VectorBoy

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Everything posted by VectorBoy

  1. Yuri Stop being ridiculous just go buy a squirrel, seriously! You will have it in your hands in a shorter time frame than you will be able to over explain how to build one to a rigger/ suit maker. You will be much happier. Now if you want a first generation Vampire 2 of medium size in brand new condition I will sell you one I have. Cheap! I also have a good condition X-2, worn but good condition. But just stop being silly, get the squirrel and focus your time and energy into your instrument.
  2. My Curve is. Just pack the risers above the covers. The curve is actually good to go for any kind of jumping and the new yoke is very comfortable
  3. Because the entire tread was deleted from the incidents forum by the moderators hours before it was brought to my attention. Most likely because of your inappropriate and inflammatory comments in regards to a fatality. I replied to screen save someone forwarded to me but in another forum. I hope this answers your question and have a nice day Do us all a favor and go away for another 4
  4. To clarify that Tri had a standard bag and custom WS bridle and a completelyseparate retractable system for CRW use
  5. I had almost exactly that. My wingsuit peers had concerns about my use of elipticals for wingsuiting So I got a good condition standard Triathalon. I proceeded to install a new Dacron lineset with the 4.O mod for better brakes and a rigger installed retractable bridle for occasional CRW . I was blessed that my elipticals actually opened better than the Tri, and it was a good Tri, and frankly the elipticals were more capable and more fun to fly once open. As far as CRW, it is mostly done with lightnings in various loadings here in the states. We had several CRW Triathalons available but rarely used them for CRW. We stuck with lightnings of which we have many. Ended up trading that Tri for a , you guessed it, another used eliptical. You can put Dacron lines on Sabre 1, Spectre Tri's, and storm for wingsuit and freefall but if you want to do CRW you will end up with a lighting or three.
  6. Thats not matching the actual timeline The V3 came out in 2004 GS1 came out in 2006, Sugar Glider 2004 Tonysuits started making/selling suits in 2006 ws history Ummm, you think Phoenix-Fly's first wingsuit was called the Vampire 3? You're funny! 2003 Phoenix was still bird man. 2004 Phoenix V1 was out at the end of the year over here. 2006 I bought a factory new V2 ( still have it) early in that year. It may have been released in the previous fall not sure.
  7. My reserve container is the velcro sandwich type. The pins are attached to the free bag handle as you describe. In 4 years I've never had a problem but I have seen some nasty videos of reserves coming out at the beginning of a tow.
  8. Interesting. My hang glider belly mount reserve could use those pins. The fairly new reserve and d bag came equipped with two standard curved pins we are all familiar with. The manufacturer told me to fabricate the stows from bungee material kinda like skydiving reserve safety stow material. None of it is TSO'd and actual deployments are slow speed compared to skydiving. The system isn't as tight as I would like and an accidental deployment would ruin my day especially while being towed. Another solution would be the sheathed cable method mentioned, I am familiar with this on some crew containers.
  9. In that case a whole bunch of CRW competitors at nationals have defective canopy skills. I didn't see a canopy landing problem at this years Nats. Like I said before we had some new pups with less than 100 lightning jumps. Out of the 36 CF competitors this year 60% were storms with wing loadings from 1.6 to 2. 10% were on CRW JFXs at loadings well into the 2+ I doubt there were more than 12 competitors on lightings this year, pups aside most have better than average canopy landing skills . Now I didn't see the end of competition state record bigway done on 100% lightnings land as I was one of the last down.
  10. The lightning is a perfectly landable canopy. Newer jumpers just have to get used to how different it flares. Old school tech. Some older CRW jumpers choose to slide the landings because they are older and dont want to run them out. I would recommend removing the retractable bridle and getting a longer standard wingsuit acceptable bridle..... but why ? there are tons of canopies with tons of bottom end for candy ass skydivers to keep their new matchy-matchy wingsuit clean so they can sell it with less than 50 jumps on it when next seasons version 2.5 comes out promising a huge leap in performance.
  11. Awe the brand wars. They were the best and sometimes very funny. Its a shame nobody addressed the first item on the list of PF complaints by the OP. I doubt Robi's brilliance, the PF great designs, lack of production capacity, lack of customer service has anything to do with this. This is a result of a very dark hole in the PF organisation.
  12. VectorBoy

    Rubicon

    Yup Did the trail that summer 03. Intense. Very focused slow driving. Axle lockers are mandatory, IMO 4x low T-case gearing both of which you have on your Rubicon are mandatory. Before those existed I could not believe the level of finesse required for that trail, but it has been run by locals for decades without. 33" tires minimum with a few inches( Or more) of lift helpful. Axle articulation is golden this trail will have you twisted up. The right tires ( MT or AT) and the ability to deflate down to around 13 lbs and still have ground clearance will make it better. Unlike other famous or extreme trails this short 16 miles is relentless and does not have bypasses for obstacles other than the most extreme portions and there are obstacles every 40 feet practically. Expect damage, under carriage scrapeage will occur very often. What gets scraped will depend on your trail savy and finesse. Damage to upper body is not unheard of. Go as a group you will need spotters, A club with experience is better and the club will know what parts typically fail and might have most of them, going with the Annual Jamboree turns it into a party much like a good skydive boogie. Plus the Jamboree has helicopter support for parts That may brake from the Georgetown NAPA. The year I went we were in front of a chrysler group were they take people with zero offroad experience in a group of 20 vehicles led by very seasoned guides in stock rubicons. The lead jeep driven by a guide who knows where to put the tires tasked everyone behind to follow the leader exactly and they would be fine a lead and lag pathfinder on motorcycles read the road ahead and assisted lagers behind. They caught up to us at the springs ( a private property owned by Jeep for hosting awesome parties) traumatized due to their steep initiation into the extreme but the vehicles were fine. jeep would wash the vehicles in Reno and take another group through the same week. Off road finesse is the key a huge lift and tires cant buy you and can become a detriment. I did a suprising amount of trail welding on other peoples parts that trip. Pm if you have questions.
  13. My team uses a snowboarder style helmet with muffs that can accept speakers inside. They don't use speakers but say that the muffs cut out directional wind noise and help with hearing voice commands. Specifically the receptor bug helmet made by POC available from antigravity BASE.
  14. Nice Zippy! Gimme a call next time your coming down to Andy Jackson we have to catch up.
  15. Another benefit of using goggles or glasses during the casting is the fact that you will use them with the finished CCM on jumps and you have allowed for their bulk. You can use any flexible plastic to cover the face opening and tape it in place. The face opening provides a better method of pushing the plug out of the front cast half than the plans.
  16. Here is another. No reason for isolation trauma.
  17. Here is one example of face open casting
  18. ***Thank you. Ha... yeah, it was quite traumatizing getting my head wrapped. I was at Wes's shop by myselfQuote Resurecting an old thread with an update on building a CCM without cacooning the whole head as per the instructions. If being cacooned is a truamatic deal breaker on obtaining your own CCM , be advised you have options. I just didn't think it was needed. I use goggles or safety glasses to protect the eyes from plaster juice during the casting but leave the face skin not covered by neoprene rubber exposed. After the cast is split I tape some plastic over the opening before the foam pour. It's that simple. Pictures to follow.
  19. Not to add any fuel for debate but just to clarify, in the states, homebuilt aircraft receive a special airworthiness certificate for a one off build. Which is different than factory serial certificated aircraft. Any significant changes or mods at a later date to the homebuilt and the aircraft must re enter a test phase. Factory craft either meet spec or don't. Factory craft have annual inspections. Home built/ experimentals have a condition inspection. Different paper work, different process. This is very confusing to owners/ non-builders a great majority of A&Ps that get hired by non builders to annual an experimental and not supprisingly many many FAA personnel involved. FAA people that are interested in aviation and have a facination with the homebuilt side can be very helpfull. FAA personnel that are just collecting GOV pay and trying to interpret a confusing set of FARs get very lost themselves and can set a homebuilt project back years.
  20. This means 35-50% of the CRW dogs are going to FAA jail
  21. I went from an SM1 to an X-bird no issues. I really loved the S-bird Oscar let me try. They are both an improvement over the SM-1. You should look up Dennis Sattler @ perris and see what he did to one of his old SM-1 to make it more like an S- bird since Tony Factory no longer does the mach to bird mod.
  22. I did some of that in my experimentation, mesh sliders on zippy sport mains are very different from mesh sliders on F-111 Dacron lined canopies. Many times I had an instant canopy without the absorption benefit of Dacron lines. So I don't recommend mesh sliders. Also with modern wingsuits you are dealing with much slower deployment speeds than the average aircraft jump run speeds which can vary between operators
  23. I do video for a CRW team. CRW canopies tend to open fast with either mesh or X sliders. On occasion the team will damage a canopy and have to borrow mine. As a back up I will jump a similar performing sport main. For years I have played the partially killed slider to get similar openings. It is a knife edge balancing act. The effects are just not linear, very inconsistent and sometimes painful. Having the slider grommets not on the stops brings you closer to a line dump situation which can be lethal. If you are hell bent on perfect subterminal openings you can have a custom slider made by an experienced rigger who specializes in this type of experimentation. If you want to go to terminal you will need an RDS with two different sliders one for skydives and one just for pops. And must never forget which one is installed. Or you can try hauling back on your rear risers during deployment but be very careful as you are changing the orientation of the canopy nose and slider angle to the oncoming air. The amount and rate of haul back effects a change that again is not linear but probably will not be lethal and only a little painful.
  24. Adam Bishop wrote : Flying there formations down jump run. Having pilots with low experience in big formations. Landing down wind in the main landing area. Half the time there coming in two different directions. They act like a bunch of idiots. It’s all fun and games till someone bounces wearing someone else’s chute. Some one F’ed Up. I was there Saturday, saw they were jumping and left. Go ahead Delete my post. I’ll jump another day . My Reply : The Team flys our formation where we are instructed to by the pilot and ATC. The only time we fly "over the top" is when there is only one plane turning as fast as it can and an offset jump run is not needed and us shuffling our canopies to an offset would negate practicing for a timed competitive event. Our team canopies descend so fast we are on the ground before the plane has loaded. We never fly over the top with students or bigger canopies even if we are instructed to get out over the top by the pilot we proceed to our offset flight area and we don't return until below 2k. There are no exceptions. For the last year and a half the team has engaged in synchronized landings which makes it impossible to come in from two different directions. If it is a camp or a larger group we remind everybody to follow DZ canopy pattern protocol just like all skydivers ,regardless of discipline, must. We introduce pilots to CRW with simple docks on 2- ways and later 4-ways, typically simple stacks. Nobody gets placed on big formations without performing on smaller building blocks.
  25. Do a search for frame sight on the forums. I use either a thin line of tape or sometimes a sharpy drawn line in my goggles or glasses to define everything within the frame. What you see is what you get. It takes a bit of trial and error with your camera mounted and A/V out cables plugged into a tv to figure what is in frame. Even though this method has a shorter sight radius than a ring sight. Your goggles and glasses don't move and I find it way more accurate. It is cheaper. Not having a ring sight is cleaner ( safer) and pretty much impossible to have it knocked out of alignment.