MikeOne

Okay, unusual one here. Prior to my first wingsuit jump I went out on a rodeo with a friend on a V1. Left hand door exit from a Grand Caravan. I remained on top as we went out, the plan being that we might do one loop and fly out of it. However, it went into a spin that started to wind up. I lost my seat and ended up stretched out at arms length holding on to the yoke of the wingsuiter. This initially didn't seem to cause a problem and was quite fun until I couldn't hold on any longer. I was thrown off and ended up in a flat spin on my back. I went with the standard response that I was taught as a student and tried to ball up, but the Gs were such that I couldn't move my legs at all. I kept trying and am not really sure if I did anything else in particular, but the spin eventually seemed to slow of its own accord and I was able to get small, flip over and get stable. My friend on the wingsuit had no problem recovering straight away. All I can think of is that perhaps I was somehow the centre of rotation in the initial spin meaning that I had a more concentrated spin than my friend in the wingsuit. I was extremely worried at the time as I didn't really know much about wingsuit flying and assumed that if I'd struggled to recover from the spin it would have been worse for the wingsuit, but it seems (fortunately) this wasn't the case. All I'd say on this one is that if it happened to me not wearing a wingsuit it could have easily been the other way round, so make sure you educate your rider well if you're planning on doing a rodeo! As additional general into, I started jumping wingsuits later on and most of my jumps have been on a GTi. I've never been the horse on a rodeo yet. WEnt into a spin the first time I tried to back fly - tried to snap roll straight into it and obviously got it wrong. Collapsed the wings and arched, which flipped me over, and it stopped pretty much straight away, then carried on flying and kept trying, a little more cautiously. Fortunately things have improved since then Blue ones, Mike.

I too have the Wings EXT with all the mods and it certainly seems to make a difference (over my old Javelin). Jump a Stiletto 135 " about 1.4/1 with GTi (but the Phanotm is on order) but also tried it out with the Phantom and the S3S and had no problems - apart from from flying through pull height on the S3S and my Pro-Dytter not going off - it was a first so me so it was cool! must contact L&B and see if they can modify it (it's about 6 years old now!) Blue ones, Mike

Any chance of a photo of the arm wing extensions? I'm thinking of doing something similar with my GTi. What material did you use/how did you attach it (sewed?)? Mike.

Doh! Why couldn't you have mentioned this sooner! It sounds great but I've already booked holidays elsewhere! I will however be at Sydney Skydivers for the boogie, as Liz says. Did my first two night wingsuit jumps last week. A good laugh although it was on a borrowed rig 'cos I managed to have my first mal earlier that day! Yes, lots of beer flowed that night! Thanks to Liz I'm still here!

Slightly off topic I'm afraid as I haven't flown in the Bedford tunnel (or even seen it yet!) but I'm having trouble with the website. I get the header and the page tabs displayed, but there is nothing on the pages. I've tried e-mailing directly to [email protected] but get a failure notice, any ideas anyone or can anyone help? Blue ones Mike

Thanks dude. That's exactly the information I needed. There's a wingsuit weekend going on in November that I'm hoping to be able to try out some different suits at. I'm also intending to have done a few more jumps on my GTi before then! Based on your response it seems wise to try to borrow some gear before test jumping any other suits. Hopefully that'll enable me to try flying a new suit and stay flying my main as well

A general question. I did 8 jumps on my GTi on Saturday - V chuffed - and was thinking of moving onto a higher performance suit in the near future. I've done about 35 WS jumps in total at the moment but intend to do a lot more before the end of the year. I have 2 problems. The first is deciding which is the best suit to buy. A friend of mine has just bought a V1 which I know is a seriously high performance suit in terms of air time, but what's it like for aerobatics/flocking? Similarly, what are the relative differences between a S3 and a Phi to fly, and between these and a V1? I appreciate that any answers to this question will be subjective but I can live with that! The second problem is that at the moment I am jumping a Wings container with the Wingsuit mods (cutout corners at the base of the container which allow it to fold out flat, and longer bridle) with a Stiletto 135 loaded at about 1.37. I have had no problems with this set up with my GTi, generally getting very smooth openings, most of which are on heading too. To be fair some of the ones on Saturday weren't so good but I think that I may have been getting lazy on deployment which is easily rectified. What I want to know is whether this configuration will still be fine with a higher performance suit, or if there is any reason why this may present problems? Blue ones, Mike.

I may be cruising in a litle after the fact on this one but I think eveyone seems to be missing something quite important here. The Airkix tunnel (formerly known as SkyVenture UK) is aiming a large part of its business at non-skydivers in exactly the same way as the Orlando SkyVenture tunnel did and still does. The 1 hour package with 2-off 1 minute slots is desinged for non-skydivers who want to experience free fall, not for skydivers who can already free fall under control. It's a taster, a joy ride if you like. The use of the tunnel for skydivers I understand will be block bookings in a similar way to the other commercial tunnels around the world. They haven't posted the block booking rates yet so keep an eye on the website www.airkix.xom for further developments. Blue ones, Mike.