VectorBoy

QuoteThere's a different reason us women love the Skyvan Yes I know darlin, I've seen the twinkling eyes.

I only have experienced The classic 2 ( same as the classic 1 but with easier to get into double front zippers.). A prototype S3 ( same wing, just had some experimental back vents and airlocks for back flying. ). A production S3 and the matter2. Never tried the GTI. The classic being bird-mans original was the suit that kinda started it for them. Happy with that, the GTI provided more while still being easy to fly and deploy in. Keep in mind I've personaly never flown one. Some wingsuit pilots were wanting even more than the GTI offered so the skyflyer was developed. A little tricky to fly some jumpers called it "twitchy" it featured a narrower leg stance. Although I've never flown one jumpers that have said it gave them more forward speed than Bird-man's classics and GTIs but at a cost of stability and ease of flight. Probably ( and I'm generalizing here ) the least liked suit and the most demanding of the Bird-man products. Bird-man's Skyflyer3 has even more wing on top and on the leg also with a wider leg stance. It seems to serve up more speed and flatter glide without the sacrifice in stability. The crossbow, S-fly and Matter1 are all variations of a blended body mono-wing as the Birdman products are a body suit with wings attached to the arms and torso then again across the legs. The mono-wing suits vary mostly in construction quality and customer support. The suits themselves were of a similar design and planform. That is until the Matter 2 was introduced. It featured a longer and wider leg portion of wing giving it more in terms of forward drive and flatter glide. Talking to people that have flown the X-bow,S-fly,M-1 I was told that these suits, although stable to fly, floated more and sank less than the bird-man suits but they lagged behind in terms of forward speed. This could be bad if you are organizing a mixed wing flock. Again I have no personal experience flying or flocking with the early mono-wing suits. The Matter 2, on the other hand, flys nicely along with any of the bird-man suits. To answer your question most of the suits have a very overlapping "flight envelope" They can all be flown relaxed flocking with the flyers in other suits as long as everybody is doing their part to stay in it. Flocks take place in relaxed body posture making allowances for small movements possible. When I am referring to the MORE offered by some suits I'm talking about being in a body position that can be tiring and is not suited for flocking. Max efficient flight is something your reserve for solo flights or break-off from formations just like max tracking after a freefall. And above all all of this is subjective to the jumpers point of view. I don't care if you take along ten protracs or GPS system. We have no way to know our true performance in the winds aloft. You may think you are covering some serious ground only to find you have killer tailwinds. Good luck in getting the 10 protracs or neptunes to agree. Video will verify that you were aloft for X amount of time, but guess what you can do better if you take that big camera helmet off and just fly with a sleek helmet or nothing. We could always invest in ground based telemetry but we are not testing missles or we could just do what the respective factories probably do... jump more. The market for flyers that just want the flattest glide regardless of other factors is small, really small if it comes as decrease in other wingsuit performance variables. Bird-man knows this! What you will probably see more and more of are suits that are easy to hook up and get into. Stable and fun to fly. Not scary to deploy in and play nice with other wingsuits while maintaining a broad flight spectrum. And remember that , just like when we talk about a canopy, its the pilot not the product! I hope this helps.

21. The spin cycle on the washing machine does not make earth worms dizzy. It will, however, make cats dizzy. 22. Cats throw up twice their weight when dizzy. An unfortunate coworker had his kid's pet cat hide ( as some kitties are good at) in the dryer and do a good few minutes of high tumble dry. It lived but it wasn't quite right after that.

Well, I didn't title the thread, "Men love the Skyvan!" You're excused! REAL men love the Skyvan, at least the ones that jump wingsuit. Where else can you launch a double rodeo with plenty of room or a tight 16 way wingsuit formation? Lets hear it for the van! Can a brother get whooop whoop?

Anybody log creeper time? Although I know base jumpers that log really high jumps into water as fixed object jumps. I know of nobody that logs tunnel time.

I worried about flying my body first. And then when I felt comfortable with my flight And felt the need to capture what I saw I started flying camera.... about 400 jumps for me ( your milage and desire may vary). It is still on less than a third of the jumps I do, all fun.

You did not dare because I was challenging a suitor for my bitches. Ooohh seee, I reheemembor naow, d'hont choo meeen Beetchess hombre?

I'll never forget the time he snuck up behind a little pug that was sitting outside the Bent Prop and started narrating the dog's thoughts . . . "You, you cretins. None of you deserve to hold my leash. Here, I drool on you. I drool on you again. I lick myself to show my contempt for you. You all think you're so superior. Well, you don't see me picking up your shit, now do you?" Was he using a latin voice with the dog? Because I heard him practicing with the latin voice in the restroom this past weekend.....didn't dare ask who he was talking to.

The bonehead is finished in a two part polyurethane clear. Good tuff stuff. Your airbrush artist can do his work then clearcoat in something compatible. Most of these products are similar to autopaint lines. Most of the time problems occur when you top a cheap rattle can job or sign painters enamel with urethanes or epoxy paints and vise versa. But your airbrush buddy should know the tricks around special additions to the mix and or intercoats for just this purpose.

I have also struggled to get away from an obsession with achieving slowest fall rates measured on my Pro track. *** This is a trap we all get into, worse if we just do solos on a one wingsuit DZ. I didn't even own a protrac until I got a wingsuit, then came software. I thought one day I would end up with a tremendous UHF antenna on my helmet and a belly mounted data pack. One thing I learned from the first generation of classic 1 pilots that did solos and jumped there suits infrequently, was that this was only fun for a little while. Most of these people ended up selling their 4 year old barely used suits. MAXED solo flight can be exciting if you MUST outfly the talus but its no way of life for regular WS skydiving. Flocking baby! For some jumpers this means getting to DZ's with other flockers or boogies. Formations, vertical extensions, extensions with the tip flyers barrel rolling across the piece, back flying........ Get video. Laugh, learn, live, love! Then do it again!

I get this same question all of the time from people thinking about buying a wingsuit. For people that are swept away by the new wing revolution, that I know personally will be flying their suit often if not mostly. Its not much of an issue for them and they will transition quickly after a handfull of jumps on a borrowed classic, and how many depends on the skills that they bring, to a more performing suit. For the people that DON"T fly or flock that much, who do mostly other things and won't be that current on a wingsuit the natural advice ( and I would have to agree with this advice ) is to start on a easy and stable suit to fly and deploy in then slowly work up enough experience to eventually get into a more capable suit. This learning curve depends mostly on them. There were a handfull of jumpers asking a group of veteran wingsuit jumpers about "which suit" to get and when they heard this universal advice of a multi suit progression they told me they were sold on the matter2 as it is both stable and easy to learn on yet VERY capable in the right hands.

Bill I had the same thing occur on my first five jumps. I fly with looser legs straps than I should though and simply corrected it, no problems since. This also keep the suit tighter in the shoulders and allows me to work the legs more. I found the suit to be pretty much the same as you describe as far as stability, even back flying. Although I didn't get the sensation of tremendous forward drive at first. When working my way to the sweet spot which took about 7 or so solo jumps I do feel some nice things happening. But since they were solos I have very little to compare to even though I fly with a protrac and two neptunes ( sold the tracking software a while ago and rely more on catching the six foot 140# guy with hollow bones in an S3 as true benchmark of glideslope performance )

A brand new flier? That's pretty impressive. How far? Yes first flight. Nice exit, Nice body position, and smooth brisk flight. And a nice opening and landing about 3 miles north east of the DZ. If there would have been time for a second jump I'm positive that we could have perfected the flight patterns. But seriously the matter2 is a very easy suit to fly. People with very little or no experience excell in it. Ask those that have tested it what they think.

And, yes, Dom's a sweetie - and a harmless flirt. A harmless flirt? Well Dom it looks like you've just been dealt the kiss O death. Looks like you are going to have to grab a few ass here and there to redeem yourself

There should be some spare classics up in your area and at least a couple of BMI's. OR if you ever find your way down Perris way Diablopilot has the Demo Matter2 suits in various sizes. We added about 16 new flockers between the two us this past weekend to the new wing revolution. Not one of them said it sucked, all of them found the suit very stable in flight and deployment. One new flocker even holds a new Perris record for distance covered. If you need contact him for sizes available and either he or myself can help you out.

So sorry young lady, But if you didn't notice at dinner I was on the start of bender that evening that, believe it or not, I've still not recovered from. Although people do say color is coming back to my skin. Its bad to be trapped on the DZ due to police sobriety blockades, nothing to do but drink,,,,, lots. We will do Xtreme rodeo ( promiss ) but video is mandatory. Just gotta get us both and a fast fall'n vidiot on the DZ at the same time. Maybe the next .com boogie. I like fast as much as you do.... and I'm not skeared a no girl!

How did that happen?

Yea, that would deffinately make sense with a birdman suit. If you can slow down to a decent speed I'm sure a water collision would be survivable, and I hear good wingsuit flyers can flare down to like 60 MPH, which I would think is slow enough to survive impact since it's just water. Good wingsuit pilots can flare even slower than 60 MPH vertically but you still have a forward or horizontal speed component that would increase with the decrease in your vertical speed as your glide flattens out. Unless you manage to skip across the surface like debris you would end up under the water in a suit that you, injured or not, cannot swim in and takes two people to pull you to the surface since it fills with about 30 gallons of water. The manual says stay away from water at any speed in the suit. Aim for a billboard so you have something nice to look at for a few seconds. Or the resturant....... maybe they will name a burrito after you.

McFellin said he had purchased property about a mile away to build a home. He will not build it if he has to listen to the sound for 18 hours or more, he said.Quote Wow, buy land for a house a mile from a busy, noisy turbine airport dropzone and now complains about the possibility of tunnel noise? Where is this guy from california?

Some teams are sponsored to do nothing but competition. Other teams get paid to promote skills camps or host special showcase events. Other teams go for movie or stunt work.

No I don't see any advantage in this system. I would like to know the reason for this configuration myself.

Hey Chelle, Congrats on your taste of the darkside. You didn't by any chance meet Jessica this weekend? She is one of our freefly load organisers. I'm sure she can help you out in the future. She is small and she kicks ass!

Happy birthday Shannon! 33 is not too soon to work on your navigation skills. Thanks for the jump

I need to thank you two ladies for the very memorable jump, my surprise that it actually worked without having the chance to dirt dive it properly. The turns were standard pattern and not induced by my rider Chelle( other smaller turns were, no worries! ) Shame on Jake and myself for not getting video. Or for getting grips even though our fingers were within inches for a long minute. That was, in a nutshell, a VERY COOL skydive! Thank you all and I would love to try it again, anytime.

23,8,1,1,2 23 jumps, 8 new wingsuit flyers trained, first reserve ride caught all on video ( w/ wingsuit ). First double wingsuit rodeo with the Gimp and Rosa riding and myself with Rochelle riding and we almost had grips. Crime is there was no video. 2-many flocks to remember. 2-many thanks to all who came down to either flock with us or fly a matter 2. And thanks to Amy for packing a reserve the first morning of a boogie lickity split,.... oh and the sit jump too!