Macaulay

Food and lack of exercise makes you fat. Fatness increases your wingloading. My most recent desk job put a good ten pounds on me, and now I can't get below 50, and my average has gone up like 10 - 15 MPH. So, I'm dieting and biking... shit, spit, and run. It seems as though there is a really fine line between loading the suit right and way too much. It's like right when the straw breaks the camels back is when you can't get held up as much, and you have to familiarize yourself with Metabolife (again). MB]

TAS, usually. I agree with Jari on this one. My suit came in a little big on the shoulders, but I found that it was done intentionally. Whenever I hit the "sweet spot", I can feel and the the suit inflate around the shoulders, down to the bend in my arm, and down my back to the rig. I'm don't have the experience (about 30 WS jumps) to give specific body position advice, but I can say that I've found that "sweet spot" through very slow, smooth experimentation. I can get in the body position that works for me and not feel myself take off right away. It takes a few seconds to really get going. Looking at my charts, I find that it takes about three seconds each time I've been able to drop to and sustain a low speed (40s). MB]

Crazy. Sounds like your canopy was a victim center-cell stripping. Probably just too old and too big, and some hard openings with a large pilot chute. Your spiraling wouldn't have caused the center cell to rip out, rather, it may have been the straw that broke the camel's back. The PC probably ripped everything out on your opening, and then the spiraling would have had just enough force to throw out the last few threads. 1,300 is just fine. Cypreses fire at 750'... nearly half the altitude of where you chopped. Sounds like you did everything just fine. Sometimes it's hard to gauge, especially on your third solo, exactly how fast you're descending. So even if you were to flare as a check, and it felt slow, it might still be moving downwards a little fast, so you definitely did the right thing. Was that canopy a Navigator? That would make sense. A big seven-cell with a ZP top skin and F-111 bottom skin... sounds like a BASE canopy. - Mac

Just a few backups... I am going to go on record as disagreeing with this. Wingsuit flying is nothing like freeflying, and so long as you have a BOC throw-out, you will be fine. I agree completely. Your rig stays so burbled that the extra coverage "needed" for freeflying doesn't apply to flying a wingsuit, with the exception of backtracking. I also agree and emphasize the point that not rig, including my Racer Elite, can accomodate a grommet to pin pack. VectorBoy's comment about the wider yolk on some older rigs is right on. You should see what I have to do with my chest strap to get it tight and in place. As TalonSky said, the key really is maturity. When passion and responsibility replace vanity and risk, it's about time to try on a suit. - Mac

Don't you remember from your first hour of AFF, and you live in Forest Grove but have Kapow as your home DZ? You've got Skydive Oregon right here, you know. I bet ALF was your idea. ;) - Mac

-30° F. And the Burton pipe glove recommendation = good. I have some Da Kine gloves for snowboarding, but are too thick (even for snowboarding) for my tastes. I need to pick those up. - Mac

Phew! Thank you. And yes, on those there is usually a slit where the rig is exposed, and then the photographer/videographer just tries to get at angles that will keep it out of sight. Is that Rob Harris? - Mac

Basically, if there are no particles in the way, everything will fall at the same rate. If there are particles in the air, objects will be affected by those particles according to the objects' respective properties. - Mac

You should be just fine. I have no mods on my current rig, which is a similarly old clunker (though I finally have a new Wings on the way), and the only problems I've had were caused by me, and not my rig. But do put a 9' bridle and 22" pilot chute on there to cut back tows... a norm for any rig. If there is a lot of slack in the bridle between the BOC and the pin, even if it's well-covered, I wouldn't recommend backtracking or barrel rolls. It's one thing to have a premature deployment... it's another to have one with your bridle wrapped around you. Open corners would definitely reduce the likelihood of line twists, but a good deployment and pack job can pretty much eliminate that. Besides, line twists on a PD-210 will be recoverable 95% of the time. But if you're still getting started, put the wingsuit off a bit. They aren't that tough too fly, but a minor mistake or situation can put you in a really uncomfortable (dangerous) situation (ie flat spin on deployment, severe line twists, super-fucked-up exits, crazy-intense openings, blow-outs, PC in tow, etc) that i easily resolved so long as you're able to remain calm (ie if you're hyperventilating just thinking about the suit, don't do it). My 6¢. - Mac

If you're flying your suit efficiently, you won't need it on your helmet. Still trying to find a good spot. I tried my front pocket, but I fly with legs quite a bit, so I get really bizarre stats back from moving it in and out of the wind. Might try to rig it up to a mudflap. - Mac

Wouldn't this be very divey? Try flying your wingsuit with the arms awings collapsed and the leg wing inflated. I like the TrakPantz, I've been seeing, as they essentially, as Jari said, make your legs more powerful, which is what pretty much everyone should be/is flying with. I still say sitflying would be more unstable. Not that it couldn't be figured out, but an actual effort (a word freeflyers try to avoid) would need to be place to realy plant those feet... at least at first. - Mac

If the reserve is out at all, you really wouldn't be able to fly the suit. If it's stuck, I'd fight like hell to get it out. But if my rig magically disppeared, which is basically impossible, I would try to reduce my fall rate as much as possible for impact. However, the best way to get low speeds is to dive first, and I don't really have any experience swooping the suit in for a landing, so I'd probably pound in. - Mac

For those that didn't notice... this was just a snide response to a bullshit statement. Not to be delved into so deeply or taken too seriously. Sheesh. - Mac

There's actually more to it than that. Aside from mesh, different types of materials with different levels of breathability, rigidity, etc are used in very specific areas of the pants. I'm sure there's a cheaper way to go about it, but trying to beat out Birdman's engineering and overall quality would be quite a feat. - Mac