on the plane. If there's a small doubt, I will ask for a pin check. But in general I'm a self reliant person and this is no exception. And I'm not saying that you couldn't produce a situation to stump me (you probably can!), but if it is something like a knot in my bridle or a weird wrapping around the closing pin... you would have to ALSO prove to me that it could be accomplished with the main flap never opening. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Exactly... www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Thanks for mandating my choices and asking me to grow up. If you're even interested in my reasoning anymore (I only have 50 jumps!) teams always exit 3000 ft before me, and usually it's just me and a few other low time fun solo jumpers exiting at the end of the load, on the days I jump. Quite a bit of movement occurs AFTER the teams leave the plane, which makes it pointless to ask them for a check. I'm aware of all the risks associated with the sport, and I'm aware of all the time I haven't been in it. But I'm also aware of my right to make choices, in life and skydiving, and I've studied my gear on the ground and I've made my choices. I'm aware of the trend of skydivers to expect respect in exchange for experience, but I'm aware of my own personal trend to dislike getting attacked for no reason. I'll let you know when I stop jumping in DeLand so you can start again. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

When moving, I keep my rig from touching anything. When I sit down and it comes into contact with the floor, I keep my hand around the BOC and main flap to make sure nothing is catching anywhere. If the person behind me fidgets a lot, I keep my hand back there the whole time, as someone else mentioned in this thread. Carpet doesn't have fingers and can't "grab." Friction will pull on anything, but I the first sentence of this post describes how I combat that. If you're sliding around with your hackey sandwiched between you and carpet, you probably do need a pin check. I never claimed to know better than you or anyone, I just expressed my opinion. No idea why people on this forum always get sarcastic and attacking. As I said, I HAVE tested this out. In front of a mirror. I've put my rig on, bumped up against shit, felt it all with my hand, then took it off to see what it looks like. I've used double mirrors to watch myself feel stuff and see what my hand is actually feeling with my eyes. I've allowed bridle/PC/pins to be in less than optimal positions and FIXED it blindly, then taken the rig off to check. NOTE: If I had ANY reason to believe on the plane that shit wasn't in order, I wouldn't try to fix it blindly. But the fact that I CAN (as a test, on the ground) makes me a little more comfortable with my ability to at least feel that shit IS in order. And I know what kind of pressures and movements it takes to push shit out of order, and I avoid that on the plane. I have access to all of my senses to be aware if something weird is happening to my rig. Take your own rig, and see how difficult it is to dislodge (or even move a little) the main pin (with rig on your back), with the flap closed. It is pretty easy to ensure your flap stays closed and your bridle and PC stay in their proper locations, on the plane. Just my opinion. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Best... irony... ever. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Well I'm a self-proclaimed 50 jump wonder, but I don't get pin checks, not because of what I've watched other jumpers do, but because of what I've thought through in my own head, and I am glad to find out that experienced people like Hook and Bill think the same way. I check my pins before putting the rig on. I am very careful about my position and movements in the plane. I've spent time on the ground convincing myself that I can feel for flap closure, pin location, and bridle/PC exposure with my own hand. I don't really like the idea of having to rely on someone else to dick around back there, but if I do bump a wall too hard or get kicked or kneed in the plane, I will ask someone who I trust to take a look. Like Hook said (kind of), if you have a tight loop, a flap which stays closed, and you don't make any stupid body movements on the plane, your pin is not going to jump around on its own accord. That's my opinion, and I know I'm not a very experienced jumper but I am an experienced thinker, and I feel better following that train of thought than asking the stranger behind me for a check. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Yeh, I'm not sure if I answered his question, but I mainly just wanted to provide a warning that might prevent him from what was a scary experience for me. Really the best way to practice the flips is in water, which someone already said. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Jump #50, July 4th. Self-induced line twists at 2000 feet. Pulled handles in wrong order. Don't ask me why I did it, don't ask me why it worked. Have 69 jumps now, only one reserve ride. click www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Like my car window example. :) www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Hehe, I actually have a BS in Aerospace Engineering so I have a little bit of an idea about what you're talking about. :) And I hate to nitpick, but... as far as wind resistance (a force) is concerned, in a stable (terminal) position, it will be the same whether you're going 100 or 300mph. And it will equal your weight, regardless of your body position or speed. To go to a non-static body position, you could induce an inequilibrium of forces which would generate accleration in any direction. The reason for higher lateral accelerations in FF, from an aerodynamic standpoint (or even just physics), it not due to the higher speed, but due to simple geometry. Go drive your car at 60 mph. Hold your hand out the window, palm perpendicular to the airflow. Small changes of the angle of your hand will not result in huge instabilities. But move your palm so it is parallel to the wind (like a wing, or a FF body position), and it will generate huge accelerations for small angular changes. Notice the car is moving at the same speed the whole time. I haven't found my HD yet, but I have a halfway decent sit going and I know what you mean about the massive accelerations you can create by swapping from a foward slide to the opposite... and I'm sure those accelerations are even stronger in HD! EDIT: God, I'm a dork. When I start thinking about stuff like this I can't stop... partially I'm trying to explain better and partially I'm trying to understand better, I'm still figuring it out. You are right in that normally (i.e. considering airplanes) drag is related to the square of velocity. But planes keeps the same area presented to the wind at all times and vary their velocity by propulsion. As freefallers, we can only vary our velocity by changing our area, and our propulsion is always the same (our weight!). /still thinking... www.WingsuitPhotos.com

I hear all the time that people learning HD are "all over the sky". How does the efficiency of forward motion in HD compare to a belly track? Can you cover the same distance in a jump? More? Less? Obviously, if you're falling 1.3 times faster (for example), you'd have to move faster laterally by the same factor to cover the same distance. Just curious... www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Somewhat off-topic... I realize that "better" is probably a horrible word to use in a question like this (i.e. is a Spectre better than a Sabre?!?!)... but anyway... I was under the impression that the S3 was "better" (more advanced, higher performance envelope) than the SF... so I found it weird that someone just said that the original SF is the hardest one to fly. I guess it's because of the legs being so narrow? www.WingsuitPhotos.com

The advice about trying it in the water is good... let me share one thing that would have helped ME in my AFF... hopefully you don't have this problem. I had no problem initiating flips, and as far as popping an arch to regain stability, I thought I was pretty good at it. Until level 6. I did one backflip. Then another. Then another. I flipped for about 5000 feet. All I saw was green, blue, green, blue. I couldn't check my altimeter, but I knew the clock was ticking and the green looked a little bigger each time. So I said to myself, if I don't stop on the next green, I'm pulling anyway. Somehow I stopped, my JM (Bob Hallett) was at my side in 0.01 seconds, grabbing my arm and giving me a dirty look. I glanced at my alti, waved off and pulled. What did I do wrong? Well as I said, at the time I thought I was pretty good at popping an arch and recovering from anything. And I was... I popped a good arch at the hips and had a good body position... from the waist up! According to Bob my feet had been touching my ass the whole time. Which makes it easy to see why the flips wouldn't stop. It seems I had a bad habit of focusing so much on my arms and upper body, that I'd forget about my legs, just assuming that "relaxing" them would be enough. Well, to stop from back flipping, you have to put some MUSCLE into them. Relaxing can be taken too far. It was a problem I had to deal with for the next 20 jumps or so on my own, sometimes I'd find myself slipping back into some sort of unstability, and after 5 seconds of staring at my upper body, realizing, oh yeh, my legs are wrong! So the fix I developed for myself was anytime I got shaky, I would arch (relax) from the hips up, but get stiff and straight from the hips down. Not sure if this is good advice or something you should follow, and I'm certainly not an instructor, so talk to yours. That was just my experience. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Has anyone mentioned snap bracelets? www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Hey again Stan, I talked to you before about speed. Heh, when you just say speed it sounds like the drug. Anyway, that's funny that in the Pro-Track manual it says the ankle is the best spot. Guess they weren't thinking about speed though. What exactly do you mean by lateral webbing? Chest strap? I'm pretty bad at gear terminology. The only words I know are "chute" and "ripcord". www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Sorry if this has been posted before... couldn't find anything about it with the search strings I used. Just got a Mindwarp, and I had a few questions. 1. On my first jump with it, apparently the strap wasn't tight enough because (in a sit) it was trying to lift off of my head and being held on only by the strap. The next jumps I tightened it really tight which worked and made it easier to hear my new Pro-Track (less airflow inside helmet), but then the next day I had sore spot on one side of my jaw (almost a small bruise) from the plastic clip digging into me so tight. Now that little fabric piece that slides over the strap (with the BH logo and USA flag)... is it supposed to be pulled over the plastic clip to protect you? I assumed it just sat over the excess strap and kept it from flopping around. Which brings us to... 2. The strap doesn't stay very tight on its own... it takes almost no force to loosen it. Someone suggested that once I get it to a fit that I like, I should take a sewing needle and run one or two threads through the excess parts of the strap, preventing it from coming loose. Anyone think this is a bad idea? Just wanted to ask before I went ahead and did it... Thanks! www.WingsuitPhotos.com

It's even more convenient when you land on top of a building, a drug bust starts going down, and your rig is already packed and on your back again (and set up for BASE!) so you can escape. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

I need some help with my sub terminal drills. Gotta make #8 on the speed star. Any suggestions? www.WingsuitPhotos.com

I am NOT a speed skydiver, but I read some stuff about it and seem to remember reading that you don't ever reach a terminal in that position. Actually the author tried to make it sound like there was no terminal, which is impossible... there is a terminal for any position, but I guess his point was no one has reached it yet it the amount of time they have. I'm guessing even with the density changes they are still accelerating through 8k... but like I said I'm GUESSING. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

TAS. Good point... I guess that explains the time issue... as far as the speed issue, maybe the Pro-Track is smart enough not to use the speed data from those first 7-10 seconds to calculate avg speed... which is why the numbers for freefall time and avg speed don't match up. Guess it all does kinda make sense... thanks. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Ok... I read in the documentation that for accurate speed measurements you should mount the thing on your foot or something. Mine is inside my helmet, so I wasn't expecting accurate speed measurements, but here's the worst thing. Apparently the software in this thing has no feature that checks "avg speed" vs time and distance of your freefall. For example on one jump I fell 10200 ft over 54 sec (both according to the Pro-Track). Simple math says I have avg speed of 128 mph. Which is way too fucking slow for a sit anyway and reinforces my belief that the time log is wrong. However, the "avg speed" according to the Pro-Track for that same jump is 145! Now that is a number I can believe... but what boggles my mind is not that the freefall time is obviously wrong... but that the freefall time, distance, and avg speed don't all match up! www.WingsuitPhotos.com

I recently bought a Pro-Track and tried it out for the first time on 4 sitfly solo jumps. In the Pro-Track log, all of them had an exit of about 13500 and a deployment of about 3300 (I'm assuming this is when I'm full seated since I dump at 4k). The freefall time recorded for each was about 57 seconds. It doesn't make much sense to me that I would average 5.7 seconds per thousand feet on a sitfly... I thought on your belly it was only 5 seconds? Any thoughts? www.WingsuitPhotos.com

I dunno about wingsuits, but that movie got me pretty interested in raiding tombs. Who's with me? www.WingsuitPhotos.com

I dunno, I find that hard to believe, since swooping is a method of landing (as opposed to freefall), it will only be replaced by a landing method which is cooler than swooping. WS landings?!? EDIT: Damnit Kev, I didn't notice there was a second page of replies when I made mine. You beat me. www.WingsuitPhotos.com