980

I went with the divX. video here I'm guessing some settings / techniques where still sub-optimal?

yeah dude finally got around to posting the video, it's the last section of this clip hope you're not dissapointed...

hey dude check my little video clip here for a rather brisk Blackjack 260 wingsuit skydive deployment... it's near the end

hey Ron check this little video clip and let me know how close you would let me get... I'm sure everyone in this thread will find their idea of acceptable distance in there somewhere. almost all those flybys were planned with the canopy pilots

damn dude, you beat me to posting the link to my video! this thread motivated me to throw together some footage I have from many buzzes I'm sure everyone will find one that they think is acceptable and also one they think is too close

hi I'm working on Premiere Pro with NTSC mini-DV footage. I'm looking for recommendations of which encoding software to use (freeware preferred) and also what format and specific codec, to reduce filesize from the uncompressed .avi but keep good quality? a search yielded nothing definitive and also with new codecs springing up overnight, the latest advice is always best! thanks

holy tony curtis batman! I can't wait for 813 or skreamer to see this. That is certainly NOT a Canadian accent.

well, it would if it was February right now....

hey Clif, I hope you're getting paid for your new job as Miles' PR guy... Miles - keep up your current rate and you'll do 1094 this year! that's my prediction and my challenge to Miles, hell, I'll even double Shane's bet....

no perceived problem at my home dz, because there is no problem I never mentioned swooping any pond. holy crap guy, I hope you have that same shitty I-know-what's-safe-and-obviously-you-don't-so-just-do-as-I-say attitude towards every other jumper on your load and the pilots too. these are all people who have to make decisions on what is safe and what is controlled on every plane ride and skydive and on any given load any other person on that plane can kill YOU by acting in an unsafe and/or uncontrolled manner better accept the fact that you can't be there 100% of the time to tell ALL the other people on the DZ how to keep YOU safe (although I can tell this is your number one fantasy...) at some point you have to trust that their training and judgement is good enough Why not extend that same trust to experienced wingsuit pilots in this matter? luckily getting out of the otter last at my home dz does not mean I have to give up landing in the gap between experienced jumpers and slow canopies, it also doesn't mean I have to give up 3000 - 4000ft of flying time (that would be more than 60 seconds to me). this is because the people who DO know me (not you) are satisfied that I am acting in a safe and controlled manner that's because you are blinded by being so reactionary about this take a few days off from posting to this thread and read it again a week from now and see if you're still just as pissed...

dude you need to get a clue about how wingsuits fit in with a turbine DZ operation, especially one flying planes like otters... I fly a canopy loaded at 1.67, so it makes no sense for me to try and outfloat the high-pullers, students and tandems. I also get 2 to 3 minutes of 'freefall' from 14500ft-2500ft, so I can easily land in the time gap between experienced jumpers and high-pullers/students/tandems by opening at 2500 - 300ft and it makes sense from a canopy descent rate point of view. to do this I have to pass said high-pullers/students/tandems while still flying my wingsuit I do this at a safe distance and in a controlled manner. why should I pull 3000 - 4000 ft higher than I need to, just in case I need to try and outfloat a tandem in brakes when they have a long spot? make sense?

holy crap yuri, sounds like you enjoyed your cliffstrike so much, you can't wait to do it again... did you even read any of my reply to your cliffstrike thread? sounds like you went the 'bulletproof' route 'welcome to the club' - indeed, but there being a club like this is not cool, especially for low experience basejumpers (includes me) sometimes object strikes are almost impossible to avoid with a vicious 180 (there are different kinds), but that should be a judgement call before the jump and lower experience basejumpers should try and avoid these jumps slider off cliffs are especially technical objects, unfortunately due to relatively easy access at some, we see a lot of lower experience jumpers jumping these before being ready DON'T DO THAT!! MarkSin - glad you're OK. What were you thinking doing your first stowed jump off a low cliff? people - please don't get complacent about cliffjumps due to the recent rash of cliffstrikes that worked out OK, any/every one of those strikes could've been a fatality or pemanently disabling injury as the dude from Hill Street Blues used to say: 'let's be careful out there' please do

Dude, whereas you have moved to that bastion of civilization and highly evolved grammar, i have moved to the continent of bigger is better and as I start doing as the romans do i am permanently so caffeinated and sugared up that slowing down for anything is not really an option especially silly things like punctuation!!! that's why I climb 600 ft in the time it takes you to do 400 ft so give Ian a break at least he's NOT fat weak AND a saffer like you!

hey Matt you might want to ask this question in the basezone, as you should get responses from people with lots of wingsuit jumps under vented canopies I'm not too knowledgable on slowing down/controlling terminal Blackjack openings, as I don't have even one basejump with a delay over 6 seconds yet and only about 5 terminal wingsuit skydives on my Blackjacks. Here is what I have heard from people who have taken them terminal more: - roll the nose: like Kris said, I think Tom A's standard nose treatment would work nice, 3 outer cells each side rolled back all the way to the line you would get if you extended the a-line past the attachment points, then tuck these rolls into the back/sides of your centre cell. I would think minimising the size of centre cell exposed would help too. I have a suspicion that bottom skin inlets make the canopy slow down less when you roll the nose, compared to non-vented canopies, so you want to play around with these things too: -slider control: both direct (tailgate stow on a centre c-line attachment point, take a bight of slider) and indirect slider control (primary stow) -slider type: for skydives, using a 'sail' slider is a good way to make the openings softer. I have several sliders I have used with my Blackjacks, the standard 'sail' slider, an old large mesh slider (more square) and the new fine mesh slider (more rectangular, this slider became standard along with the control line configuration change) and also a non-CR large mesh slider with different proportions to the Blackjack/Ace slider, but meant for the same size canopy. slider size and shape affects the opening as much as slider material, even though a larger slider (new CR fine mesh) would make you think slower openings, if it is quite wide and not too long, then it will allow more initial spanwise expansion, which exposes more nose and bottom skin inlets but it gets less 'drive' down the lines due to it's width (this affects the geometry of the lines/slider/canopy interaction). Based on minimal experience with them, I have found the new CR fine mesh slider to open FASTER than the old large mesh slider, even at wingsuit terminal. Bigger sliders do not neccesarily open slower, based on shape, they might open faster. -control line control: while I would NOT recommend this for basejumping (as a very experienced jumper I talked to about this does not believe anyone has enough experience with this method yet), using a tailgate (slider-up) to control your brakelines and centre C and D lines, is done to decrease the chance of line-overs, but it seems to slow down / soften the opening by staging the deployment more. Some folks use masking tape instead of a tailgate to achieve this control slider-up. This will have a tune-able effect based on the location of the control (how far from the c-line attachment points, down the lines) and the strength of it (how many wraps of masking tape, or wraps of elastic and type of elastic) -pilotchute type/size: speed of extraction, drag and stability are issues here. I do not understand all the interactions, but I have heard some people get better results (nicer openings) with a 36" or even 38" PC on wingsuit jumps, compared to a 32" PC. Try a few different sizes and types. so there you go, my long-winded thoughts on wingsuit terminal Blackjack skydive packing you may want to think about it before trying all the things I've listed, as I have been known to jump slider-up using a large mesh slider with a tailgate, direct slider control and indirect slider control why? because on a skydive you can afford to play around with packing and see what happens! have fun and let me know what you find out PS - it's very likely that how you deploy in a wingsuit will affect openings more than packing, i.e. Do you do the one handed throw out and keep flying maxed? Do you collapse all wings and build up vertical speed and bleed-off some horizontal speed? Or do you go from maxed flight into a flare type move to kill horizontal speed without building too much vertical speed just before pitching?

Nitro 120 at 1.67 lbs/sq ft, it's elliptical, but fairly docile for it's planform and size. I also have a special 9ft long bridle that has a kill line and base pc style attachment, used to attach a 28" Asylum AV pilotchute (with external handle). Occasionally I'll use my Blackjack260 at 0.76 lbs/sq ft, freepacked with a 32" PC, but since I seem to get to jump it enough off stuff, I don't bother to jump it out of planes very much anymore.

I'm certainly not a big guy at 6'0" and 168lbs and I'm only an average rock climber, but the mechanics of climbing work pretty much the same for most people, so your advice of focusing on adding upper body strength to facilitate easier climbing confuses me, as it goes against conventional rock climbing wisdom, which is to focus on using your leg strength for climbing, especially on the relatively easy climbs needed to access most basejumps, improving your climbing technique and footwork will be of much greater benefit to you than some increased upper body strength. I also find my boots (hanwags) to climb much better than most casual footwear, i.e. sneakers and even most hiking boots, due to the good edging ability and decent rubber soles. sounds like some time in the climbing gym will make your base life much easier

yeah dude, no problem, just pm me your password and I'll make some quality posts for you you don't even need to tell me what to post, I'll just wing it... who wants to predict how many posts I need to make as magot to get him banned?

OK, since people seem to be having trouble understanding Maggot, here's an interpretation, maybe it will be clearer now: The other day, my crew and I went out to an object that we are very comfortable with. Many times there, we would wear bright shirts, thereby just looking like a couple of kids, walking across a bridge that no one is supposed to be on. That night (on the other side of the tracks there's enough room for a car to drive down) as a car approached, with nowhere for us to go, the three of us curled up into a little ball, next to the wall, and the police drove by, not 4 feet from us, and didn't stop 'till they got to the end of the bridge. The full camo saved us all. Later, one of use walked down the span, and gave the police some brilliant story, about how his great grandfather built the bridge and how he comes up here all the time to video the trains. The police were cool with that and we all lived happily ever after, thanks to the camo. Thanks to Lee Hardesty, I even have a camo stash bag! Might I say: you should invest in one, it saved my gear and my ass. better?

hey dude glad you came out of that OK finally had a chance to look at the video and I noticed this: OK, so you're trying to turn right, this seems a reasonable reaction, as the offheading was left and the initial reaction is usually to counter the offheading, instead of assessing whether going with it and turning left would have been better. Right looked like the best way to turn anyways from the video. no dude, you don't reach for the left toggle, you reach up and end up unstowing the left toggle and letting it up, while regrabbing the right riser. I don't know if you tried for both toggles and just missed the right, or if you tried for grabbing both risers higher and unstowing the left toggle accidently?? this is where more jumps would've helped you be more precise and either have the risers high enough initially to back up, then turn, or get the toggles quickly and cleanly and go from unstowing straight into deeper brakes and stall turn if needed, not letting up. the canopy is trying to turn right, as you have unstowed the left toggle and let it up into almost full flight, while the right toggle is still stowed and you're on the right riser, you may have subsequently given left toggle input again, but not enough to overcome the combination of right toggle stowed and right riser input left toggle unstowed, right toggle stowed, risers gripped at about the same spot with about the same input: the canopy is still turning right due to this, which is keeping it against the wall dude, it took you a relatively long time to realise it's not turing left and changing your plan again to turn right you could've been off that wall way sooner if you were using both riser with the brakes stowed, or both toggles with the brakes unstowed flying a canopy with one toggle and the other riser (with other toggle still stowed in DBS) is hard enough on it's own, doing it with the canopy dragging down a cliff face is making your life really hard the canopy finally acquires some horizontal speed because you have now finally unstowed the right toggle too and let both up to fly big is good and while I have not jumped a base canopy loaded less than 0.76, I can assure you that a lot of the lack of response you were trying for there was due to the way you were flying that canopy no doubt so you executed your planned response to a 180 in full auto? no doubt, but as a super experienced basejumper said to me: 'assess, assess, assess' this does not mean take precious time to analyze the situation, you don't have the time this means assess which one of the scenarios you have planned for and played out in your head, is happening to you now and take the actions you have programmed specific reflexes for based on that do not program any reflexive response that you do not want to execute every time you get the programmed trigger, i.e. if you program going straight for the toggles, unstowing and letting them up and reinforce this by doing it on a bunch of jumps, this is what you will try to do even when the shit hits the fan I'd like to know if your plan was to unstow one toggle and let it up while keeping the other stowed and using that riser? I fail to see the relevance here, even for a guy your size 450ft is not low. It sounds like you are looking at equipment issues everywhere to explain why this did not go like you may have imagined it before. It seems to me that the major issues here were training, skills and judgement. If you had developed those more before this jump, hopefully your reaction would've been a bit different and you would either not have hit the cliff or been off it much sooner. no you don't, especially on cliff jumps, I hope to see more people 'dress for the crash' in the future, just remember to cover the snag points that come with pads, I have seen a bridle snag a kneepad once already. happy new year to you too! and it will be cool to see you at the exit point, as long as it is an exit point suited to your experience and skill level... dude, you got lucky bigtime, I hope this is a major wake-up call for you and not something that makes you feel bulletproof

hey Chad I noticed from the pic that you wear your body armour and pads exposed. I have similar armour (shuttle suit pro) and I used to wear bits exposed, but I looked at all the possible snag points (especially arms) and now always cover all my armour/padding with clothing. wondering what your thoughts are on this one?

oh dude, nice going! don't forget to tell mr. purplepants that you will become the esteemed McFlonkey-BASE # 1....

pretty sure you are referring to my jump at the Turkey Boogie in 2005 I had written a long post about my setup and why I went with a 46 stowed on a 210-220 ft freefall where stowed was pretty much the only freefall option, but then I figured the following is the most important thing that would have come from that post: I will not do a stowed freefall that low over hard ground again.

and I'll bet both of you a serving of buffalo chips that I don't care how many jumps Miles does this year, where he does them, if he packs for himself, or not at all... I would like to do some jumps with him this year too and with you, Tom, and even that weird english guy skreamer.... I never thought I'd be the one making this type of bleeding heart tree hugger statement, but why can't we all just get along? not too sure I want to jump with Clif, though, I've seen him try to kill Miles at least once....

this thread has taken a really interesting direction: Wouldn't it be great if Miles could do jump number x (of the year) with BASE-x ? and the jumps with fallen brothers and sisters' numbers would be memorial jumps.. I know it's not feasible for many reasons, but I'll sure drag my sorry ass to Twin Falls to jump with Miles in his hometown if he makes it 980 this year... or maybe some wonderful sponsor will pony up the money for Miles to do a jumping tour to get these special 2-ways? just a silly thought cya

yo Chad take it easy bro 6 weeks just includes the Turkey Boogie in Moab, so it's entirely possible that 3 of the strikes where seen there but then, I don't need to remind you that there was some crazy shit going down at the turkey boogie this year... cya sam