The111

1 in 100,000 jumpers? Or 1 in 100,000 skydives? It's certainly not the first, since there's only like 34k USPA members... www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Is it recommended/common for someone to become a rigger for the specific purpose of repacking his own reserve only? Or would he lose currency and skill only doing 3 pack jobs a year? Just curious... www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Glad it worked out... www.WingsuitPhotos.com

rsl? www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Not sure about this... I jumped off of bridges (NOT BASE, just fun jumping in a bathing suit) when I was younger, did a 75 ft one feet first, used physics and calculus to figure 45mph impact speed (probably was slower due to drag). I was perfectly vertical, but did not have my toes pointed. My feet hurt very bad (nothing internal, just got slapped real hard), my arms were out from my sides just slightly and the water tore at my armpits so hard that my shoulders hurt for days (next time I did the jump I held my hands on my thighs prior to impact), and worst of all I got SODOMIZED by the water. I'm not kidding. And that is all at 45mph. Impact energy is proportional to the square of speed, so if you somehow hit the water in a stand-up position at 120 mph (which would mean you had to fly belly to the water until the last second where you transition to a stand), you'd probably hit with 9 times the energy I did. I guess you could live, maybe... www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Weird. How many jumps do you recommend to have before trying? And how do I go about learning? I just assumed you would start off in FF HD and slowly streamline yourself. Or do you start in belly track and work yourself into a steeper angle? I looked through that site you linked to and couldn't find a lot of technical info about it or how to learn it... I found one small section written in poor English that was talking about a "tube" effect and said something about how falling out of the tube (losing your stability) would cause violent corking out, and the air is very "hard" at these speeds... does that mean you can actually injure yourself on the air just from corking out improperly? I've heard of people exiting jets at 250mph on their belly so I would think you would be ok? www.WingsuitPhotos.com

This sounds really attractive to me (speed), one day when I have more experience of course... I could see myself getting really into it. Wouldn't even know how to try now. Should probably learn FF head down first. Hell, should probably learn RW first. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Feh? Meh... www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Bringing back the dead... If I went out today and bought two brand new Pro-Tracks... what are the chances the batteries in each unit would die at eactly the same time? www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Ok, thanks. You're right that it's a game of what ifs... www.WingsuitPhotos.com

I'm still confused. What do you mean by the word there? Maybe I'm really stupid but I hardly understood any of that paragraph. I'm not even positive I understand how one would rake a 3 ring, but I'm guessing it means use your fingers to make sure the 3 rings are separated and then literally throw the risers behind you? I'm not sure why I'd want to do this except in horseshoe. With PC in tow, why not just pull reserve as SCR10480 suggested? EDIT: Ok, I think I understand what you're say now... there's some kind of horseshoe that may appear as a PC in tow but you actually have your dbag sitting on top of your reserve. So you cutaway and pitch your risers behind you if they're not already, to get the horseshoe clear of your reserve. If you just have a regular PC in tow though, does adding your risers to the streamer above your back make more shit for your reserve to get tangled with? Or, I guess the risers won't really go anywhere when you pitch them if the dbag is still in the container, right? www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Woa, another damn good point. How about getting your arm torn off (literally) by the forces generated by a deploying main? I'm thinking this might actually be possible, since these are the same forces that slow your entire fucking body from 120mph to almost nothing. Could you elaborate on raking the 3 rings? I've heard that the proper response to a PC in tow is just to pull reserve. If you force your risers to disconnect, but still have your main bag in your container, you now have risers AND a PC/bridle flapping around in the space you want your reserve to deploy in. I've never heard of manually clearing your risers and it sounds kinda wrong to me now, but it's quite possible I'm missing your point. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Woa, very good point. Except a bag lock would almost certainly be able to be cutaway. But to repeat your point, this would all take time. I generally deploy between 3500-4000, so I'd like to think I have time to pull the bridle, realize the bag lock, cutaway, pull reserve, but in in real high-speed mal that is a lot of shit to happen just right in 5-10 seconds. I'm still undecided. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

There was a big thread about this recently, and I think I came to the conclusion that I would go straight for reserve. Reason? If the main does deploy after your reserve, but you have already cut it away, the risers could entangle with your reserve as they are passing it. I mean, I guess if it's NOT cutaway, then it could still entangle with your reserve as it deploys... but I'd rather have two canopies deployed (even with a possible entanglement) than just one reserve tangled with a cutaway main. I would rather not have entanglement, but I guess if it had to happen it would be best to have both sets of risers still attached so maybe the combined square footage of both screwed up canopies would allow me to land with a little less pain? And I guess another pertinent question is how likely a main deployed after reserve is to entangle, vs. an already-cutaway-main, deployed after a reserve. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Ok, so I was daydreaming about mals again and I thought of this. Obviously I should ask my instructors and I will when I'm at the DZ again, but I'm curious what people on here think... and maybe some of those who respond will be instructors themselves. If I were to get a PC in tow, and assuming that all that was wrong was my pin was stuck (no, I'm not sure how I would really know this), would it be a bad idea to try to reach behind my back, grab my bridle, and yank on it? I guess there are two concerns, (1) would if be effective, and (2) would it introduce a new risk? (1) If the PC is inflated it probably wouldn't be effective because I honestly doubt my arm at that odd angle could generate more force than the PC in the wind. But might still be worth a try. If the PC is not inflated, it seems more likely this could actually help. (2) Only thing I can think of is maybe getting my arm tangled in the bridle. And losing altitude awareness and valuable time, which is why I would only try for 1-2 seconds if I did. I dunno, maybe I'm putting to much trouble into a situation where I should use textbook emergency procedures... but it seems worth a try to avoid having a two out or a cutaway main not releasing until after reserve deployment, both of which could result in canopy entanglement. Flame away. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Doh, I usually search before posting, dunno why I forgot on this one. Thanks. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Not sure if this is the right forum... but after making 6 jumps the other day (my personal record!) the next morning my ears were ringing a bit. I notice that people who jump a lot (teams, etc) wear earplugs sometimes. Wondering if I should. Are the plugs intended to block out noise from the plane, or noise from freefall? I'm guessing freefall, since most jumpers I watched didn't put them in until before jumprun (i.e. they were not wearing them for the plane ride). www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Yeh, I was guessing something like that, but I read a post by Shannon Pilcher a few days ago and he used a number that seemed really high to me (30-35 maybe, don't remember), especially considering he had a sub-100 main in there. That got me confused. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

This has happened to me a few times, when I get in 5 or 6 jumps in a day (a lot for me). The next day my back (and chest where the harness straps touch) sort of breaks out a little bit. Note that I only wear a T-shirt when jumping, so if I'm sweating a lot (which I do), I guess the harness and my skin have some sort of "contact" through the shirt. I use rentals so I'm not sure if the back body contact is Cordura or Parapack, but I think the one I used this last time was Parapack (but I think it's happened with both). Either way, it's kind of weird and slightly annoying, my skin doesn't clear up for a few days. The first time it ever happened was my first soaking wet rain jump, so I thought the water somehow allowed chemicals from the fabric (or maybe someone else's sweat, gross) to seep into my back. Or maybe it's just because I'm sweating so much in one day?... honestly nothing else I do causes me to sweat so much for 10 hours straight between packing and jumping on a hot day. Just wondering if this had happened to anyone else... I'll try wearing some thicker shirts next week or something and see what happens. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

If I had my own rig, this would be no problem, I'd just take it to the bathroom scale. But I'm still renting from the DZ, and I'm curious how much my rig weighs so I can figure out WL. Can't find any weight specs on manufacturer's pages. Just a ballpark figure, how much does a Vector with Spectre 170 and PDR 160 weigh? 20 lbs? 30lbs? 40lbs? Thanks... www.WingsuitPhotos.com

When wearing sunglasses, do you need some sort of strap thing to keep them from flying off? Or does the pressure from a FF helmet on the sides of your head keep them on? I have a pair of Dragons that are getting old that I wouldn't mind trying to turn into skydive gear... I've only used regular Flex Z goggles until now... www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Sharp knives. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

I actually agree with everything you just said, I guess the point that bothered me the most was I really don't think the original poster intended any offense to anyone, and I'm even more certain that his level of experience had nothing to do with his choice of words. But I can see why it would bother you... www.WingsuitPhotos.com

I'd like to think some of us have risen above that mentality... just pointing out that it exists in some facets of life doesn't convince me that it's a good attitude. You say "respect breeds respect," but I see "experience breeds respect." www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Spider, please read the second sentence in my post, I said that I also agree with Huck's point... my beef was regarding the way he made his point. And for the record, Huck, and everyone else involved, I do offer my condolences too... I know it might seem incredibly inappropriate and off-topic of me to make the post I made in this incident thread, but I don't think Huck's mindset was entirely appropriate either and I hate to see similar sport enthusiasts dividing themselves like that.... www.WingsuitPhotos.com