VectorBoy

[That fine looking backside belongs to none other than Joe Jennings... Oh and Mister Jennings...he is one cool dude.....he is going to try to be out for the holiday boogie as well

BeeBee is this photo the end result of some cruel blackmail situation? If so please make up and rectify before next years holiday boogie as we need Greg on our side.

Its a private airport but its not restricted. You won't get unicom or traffic advisories. They don't want day trippers or student pattern "players" busy-ing up the pattern. Its bad enough with several turbine aircraft turning back to back. But if you are coming in to skydive and park it you won't get the frowny face. I know a couple of jumpers who fly in. And Scott, you would be surprised by just how many of those aircraft are owned or were owned by the DZ owners at one time. And now they are owned by someone who has a business there and is also a jumper.

On the soul flyers DVD, in the first chapter, Loic fly's by a CReW stack nice and slow in his S-fly and it appears that he is climbing on them for just a second in just such a flare.

Brantex..... is that one of those mid 1970's very big tent type canvas made suits usually colored brown or green? You can always make you up some smoking pants if you want to haul ass in a track.

As far as your question in regards to down the road after a bunch of jumps, "then what" ? You really should ask the guys that have several hundred, if not thousands of, wingsuit only flights and never take it off their rigs. Its all they ever do now. How often do you hear freeflyers say " awe,... not another sit". Wingsuits are a facet in skydiving's future that is going to be big. Sure there will be people that will want to do some competitive docks ( or grips) and turn points but that is just thinking of wingsuits from an RW perspective. Just like freeflying is still evolving, winsuits will offer up some more fresh options. I personally believe we haven't even scratched the surface.

That is a good fall rate for tracking. But survival tracking is about covering some distance while maintaining your manueverability. With 89 you won't be falling out of tracking jumps. Mid to low 70s are what you can expect on wingsuit flights until the skills are developed for flights in the 50s range. Low 40s for some of the more performing suits and 30 for some gifted individuals in aggressive solo flights. But mid 60s to low 70s are what you will see for most of your fun flocking with other people.

That is the best treatment that any of the rantoul footage has ever seen. Keep it up Scott!

The newer oxygens don't have the button. And if you get an older one you can always razor it off or carefully peel away the padding under it and peel it off the padding. Then reattach the padding with some contact cement. I love those helmets when you gotta have a full face.

Just think if there was some kind of public transportation to Elsinore who you would be gettin a ride with, eewwwwwww!

If you can do that in a DC3 across America any chance of sending the DC9 across the pond to pick up Brits for the next boogie? Perris has an ongoing relationship with a UK military outfit that comes down anually for several weeks to perform AFF here. As of now they just get picked up at LAX in an Otter saving them a few hours between baggage PU and driving in rush hour traffic. For skydivers this truely the red carpet treatment. We welcome this because it really keeps the otter turning in our slower months and brits jumping in their colder months. But if they could fill the 9 you never know, I would not be suprised at all.

You know Bill, we could wingsuit from one DZ to the other all day long.

I said I'd probably would be a little turned off at the idea of paying $200 bucks. $200 is a small fraction of what it would have cost me to drive my car there. Less than half of what the lowest quote was for the friendly skies, less if you factor in a rental car or bus to & from the coin operated airports. Not once did someone check my luggage for fingernail clippers, never waited in a line. Did a night landing into Elsinore in a big tail dragger. If you are into aviation you know what that means. Come on, you can't BUY that kinda fun! It was an adventure. Ha ha, you missed!

>So you were forced to pay the difference in cost for >those who flaked out and didn't show up? The engine was newly rebuilt and there was a fluttering oil pressure indication on the same engine. So we landed to inspect. The pilot remarked about how calm the passengers were through the whole ordeal ( can't scare damn skydivers) I told him I had faith that he could deadstick this airplane down in a highschool football field. Plenty were landed safely in farm fields while germans were shooting at the pilots. Meanwhile do you know how many modern day Jetliners have been landed off the airport safely enough that the aircraft could be flown off again? One! And there are many more jet liners than DC-3s.

If its really cold Jari won't jump but the rest of us still jump year around.

I leave mine in SLO even though I do some free fly.

Me to also bytch

Nice snag Dave, Funny I was doing this very thing yesterday ( with no catch) when a friend had a mal. Even though I didn't get it I got some cool video for my attempts. And I had his gear in the landing area before he got there.

In a few months they should have the one from 2003 festival available. Its got some good stuff too!

And it sounds like he is way faster than Howard. Well I did say no rush.

Man, that is a rip off! If I hitch a ride on one of these planes, I don't want to pay more than $100 bucks roundtrip. Why, because we would basically be treated like a piece of cargo, no seats, no bathrooms, no flight attendants to fluff my pillow and no food! Not to mention, they would probably forget to pressurize the cabin, expect some hypoxia. We won't need to drink very much booze to get wasted! It's ghetto style! I think the military transports at least give their boys seats to sit it! We would have nothing, I'm assuming that they are tearing out most if not all the seats in the DC-9. It is so easy for them to just let us tag a long for the trip, they have to fly there anyway, why not charge a smaller fee, just to help get people there? I'm with you Phreezone, if they end up charging more than that, I'll just find my own ride. I'm the guy that went on the three last year to Rantoul. I'll say it wasn't a rip-off. The plan was to get maybe 10 socal jumpers to help differ Some of the costs of fuel. Well they only got 2 going out and just me coming home ( they split two days early ). We had plenty of room, coolers filled with drinks & snacks. Pick-up at elsinore, drop-off right at the event to be greeted by fellow drunken jump brethren. Fantastic vistas of the rockies from a few hundred feet above them. Fantastic cloud visuals on the way home. Greeted enthusiastically at every stop for gas ( we had more stops for oil than gas) by the airport staff, as we were flying in a fantastic part of aviation history. Was featured in a small newspaper article in a small Texas town when the reporter came out to airport to see what was going on with the big shiny bird. Performed fly-bys at each stop. Guest to a great deal of middle america hospitality. Had a precautionary engine out landing, thats in a BIG tail-dragger in a 10 knot crosswind. Greaser! Nice one Skip! No transfers- no lay overs. No TSA dweeb, who is unfit to inspect a toaster, checked my rig for WMD. Nobody even checked our WMD for WMD and they arrived to be shared at rantoul. No security cavity search. I didn't sit cramped next to joe salesman or grandma who hates to fly. I sat in the jump seat and chatted with the crew on the way back, as if I was one of the crew. Helped with oil and fuel and kicked the tires with the other "Ramp-rats" whenever other specialty aircraft got in the gas line. I'll do that anyday rather than sit in a WUFFO terminal with the rest of the walk-on baggage. It was one of the highlights of going to Rantoul, an adventure, and I would do it again!

All BS aside I have seen the matter 2 in use. It is a very amazing suit indeed. I would have to say its in a category all on its own in terms of a very fast, flat glide angle. Very impressive. Nothing like the original matter or S-fly, crossbow products have been reviewed. It will be at least a month until I get to demo one in my size. But I do know that most of the first production suits are in the hands of some base jumpers who have previous experience on S3s so you may get a fresh view review from the folks on that forum.

I don't use any of the mods For various personal reasons but when you come down to it if you have a cuttaway that can be attributed directly to any of the reasons that the mods would have cured you are just waiting money. New freebag if lost = $275.00 Reserve repack= $60- $75 Vs Proper length main bridle new with PC= $100 ( if not free as an option on new gear) Container cut corners ( free on new gear ) cheap by a rigger. Packing gromet to bridle= free your life= priceless

The slow-up is that there is still a lot of work going on in the plane. With extra contractors doing it and the paper trail that follows. The Idea of such a plane baffles many a jumper and DZO alike. I'm sure the owners see value in its potential for movie work ( the local DC3 is a movie and commercial star many times over ). Then there is the summer boogie circuit ( how many of you winers have been tweeked by the lack-o-jet at WFFC ?). There may be money to be made with in other ways that we will never know. But it probably won't fly locally that much, due to the shear expense. It will be an attraction for those that can't make it to WFFC and those that are on the fence about swinging by Perris during the winter, spring and fall Boogies. It will probably only fly then once a day if not once each boogie. Think of it as just another jump platform option to have in your logbook. BTW please don't think that everyone down here has some kind of elitist attitude. This is just not the case.

CRWdogs add weight all the time to match wingloadings. While I don't consider it unsafe, I do think it's a negative factor and probably unnecessary for anything other than CRW. It's decidedly not equivalent to downsizing to an equivalent wingloading on a smaller canopy. Bob What he said. I did it when my size of lightning wasn't available for a CReW camp. CReW jumps are a long time to be wearing lead around your waist. Would have rather been on the right size..... and really made me think about RESERVE loading.