tommyh

Yo dude, Here's my two cents worth. I 've had several WS water landings, 3 of wich were full on swimming, deep water type stuff. I jump an s-fly by the way. If at all possible, don't land in the water. Take a tree instead. If you had to choose between water and powerlines... Ok, so the water is a little better. I've found that trying to swim with the arm wing cut away and the leg wing still fully hooked up, it is nearly impossible to move anywhere. You can kick and swim, but making any headway is pretty damn difficult ( this was with me trying to pull my canopy with me) . If you don't have time to undo all your stuff and swim out of it, Here's my best advice: First, try your best to land in the shallowest water possible. Get as close to shore as you can, even if you have to downwind your landing. Remember, busting your leg or looking dumb whilst hanging from a tree is better than drowning and being dead and stuff. Second, it is way easier to swim with all your wings hooked up and not have a god damned parachute pulling you down to davey jones locker. Cut your canopy away and loose the damned thing and live another day. Third, If you have time, listen to Chuck and ditch all of your gear and live another day, cuz living is rad. It is possible to swimwith your wings cut away and pulling your canopy. Ask tr027, he's real good at it. Just make sure that your in good shape, that shit will wear you out. anyways, hope that helps, and for fucks sake i hope you all have dry landings. later -tom

GWAR. Once the Pope had been be-headed and I was covered in his blood, I knew that I had gotten my $18 worth.

Everybody needs to watch zeitgeist 2 and support the venus project so that I don't have to go to work anymore. http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=zeitgeist+addendum&www_google_domain=www.google.com&hl=en&emb=0&aq=0&oq=zeitgeist+add# If you are familiar with the first zeitgeist, I think that this one is a bit better.

N/A

You'd probably like Sikth, and Black dahlia murder as well.

Sorry to get back on topic, but... I was reading on the website about the s8's "bi-convex wing", There was an explanation on the website, but I had a difficult time grasping the concept. Can anyone elaborate? Maybe even someone that's flown it?

if by "terminal" you mean "superterminal," then yes I am sure. I also recall seeing that footage on 2nd base.

FYI the video of the gnarly exit at 2:14 is from "one try, do or die," which is included as an extra on "superterminal". If I recall corectly, the pilot does fly away from the wall before impact.

Here is the original BASE video http://www.skydivingmovies.com/ver2/pafiledb.php?action=file&id=2560

does anybody have a picture of the front of the suit? Is the suit in the picture the final version, or a prototype?

Can anyone recomend a good helmet that fits a tall skinny head? I use a para sport italia helmet ( I don't know what model) and it fits very wide around my ears. btw I don't ever carry a camera. Thanks fo any advice

As has been said before, No one body position will work for everybody. So I think the task at hand is to find out wich position works best for you. I have thought about a theoretical method for finding optimum tracking position in a minimum of skydives. I call this a theoretical method because I haven't tried it myself, being a dropzone phobic base jumper myself. The idea is to slowly change your body position in freefall, moving your body parts and the angle of your body as a whole until it becomes obvious that you are using an ineffeccient body position. More specifically: On your first jump, figure out your optimum angle of attack. Don't so much work on width of arms and legs or rolled shoulders, just figure out optimum AOA. Start in a position that is obviously too shallow, then slowly transition to a position that is obviously too steep. When it is determined what feels too steep, move back to what feels optimum. Second jump: similar idea, Figure out width of legs by moving past what is optimal. Third and forth jump: Figure out what to do with arms and shoulders by spreading/rolling past optimum(is it possible to roll shoulers to far?) The reason I stress moving your body position past what is optimum while in freefall is that in some of my jumps where I was trying to figure out how to track well, I would pick a body position before my jump, Emulate that position in the air as best as possible, and not change anything throughout the jump. How do you know that you're optimizing body position? I don't think you can figure out what your absolute personal best tracking position is in less than five jumps, But I do believe that you can eliminate a lot of skydives by doing the method I described above. I'm sure whatever you do, fine tuning your track will take many, many jumps. Oh yeah, smoke pants and a ski jacket with bungy cords in the crotch and sleeves will almost instantly increase your ability to track far and fast. It's cheap and easy too. Like I said, I haven't tried the method I described above, but if somebody does try it, I'm interested in knowing how it works, so let me know. Hope all that makes sense

I heard a rumor about a new wingsuit model coming from Fly your body in the near future. Has anyone heard anything more?

I always stick my arms straight out after pitching for the sole reason that when my canopy is open my toggles/risers will be right by my hands, as opposed to reaching back to where my risers will not be in the next second.

I've been jumping said canopy at terminal like so: Small mesh slider, one rubber band wrapped twice around big bite of slider, rolled the nose 6-8 times, 32" pc. I would consider the openings excellent (still quick compared to my fox, but just slow enough not to hurt.)

I think I understand your design, Is there anyone you could show a picture of it? Have you had any trouble with it? Does anybody know why this (Ibelieve) isn't available as a standard option on any Canopy? thanks

After reading the two threads about tension knots I remembered reading about people using modified tail pockets with extra flaps of fabric in them to help separate the figure-eighted loops of lines, in theory reducing the chances of a tension knot. I believe these tail pockets have been in use for several years now, and was wondering if anybody had an opinion on wether they were beneficial or not. Has anyone ever had a tension knot while using one? Any other problems associated with this innovation? thanks

Another idea would be to just tie on a chest strap. it wouldn't be pretty, but it would work.

A coupla things: A few weeks ago I was flying to a distant landing area, employing the technique of lifting my knees to my chest to decrease my surface area when it occured to me that I could (easily?) slip out of my harness backwards if I were to lift my legs up High enough. This would get you out of your harness the same way the poster above me described (Not the description of the technique used in the video). Secondly, I am an EMT (ambulance goon) and occasionally I have to restrain a psych. pt. with loops of velcro around both wrists and ankles.The velcro made very strong by using three layers instead of two. The strap against the body (bottom strap)has hooks on it. The second strap is then layed down on top ofthe bottom strap just like any other normal velcro.on top of the second strap is more loop velcro. A third strap witch originates from the bottom strap (It splits off from the bottom strap forming a "y" shape) has hook velcro on it witch is layed on top of the second strap. This three strap system is extremely strong and I have never seen it come undone prematurely. I am always confident in its ability to hold down the biggest and strongest crazies the city has to offer. I think it would be possible to employ this three strap system into a chest strap, but it would require fresh, new velcro, and plenty of testing. Good luck!

What am I going to do to stay off the list? I don't know. My recommendation to everyone: Turn off the video camera. I think we all know, wether we want to admit it or not, we all let our ego's get out of control when there is a possibility of creating a rad video of ourselves. from what I can tell, this doesn't seem to be a factor in the latest TF fatality, but we have all seen people excercise poor judgement all for the sake of some gnar gnar video. Would yo have done that gainer had there not been a camera on you? how about that loooong delay? isn't it enough just to experience the freefall? Turn the camera off. Just try to enjoy the freefall. be safe for fucks sake! I've wanted to say this for a long time

Like I said, It's just a theory that I am also skeptical of.

"The bottom skin vents work to synchronize bottom skin expansion with cell inflation. That won't stop you moving downward any faster." I had this exact same theory... until I jumped my new vented canopy. A little background: I have about 95 jumps on my unvented fox 285. I am very comfortable taking 2-3 second delays with it (slider off/down(duh)).the openings were completely reasonable/tolerable. I am referring to the pain I received on opening, not any other characteristics. I always figured that, just like some others are saying, The speed of inflation of the bottom skin of your canopy will determine how "hard" your opening is, regardless of wether you've got vents or not. Then I got my Troll DW MDV. I did about a 1.5 second delay on it and it spanked me. Hard. I got some whiplash and had pain shooting down my arms for several days. I have never had an opening like that on my un-vented canopy. I do understand that there are many differences between the two canopies aside from secondary inlets, but it still led me to a theory (one that I am still pretty skeptical of) regarding venting and cross porting The theory: Since a canopy with secondary inlets starts filling with air above the bottom skin faster than an un vented one, and it seems to me that any canopies bottom skin starts "spreading out" from the center outwards, it is possible that a vented canopy will reach bottom skin inflation faster than an un vented canopy because of the cross ports. IN other words, Air will come in through the bottom skin vents and push outwards through the cross ports, thus making the wing expand faster than a non vented one. thus giving your bottom skin more surface area faster, thus giving you a faster, harder opening. After jumping my new canopy two other times, I am frankly a little scared to take it to a full 2 seconds of freefall. Thanks for reading this far.

I'm no strength training expert, but it seems to me that the strength gained by using a powerball would be minimal. I own one and use it to help increase circulation to my forarms and hands so as to speed the recovery for some chronic finger injuries I've given myself via rock climbing. The kind of exercise provided by one of these devices seems to mainly benefit muscular endurance in the forearm (mainly the top of the arm, or the muscles used in opening your grip and pulling your hand backwards in my experience) I have never noticed a "pump" in my biceps, triceps, shoulders or chest, which seem to be the muscles that would be in use to hold a wing open. Keep in mind that I have never flown a wingsuit. And also keep in mind that my experience with the device may not be typical. Good luck

after watching a couple of vieos's it seems that some stop short of being over. Anyone else have that problem?

http://www.livescience.com/animalworld/060221_ghost_cave.html It'd be a pain in the ass, but still a totally gnar gnar jump.