SimonBones

Penny and I bought our plane tickets today. Looking forward to it Prepare to have more underwear on your face. 108 way head down world record!!! http://www.simonbones.com Hit me up on Facebook

Possession of beer is a pretty strong qualification and a compelling case for the candidate. 108 way head down world record!!! http://www.simonbones.com Hit me up on Facebook

consisting of who/what types of people? perhaps we could start a sign-up list, like we do for boogies. Or maybe agree on a set of qualifications required to be an official spokesperson, then enough signature recommendations to run, then a community vote on the possible candidates. 108 way head down world record!!! http://www.simonbones.com Hit me up on Facebook

Purple and I talked about experimenting with ideas along these lines. My thoughts were using something like reserve bridle material. A sewn loop on one end to put around the ankles and the reserve bridle type material would trail behind on each leg. The length of the bridle would determine the tolerance of the formation slot flying and would also give more room to make 4 person diamonds. This addresses the concerns that Matt posted. Once a flyer grabs the bridle material, he/she may fly out a bit to one side of the flyer with trailing streamers. This would address the 2D aspect of a formation as the length of the bridle would keep everyone on the same plane. No grid system would have to be used, a judge would simply count all the hand-to-bridle-foot connections from each flyer. Completely objective. Short bridles shouldn't really ever entangle with anything during deployment as they simply would not be long enough and would be flying in parallel to anything in your system deployed. Since the bridles would be slack, holding on to the bridle wouldn't have too much effect on the person you were docked on. This is still a made easy advantage compared to RW/CRW/Freefly bigways since I know many wingsuiters on here would rather have a system made easier for them No grid, no software, slot flying necessary in 3D, skills needed, and more like normal record standards. Now... where is my check? 108 way head down world record!!! http://www.simonbones.com Hit me up on Facebook

Thanks for the good times at Orange Gary. It wouldn't be what it is without you. 108 way head down world record!!! http://www.simonbones.com Hit me up on Facebook

Maybe you misinterpret my intention so I'll try and make it more clear. Setting a skydiving record in my opinion is not pointless. Setting a wingsuit skydiving record is not pointless. Wingsuiting is great. Trying to set records using these proposed systems is an awful idea. Before addressing the issue of tolerances and making a pretty formation, why not address the 2D issue? Even if everyone by the photograph and grid is perfectly centered in their boxes, flyers "in their slots" can be 50+ feet above and below the 'formation'. That is ridiculous judging criteria and not worthy of a world record. The path being taken to find a suitable judging criteria is fatally flawed. Either a complete 3D mapping system needs to be developed with much tighter slot tolerances, or the records need to be docked. Given that these ideas are not really currently doable, it is my position that wingsuiting has no current place in world records for big way formations. 108 way head down world record!!! http://www.simonbones.com Hit me up on Facebook

Aah. By the same argument you present, some people would consider skydiving in the first place to be rather pointless. Should we all quit? My interest is in advancing the sport, including the discipline of wingsuiting. I own a wingsuit and have been flying it for years. I would like to see the wingsuiting discipline stop turning into so much of a joke because I like my wingsuit, and have an interest in doing more with it. That's why I'm here in this forum debating the direction of wingsuiting. If you disagree with the arguments I make, maybe you should address them in a way that finds a better solution for wingsuiting as a whole. Attacking an unrelated official skydiving world record to try and take a jab at me personally is counterproductive to the topic at hand and frankly, childish. So . 108 way head down world record!!! http://www.simonbones.com Hit me up on Facebook

\ The Thunderbirds and Blue Angels don't take grips either. The thunderbirds and blue angels don't fly in formation for the sake of trying to set silly formation records. Formation flying is a small part of a wide range of stunts coordinated for visual entertainment at an airshow. Is this a summary of your argument? 108 way head down world record!!! http://www.simonbones.com Hit me up on Facebook

Not fallacious argument. Currently there are world records for aircraft speed, highest flying, distance, time through obstacle courses, etc. Are there attempted world 'records' for how many aircraft have gone flocking together? How many airplanes have been in the air together? www.b2osh.org/Magazine_Articles/06%20August%20ABS%20collins.pdf "1995 — B2Osh set a world record for a civilian formation flight of 134 airplanes!" Also www1.oshkoshusa.com/Oshkosh-Stories/News/EAA-Airventure-News/RV-Formation-Flight-at-AirVenture-2007-Was-a-World-Record! My point exactly! Pretty lame shit! YOU asked the question. Sorry that you didn't like the replies, but that's no reason to be rude. You're the one that skipped past every point in an argument to answer a question with a ridiculously obvious answer. Everyone knows there is a pretty silly world record for pretty much anything out there, and you proved that point perfectly. There is a difference between setting records that pushes a sport further and challenges 'top' performers to have to perform better, then there are records out there that have been done just for the sake of setting a silly record even though it achieves nothing significant. Did you know there is a world record for how many t-shirts worn at once? 121 t-shirts. Did you know there is a world record for how many body piercings performed in one sitting? 1,016 piercings. http://www.oddee.com/item_86932.aspx Setting world records for ground distance covered from x exit height to y altitude is a record that pushes people to perform more and pushes the development of better performing wingsuits. Setting world records for amount of 2 way docks performed from x exit altitude to y altitude pushes wingsuiters to fly better at higher performance to increase the work time. This pushes the discipline to reach new levels of performance and flying skills. Setting a 'world record' by being all in the air together wearing similar suits and making a computer image fit a 26.5' slop factor does not promote the advancement of higher performing suits nor does it provide the structure to seek more advanced techniques in wingsuit piloting. Chasing after silly records like this only promote piss poor flying and dumbing down the 'art' of wingsuit flight. If people are wearing weights and flying with their feet on their asses, what the hell is the point anymore? Wingsuiting has a much lower retention rate as a discipline then it should have. I know dozens of people who bought a wingsuit, put a couple dozen jumps on it, then sold it in boredom because there was no direction to take the 'discipline' other than this sloppy flight flocking grid bigway nonsense. It's like it all celebrates mediocre performance from a pilot and his wing. In 10 years time, which path will generate the push for better piloting and advancements in suit technology? Which will advance wingsuiting to new levels? Dumbed down weight wearing legs on ass grid flying for the sake of setting a no-contact 'world record'? Or a high performance demand of precision maxed out piloting? I found the 100 way RW sequential and 400 way RW world record much more impressive and performance demanding than the silly 'just for the sake of it' Thailand 960 or whatever mass exit record. But hey, it's your discipline right? You can support advancing it if you'd like, or you can let it stagnate in silly grid records. 108 way head down world record!!! http://www.simonbones.com Hit me up on Facebook

Not fallacious argument. Currently there are world records for aircraft speed, highest flying, distance, time through obstacle courses, etc. Are there attempted world 'records' for how many aircraft have gone flocking together? How many airplanes have been in the air together? www.b2osh.org/Magazine_Articles/06%20August%20ABS%20collins.pdf "1995 — B2Osh set a world record for a civilian formation flight of 134 airplanes!" Also www1.oshkoshusa.com/Oshkosh-Stories/News/EAA-Airventure-News/RV-Formation-Flight-at-AirVenture-2007-Was-a-World-Record! My point exactly! Pretty lame shit! I'm sure that took tremendous amount of skill and only the best most experienced pilots to be able to pull that off! Quite a measurement of master piloting abilities! I'm sure the clock was ticking fast and they were able to pull off the 'record' just in the nick of time. Kind of like when I said: 108 way head down world record!!! http://www.simonbones.com Hit me up on Facebook

Not fallacious argument. Currently there are world records for aircraft speed, highest flying, distance, time through obstacle courses, etc. Are there attempted world 'records' for how many aircraft have gone flocking together? How many airplanes have been in the air together? Show me record attempts of a aircraft breaking 5,000mph and I'll be damn impressed. Show me record attempts of flying a bunch of airplanes flying together in a giant grid, golf clap.... yay you did it, that was sooo hard . 108 way head down world record!!! http://www.simonbones.com Hit me up on Facebook

What you're doing now is talking about the direction of two completely separate disciplines. If photography is the primary discipline, then it will allow expression and growth in many different directions. For example, a skydiving photographer needs different skill sets and experience to photograph wingsuiting, freefly, skysurfing, CRW, etc. I believe this is the major difference between photographers like Joe Jennings and Norman Kent who have a diverse portfolio of mastering photography of all the above disciplines, and everyone else. The ability to work towards and achieve a certain mastery, that is what makes a serious discipline. You can have the camera and know how to use it, but if you can't get there to make the shot, then you're not a master skydiving photographer yet. Norman Kent can shoot the wingsuit 'record' and the 108 way head down record. Joe Jennings has shot RW, freefly, skysurfing, and a large variety of unusual objects/furniture/cars in freefall. Discussing wingsuiting separately from photography as a skydiving 'discipline', can one achieve mastery? This is what makes a 'serious' discipline. What can you work toward to objectively measure your performance and progressing skill level? Am I constantly improving? Am I getting better at this? Can one be a master at horny gorillas? Tube exits? Mr Bills? So far many seem to think that the way to achieve mastery in wingsuiting is the ability to fly within 9 feet of someone else with a "slop factor of 26.5ft" in a loosely defined formation where someone tries to draw boxes around later on a computer. Funny how this leads to people on world 'records' with only a couple hundred skydives and less than 50 WS jumps. Make sure to pay lots of money to the organizer though for your 'world record'. No mastery in anything required. Makes you wonder why only 55 people register for a 100 way. This whole grid/bubble/dots nonsense is taking the 'discipline' in the wrong direction which IMHO, will only result in a decline in growth in wingsuiting as a "serious" discipline. Don't we remember what was so appealing about wingsuits in the first place? The whole reason I bought one and wanted to fly it? It's a tool to fly really fast with a much longer airtime. Mastery can come from airspeed over your wings, ground distance covered, hangtime, races, etc. Why don't we have a form of wingsuit pylon races? That shit would be sooo bad ass! I'd love to see that and take part in it! This is why swooping is a serious competitive discipline and HP canopy flocking is not. You use your tool for what it was meant for in the first place! Doesn't anyone just like to chase clouds anymore and fly the living shit out of their wing? Some serious disciplines out there involve bigger, faster, more points, longer distance, etc and numerical values. Other artistic ones involve the ability to flawlessly perform extremely difficult maneuvers that may take you years of practice to achieve (3 way artistic freefly as an example I'm intimately familiar with). Working towards achieving something very physically difficult for you is a road towards mastery. I remember the first time I was able to pull off a reverse eagle. I was very proud of myself that day. Wingsuits aren't meant for bigways, just like HP canopies aren't. It's taking this "discipline" further away from being a serious discipline and more in the direction of being cliquey and political with a pinch of ostentation and pretension. 108 way head down world record!!! http://www.simonbones.com Hit me up on Facebook

I think this is an excellent observation as to why many in the overall skydiving community don't take wingsuiting as a serious discipline. No offense if you do! To each their own. What if everybody agrees to wear a "defined" wingsuit, and make a no-contact formation with none of the wings zipped up? It still counts! We're all wearing wingsuits! Next we'll do it on our backs! CRW for example, sets their world records in docked formations. Many canopy pilots have played around with formation HP canopy flocking, yet nobody seems to try and make 'records' doing so. The whole idea of using grids, bubbles, dots, etc can be applied to them as well if they did. There have been videos posted online of people wearing wingsuits and flying head down. If a group of WS flyers made a big no-contact formation flying their wingsuits head down, would that be a wingsuit record? A head down no-contact formation record? Both? Something in between? A few years ago in Zhills, we did 30+ and 40+ way tracking dive formations. Many were wearing freefly suits. Could we have used the grid/bubbles/dots to try and claim a record of formation tracking? Could we have called it a wingsuit record at the time with no real difference in where the line is drawn between a WS, tracking suit, freefly suit, camera suits, and the many suits that fit in grey areas in betwen? What about the BM Hybrid Impact tracking suit here https://store.bird-man.com/webshop/flight/products/WINGSUITS/Impact? What the hell is that? Just a few weeks ago in Sebastian, a group of jumpers did a formation backsliding jump (they called it backslipping to emphasize the control). The same grid/bubble/dots system could be used for them to claim a backslipping record. Then there are the Atmo people. To them, it's not tracking and it's not head down flying (and let's not get started on that one again). Yet they could argue for the use of the grid/bubble/dot systems for Atmo formation records. But Atmo covers a range of angles, would there be separate records for steep atmo formations and shallow atmo formations? Or would that be a tracking formation? Ooh then we can have a record of formation back trackers, steep and shallow (or atmo)! Hell we could have sitfly world records easy if nobody had to touch! All we have to do is sitfly near each other, have a photo fit a grid/bubble/dot thing and it's a record? Or would we all have to be driving forward in a sit? Or would there be different records for being in the grid/bubble/dot driving forward in a sit, going straight down in a sit, backsliding in a sit, side sliding in a sit? I say we take a bunch of unpacked rigs, lay them out in a giant field in formation, have everybody start packing them in unison, photo it, place it in a grid/bubble/dot picture, then claim a USPA formation packing record. 108 way head down world record!!! http://www.simonbones.com Hit me up on Facebook

According to the techs I spoke with on the phone at Verizon, there have been problems with people being signed up for these services with no consensual opting and it can be done remotely through the internet. If someone has your name and phone number, a sleazy company can begin billing you without sending your phone any confirmation. If this happens, according to Verizon, they can't do anything to stop it. Even if they block future premium text services, it will only stop future ones but not ones that have already attached themselves to your account. At that point you have to hunt down the company and find the number codes to stop the billing. Some of them don't share those codes easily. Scammers are scammers. If they can find a loop hole to do it with, they will. 108 way head down world record!!! http://www.simonbones.com Hit me up on Facebook

If you use Verizon and don't have this problem, I'd strongly recommend calling them up and asking them to put an account block on premium text messaging services anyway, just to make sure you don't get stuck with this problem in the future. It's like asking them to turn off the ability for people to scam you. Apparently if someone has your phone number, you can be signed up for a scam like this online, then you're screwed and Verizon can't turn it off. 108 way head down world record!!! http://www.simonbones.com Hit me up on Facebook

Has anyone read about this camera? Any thoughts about its use in skydiving? http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/01/five-reasons-you-should-ditch-your-dslr/ 108 way head down world record!!! http://www.simonbones.com Hit me up on Facebook

Has anyone had any experience with this before? Last month there was a $10 charge on my cell phone account for a "premium text message" service. I've never heard of this before so I looked it up and called Verizon. Apparently this has something to do with those advertisements you see here and there about texting a code to a 5 digit number, which I've never done. According to Verizon, someone can sign up for this service online for you using your phone number and it authorizes the company to charge you through your phone provider and the cell phone provider can not stop it. After a mess with Verizon I got them to put a block on all future premium text messaging services from attaching themselves to my cell phone account. I had to send some text messages to a 5 digit number with stop codes to cancel their billing. I though the problem was solved. This month, the same charge was on my account from the same company. Apparently they did not stop charging me despite the block texts and the confirmation. The phone numbers on their website do not reach live people, only voice recordings and there is no response from any email addresses. After calling Verizon again and royally freaking out on them, they tell me that they can not stop the third party charge from before the block was put on my account. If the company refuses to stop billing me, then the only way to stop it is to cancel my cell phone service and get a new phone number through someone else. I think this might be what I have to do because I'm not paying $120 extra a year to a scam. Any other ideas or experiences on a scam like this? 108 way head down world record!!! http://www.simonbones.com Hit me up on Facebook

Houston is the 4th biggest city in the US (behind NYC, LA, and Chicago) so you're bound to have fun there. Lots of nightlife. Both major DZ's are only 35-40 minutes outside of the city, Skydive Houston to the north west and Spaceland to the south. Both have turbine aircraft running during the week, swoop ponds, indoor packing, etc. See ya when you get here 108 way head down world record!!! http://www.simonbones.com Hit me up on Facebook

How about video! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d39xqpKPX_w 108 way head down world record!!! http://www.simonbones.com Hit me up on Facebook

And he says I'm writing garbage! [chokes][falls out of chair][loses bladder control] 108 way head down world record!!! http://www.simonbones.com Hit me up on Facebook

The people who would rather not have the court process and decisions turn into a televisions media circus are all religious extremist hateful assholes who just happen to coincidentally differ with your opinion? I'm continuously amazed at how black and white this whole situation is! I never knew it was your side vs the evil side. For a second, I almost thought there might be some rational, fair, and educated people out there in the world who disagree with you. Thanks for enlightening us all with the brilliant omnipotence of the side with whom you agree with. As a side note, there has been a recent spread of a new bizarre infection going around, easily diagnosed by a hickey on one's neck. You should check yours just to be safe. I care 108 way head down world record!!! http://www.simonbones.com Hit me up on Facebook

Aaah. I see. People with differing opinions from yours about law and society are cowardly guilty villains comparable to the KKK. The people who you agree with are innocent victims. In that case, the court decision should be easy! This is obviously a case of good guy vs bad guy. Thanks for explaining the complexities of the situation in a way that us kindergartners can understand. Good luck with your infection

I think Quade has been infected: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ZuK_wYrqp8 108 way head down world record!!! http://www.simonbones.com Hit me up on Facebook

Yes, you are correct. 3 Way freefly has incorporated belly orientation moves for years because as the old cliche says, freefly is flying in all orientations. The old randoms were a straight belly star (round) and the horizontal compressed accordion where it was like a belly compressed accordion, except one person was on their back. 108 way head down world record!!! http://www.simonbones.com Hit me up on Facebook

http://www.uspa.org/Portals/0/Downloads/Man_SCM_2009.pdf Section 6-3 Not sure if anyone else noticed but apparently last month the USPA Competition randoms for open class 3 way artistic freefly had a few changes made to the pool. Random 7 (Horizontal compressed accordion) was replaced by "Brouette": FF-7. Brouette 1. One performer is in a flat orientation, the other performer is in a back-down orientation. 2. The performer in the flat orientation takes a grip with one hand on the leg of the other performer and with the other hand on the arm (at the same side as the leg on which the other grip is taken) of the other performer. Random 9 (Star) was replaced with "Catepillar": FF-9. Catepillar 1. Both performers are in a flat orientation. 2. One performer demonstrates a left-handed grip on the left leg and a right-hand grip on the right leg of the other performer. And Random 10 (Single-Grip Head-Up) was replaced by "Double-Grip Head-Up" (essentially a sit round): 1. Both performers are in a head-up orientation. 2. The performers demonstrate a two-handed, hand-to-hand grip with each performer’s right hand in a grip with the other performer’s left hand. The intermediate dive pool seems to have stayed the same. I'm actually pretty glad about the changes. Replacing FF-9 eliminates the star/HDstar cheat and the Sit round part is just more exciting