Taz

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Not much point when you know there can only ever be a market for seven.

Hey, a girl can dream...

Thanks The111 and Airowpoint for your impressions. I understood that the Phi was indeed supposed to be higher performance than the Firebird--at least flying belly-to-earth. It also sounds like the Firebird will be a good first suit or demo suit for FFC's.

The guys flying Phi's here are still working on the back flying from what they've told me, but I look forward to seeing--or least hearing about--what it can do aerobatically with a good pilot in it.

Some day maybe they will start making demo suits for 5'4" 102-pound people and sending them to South Africa

-T

Congrats! Regarding currency, once you're fully addicted to the wings you will never have a problem with that again no matter what you have to do to stay in the air

Welcome to the flock. -T

Has anyone flown both the Firebird and the Phi who can compare them? Sounds like the Firebird has a lot more performance range than I had thought it would. No one has a Firebird yet in South Africa that I know of but we have seen the Phi.

-T

He is already in my clutches for the wingsuit weekend. And I absolutely think it's awesome, Riaan, that you read up on everything beforehand. There's still just no substitute for the experience, though, as you now know. Look forward to more.

-T

Riaan,
You were so much fun to fly with! This man did his homework. Try giving a first flight course to someone who knows the manual by heart

The five-way flock you led was one of our best and tightest in recent weeks. Congrats! Come back soon... (nylon crack load organizer rubs her hands in glee...)

-T

Definitely me! Luckily it's on the right side of the planet from where I am now

Seems that we will be joined by Brian Germain doing his canopy control course, Jari and possibly some other international wingsuit competitors... I'm ready!

With no thumb loops: after pitching, you have to add the step of taking hold of your grippers again rather than just starting to unzip. I wonder if this will be distracting/annoying under canopy, or time consuming if that's a factor, ie after a mal. All you Phi owners, let us know after jumping them.

-T

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the LQRS has velcro, since it never has to come of, but the arm-wings have the new toggle system right?

The Phi arm wings are connected the same way the GTi and S3 are, it appears. There is velcro on the loops at the bottom of the cutaway cables that attaches to velcro on the suit. -T

I'm looking at Tonto's Phi right now and there are no thumb loops, no special place to store excess cable from the LQRS, no snaps, and definitely no rear wing deflector. As others have pointed out, snaps etc. can be fixed by riggers in very little time.

Overall though, the build quality looks great. The material is very cool and I like the breathable section on the back where the rig will sit.

Pics attached.

Well--you're right, that was pretty much completely off topic of GS1. It was in response to "Taya is getting 44mph on her GTi". I personally am very excited to get my demo GS1 and try it out now that I feel I'm getting good performance out of my GTi. But that's the only connection. End of off-topic discussion!

-T

Okay, well--I'll probably be back in Boston before you get to Africa, so I'll keep you posted. It would be great to see MPEG of Rich flight. He's going to rock some world in that Vampire. Post it, or PM me.

It's nice to know the flock is growing out there. There was definitely a lot of interest as far as I could tell. Do you have BMIs or PFIs at any of the DZs in New England?

-T

Hi Kids,
I did have some awesome jumps at Pepperell while I was stateside for a few weeks. Had several 2.5 minute freefalls--is the air just that much thicker at sea level? Lurch, if you want to fly with me, come on down to Africa! www.jsc.co.za here every weekend! Sorry I missed you--only got Rich lured away from tandems for one jump on his Vampire, but it was fun.

-T

My actual 100th happened at Byron, California, where I was privileged to jump with a naked King Air full of people and a naked pilot
That and the fact that naked jumping is fun--Perhaps more so for women than for men, since we are better designed for it

Friends don't let friends jump naked alone!

-T

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On a different note, I expect that you would pretty easily sustain under 30mph on a SG for the whole flight......

I don't know about that, but if anyone out there has a demo SG to fit a 5'4" 105 pound person, please let me know!!

I didn't jump the SG as I am about half Julian's height... but I was one of the GTi's exiting just before him. Watching Tonto's handles get swallowed up on the ground and in the plane was pretty disconcerting. They looked like they could be completely inside by pull time, depending on how the flight went. For me, this would be a major concern. I'm curious about whether this is something they are working on/thinking about fixing in upcoming improvements/versions of the suit. Julian did say they are still at work and that various different options would be available in the near future.

Don't make me come over there I know I'll come home and have to kick the rigs out of my side of the bed just so I can sleep next to you again

Now stop ogling your own gear and get back to work

So we have five rigs between the two of us now. That does not suck AT ALL!

-T

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At this stage we still have the flexability to shape how and what this grows into for the good of all.

Since getting to South Africa, wingsuiting is the second time I've witnessed the emergence of a new discipline. The first one was freeflying, and because I hated the idea of people regulating the hell out of it, I pretty much backed off the process of formalizing it as a discipline. I can honestly say I regret that now, and no matter how much I resist putting things in a box, I think it's completely right that as the inevitable happens, we should try to do the best we can to shape it in the right direction. We've got a proposal in the works to make wingsuiting its own separate category under PASA, and to get funding for demo suits and stuff we have to start laying out competition formats. So far we're sticking with distance and time, leaving the acrobatics till later since we still have very few judges who feel qualified even for freeflying, let alone starting to push artistic moves in a wingsuit.

-T

Yay! I'm enjoying my fifteen minutes of fame. It is a beautiful thing, and was totally unexpected. The people at Birdman have been so supportive since we passed our BMI course, it's hard not to be motivated. You are all invited to Africa to come jump with us!!

I tend to get quite heated on this topic, but I suppose I should be more understanding and perhaps understated. I am attaching my copy of the current wingsuit part of the PASA MOPs (Manual of Procedures), FYI. We are going to revise them. In South Africa there is a 300-jump minimum requirement before being able to do the FFC. Those with over 500 jumps can do it on their own. We have an open-minded head of National Safety and Training who agrees in principle that several basic changes should be made. Hopefully, in breaking wingsuiting out and into its own "committee" and discipline, we will not only be able to bring requirements somewhat into line with the rest of the world, but also get a small budget for demo suits and events at other dropzones around SA.

For more discussion on this we should probably start another thread, since I'm thinking I've hijacked the whole "competition brainstorming" discussion Sorry!

Between the freeflying and the Birdman, we have him from every angle. I'm not worried about the possibility of him escaping our clutches

Also, she is totally hot and is one of the most talented all-around skychicks in South Africa.

How am I doing now?

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-distance covered, just like the Lodi tracking event
-longest time airborne before deployment, just like they did in Russia
-two-way cumpulsory and open flights with a video guy, judged artistically

All that is good, but the problems in South Africa are as much about regulating the way people learn and progress as how they compete. For example, there is not ONE person in South Africa who has achieved a D-license in freeflying (licenses are discipline-specific) because the hoops you have to jump through are completely impossible (completing 5-point 5-way head down dives and circuits on an "indi-500" from an average of 10,000ft.).

Wingsuiting has a chance to avoid those pitfalls if we get involved early. As of right now, we are just starting to work on revising the rules so that new birds don't have to do an uninterrupted 15-jump training program with an instructor in order to be "cleared" to fly their wingsuit without permission. It is ridiculous in my opinion and I really hope we can make some changes to keep it fun and accessible.

Otherwise, we will see in a few years that the PASA (Parachute Association of South Africa) D-license requirements for flying a wingsuit will be to fly for 4 minutes and cover a distance of 120 miles while turning points with three other people. You'll probably be hearing from us some more on this.

As for competition, I have no problem with the tracking model or the artistic stuff. As long as people who want to compete can do so and the rest don't have to. It's also a D-license requirement here to compete at Nationals, so in the long run we may need to have some criteria like the ones you are talking about.

Hey, welcome back. Let us know when you're going to come jump at JSC!

Hope you settle in nicely and come visit us up here soon.

Blue skies, -T