VectorBoy

I transitioned over from being an atmonaught. How is the suit holding up?

It depends, do you want an instructor,, do you want a reeaallly good instructor, will you promiss to follow the recommendations so that you won't die before its time, Do you promiss to not start rumors about regs and trains? As a licensed skydiver do you promiss to accept full responsibility for your actions and decisions?

Not really. They are use to more government intervention and management. That is there not here. I doubt their jumpers are happy about it. You can examine the level of aviation oversight by their governments and what the the FAA does for us. I say does for us because they work for us as an example. Your best bet would be to talk to a foreign pilot that has traveled here and seen some of the freedoms and services we have and take for granted as general aviation airspace users that are just not offered anywhere else. I would like to think our USPA is more an agency of the culture its serves and not others subject to different rules. It merits discussion, it merits an editorial, anything to make people think and not be complacent. Just like last years event were we lost two non skydivers from slipping out the back of tandem harnesses. Just like forgetting leg straps under a wingsuit. Complacency kills. *** Either way, I suppose it doesn't matter at this point. it's only a matter of time before another newbie wingsuiter burns in, takes out a tandem, hits an airplane, or has an off landing that turns into a nasty situation. And the "correct" answer will be "they're an experienced skydiver, they knew what they were doing when they jumped out of the plane." This is an emotionally charged response but it is completely correct. There is no way of knowing when the next wingsuit incident will take place. No way to predict someones suitability to the particular discipline and worse yet no way to save someone regardless of instructor capability or a student's actual suitability to be in the suit once the first flight is taken. Everybody who puts on a wingsuit for the first time is completely on their own with only their experience and knowledge to protect them. If a jumper wants to short cut the recommended experience required while they are on their first flight all alone, this might just get them killed. We are using emotion in a discussion yet we don't have a clear failure mode or exact reason why things went bad in a couple of events. We are proposing sweeping changes to a system without having identified the weak link in it. The new system can not guarantee to protect us from issues, currently, that are claimed to have failed us that haven't even been identified. None of this would fly in an NTSB aircraft crash or a crime scene investigation report. BTW a wingsuiter has already hit a plane and lived. That event created changes locally in WS operations that have made it into the BMI instructor program and the way all drop pilots operate when a wingsuiter is on the load. "off landing that turns into a nasty situation" -----Sounds like a third of our CRW jumps. Should CRW expect further regulation?. You can't re-write the constitution because of a bad feeling.

WOW nice videos. You were in good company and hopefully you made more.

On a different note. I have been following this thread and when I actually have some time to sit down and type something longer out I will. A few good comments so far but just keep in mind, you don't know what you don't know and be careful what you ask for, you just might get it. Somehow I expected a post in these regards by now. Although I can't predict your stance on the matter.

Well you better because that on going thread regarding the editorial is a nasty monster itself and needs to be buried on page four. We need more pictures of new suits and flocks and puffies and Brian's BASE trip. Hey any more pictures of naked rodeos? I'm down with that.

Sometimes AFF jumps go that way too, and even the best "super" AFF instructor heroes in the world can't get to a rogue student either. Let's just do away with that program. Not sometimes BUT Rarely does that happen! level 3 anyone? But do that in Jay stokes AFFI course and you ain't passing..... I've seen him make grown people cry over it. Of course there are shitty AffI course instructors and shitty AFF instructors and shitty tandem masters, shitty DZOs, Shitty S&TAs, Shitty pilots. But they are a small percentage, Hopefully very small. Should we get rid of all that? Remember not one, repeat after me, not a single one instructor regardless of back ground or capability can ever correct a student in a wingsuit, while also wearing a wingsuit them selves and that is the way we conduct first flight courses love. These were hard facts back when there were only two companies making suits and just a handfull of personal suits in the world and now that wingsuiting has given us over 5 companies and a growth that you describe as exponential its still true. You just can't alter the laws of physics. You can how ever do a search of these very discussions from back in 04,05 etc. Nothing has changed, there are no new angles, just new faces. Question: Do you really have a pro rating?

This proposal has not yet passed and if it does as is or in some variation or not at all, increased awareness is NOT a bad thing though sticking your head in the sand to save the same old same old will put us squarely in a bad position. Scott Callantine D-16437 USPA TM-I, S/L-I What?!?! Sticking our head in the sand to save the same old same old? How exactly has the same old not worked as recommended? A long time ago there were people who were trusted to take the box of demo suits from one boogie to the next, call them suit porters. It was a thankless demeaning job. An informal instructor title was created for these poor schleps to give them more prestige than just being suit porters. Since they had some, even if only a little, knowledge of wingsuit flying they could answer the off the wall questions someone wanting to demo a suit might ask even though all the common sense stuff is handled by the manual, Later to save money the factory just mailed the suits to the next event. After an attempt to save money on shipping insurance failed and demo suits were lost in transit the factory encouraged these suit porters who were now factory fleet instructors to invest in their own training suits. Boom now we have our modern instructors of the current day. The company tells us that they are awefully good at what they do and should be sought out for instruction. Fair enough. One of the most prolific and respected suit porter/ instructors , Chuck Blue, with over 45 suits from every manufacturer and a lot of experience takes up a new bird. The report is that the new bird does a flat spin so hard he pops blood vessels in his eyes, but recovers and goes on to get a great deal of experience himself. I haven't personally seen the video, or any videos of flat spins, but I except their statements as honest enough. That bird, Jeff N, goes on to get a great deal of his own experience. Not just in flying but also in teaching new birds , organizing and suit development for Tony suits. Years later with a lot of experience under his belt he takes up a new bird. An experienced skydiver well within the guidelines of the USPA recommendations and this new bird, she gets unstable, words like flat spin are used post dive to describe the jump ( yes she lived). We are talking two of the most experienced wingsuit instructors at the time of these events. You will not argue that and win. Both take up students well within the excepted guidelines, no jump number funny business. The jumps go less than perfect but yet our heros are helpless to intervene and save the day. They can only watch and hope the students save themselves. Which in these cases they do. So now we have a couple of different proposals from a few different groups advocating the creation of a super USPA instructor. " to ensure they can actually fly like they say they can fly" For what? I don't care if you create a person who can fly a wingsuit to mars and back before beerlight. When things go bad or real bad on a first flight what will they give us? Better hand signals? Fantastic horrific video? Do you really expect them to grapple with a flying cuisinart of a tumbling first flight gone bad? Your USPA instructor will be helpless despite flying skills just like anyone before instructor or otherwise. What do you really want a more capable instructor , like that will make a difference, or do you want gear porters to stop letting under qualified jumpers get their hands on gear? Good luck stopping loaners and classified deals. Better yet how about creating a super knowledge database with everything one needs to know in regards to wingsuits. Put it on 3 DVDs. yes it will fit we are not that special. BTW stop saying some of us have our heads in the sand. We see the facts, we understand the emotions and we see those very emotions cloud your vision from the facts. In fact we can say you guys have your heads in your own cool-aid.

What? I'm the most diplomatic anti establishment wingsuit guy I know. Alright, I'll try to keep my vulgarity in check. Its hard when I don't have the artist formerly known as Voodoo to work with in these matters. And I do have compasion for the group that but this together. They are not strangers to me, I understand their delema. But despite what everybody is saying this is just a more thought out polished response to previous years "consumer panic". There is no regulation coming, no train to run us over. The governing body does not have the resources. There is no infrastructure to support it. There is absolutely no need for it and that is easily proven. Its a cycle that keeps repeating itself here every few years, largely rumor driven, nothing more.

Does anybody else who has been around wingsuiting since the very early part of the decade, before any WS factory instructor program, think its Ironic that we sit here looking at a proposal of sweeping changes of a regulatory nature motivated on the high profile ill actions of a derelict select few within the factory instructor ranks? The BMI program, the first, was concocted to ensure the quality of the FFC. It was there to protect us from rebel mentors of unknown quality and integrity. Remember the rebel WS instructors that were portrayed to be the doom of us all? Those rebel I s were projected to plunge wingsuiting into bannishment at one DZ after another. Those rebels could never be as good as the factory guys that were personally screened and flight test by the man Jari himself, with Chuck and Scott standing by. Remember those days? Chuck himself conceded that once they left he had no control over what happened. All that was between them and their dropzones. Then Pf came out with their roster. The rebel instructor guys never went away, some flourished. It was perfectly acceptable just to be a mentor under the recommendation system. So we had the factory guys doing their course. Every once in a while some of them would do something silly we would all take notice but most of the real work was getting done. Then you had the independent instructors making their contribution of new wingsuiters without their Jari stamp. Just a low profile contribution of first timers. We also had the people that had more than enough jumps 500+ and did it on their own. This jived with the recommendations. So now we want to turn the whole thing upside down and close off avenues to first flights from the privateers and those with enough experience? Really not the disciplines target problem area I would say. All of this because of a few problem spots from the factory institution that was created to protect us from problems? How bout the chief factory guys clean house first, or at least attempt some rehabilitation of the ranks of those who were trusted to protect us from bannishment before we give it up to higher order management?

If someone is motivated enough to end someone else's wingsuit teaching career by reporting them to the USPA, why can't they simply out them publicly in the current arrangement? No one is preventing a "BAD Wingsuit Instructor - Avoid these people" thread from popping up here on DZ.com, or a "Wanted" style poster being put up at the DZ. Yes you could have a sticky on this page featuring the culprits. There could be a section in each of the quarterly factory online newsletters. A little blurb in wingsuit world news. Scratch the names off the instructor roster. Nothing harsh mind you. Just something very diplomatic and professional. Then there is always a gentle reminder to those that apply to become a factory instructor. How its a serious responsibility, the publics perception of our beloved sport is at risk along with lives. How its a great honor and a priveledge, a priveledge that can be revoked if needed. How about just as carefull screening of the instructor candidates as first flight candidates. " Why" do you wan't to become an instructor? To get rich, get chicks, get free suits, respect? Nobody wants to be the bad guy, or the lead bad guy, when it comes to self policing. We want big brother to handle the dirty work and keep our hands clean.

Well as I understand it this proposal was initially, partially drafted before the recent fatalities. Not driven by an event in particular but more from the dissatisfaction of a few with what we currently have for wingsuit instruction. Exactly what is lacking in the current system and precisely how it is failing is a bit of a mystery. The statement that a factory instructor would be willing to bend the current recommendations just to "make a sale" is pure speculation. I'm sure rules have been disregarded for all kinds of bad reasons more like personal judgement and factors that can't be placed back on factory sale quotas. Maybe the factories love this movement because they can stop wasting resources on instructor qualification and all the responsibility can be shifted to a governing body. The makers can get back to just designing and selling suits. After all nobody is taking the roster guys seriously, not even the guys on the roster. It would be a load off them for sure. Despite the claim this draft is not being driven by incidents or events. There is this constant abstract correlation between the recent fatalities but yet no direct link of a specific failure mode of the current system to these events. Sadly this is a lot like rolling out the gimp in a wheelchair to support the Brady bill ( y'all let me know if I need to delete this sentence if it violates forum rules). Yet everything proposed does nothing to guarantee these events won't happen again. This reminds me of some canopy skills related proposal by jumpers themselves ( we) that was going around back in 03 were jumpers would have to demonstrate skills before being allowed on higher performance canopys or a higher loading of their current wing, a grass roots movement with USPA regulation. The responsibility would have fallen largely on the DZ's and the S&TAs or really the extra S&TAs needed to enforce this. The increase in staffing cost would in no doubt be passed on to jump tickets. Whatever happened to that one?

.. Yeah, that's what we said in the UK... Now look what's happened... http://www.ukskydiver.co.uk/cms/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=17514 Looks like some grandfathering is happening.

I know the "altitude awareness" argument is bullshit; Race jumped at that altitude all the time. Douglas, altitude lack of awareness phenom has nothing to do with actual altitude. Usually its being engrossed in an activity with disregard to altitude to the detriment of the jumper. But in this very case it refers to a lack of the typical visual cues we are use to seeing. Ever flown over water with no land in sight? How about an un-typical barren moon like scape different from the farm scape at our DZ back home? I know I had some trouble with the terrain at Moab for a few seconds on a jump or two and I have way more jumps than Price did. I've experienced the exact same over water with no land in sight both piloting aircraft and under canopy. Its not bull shit. Its documented but outside of any experience you've had with it. Not that I'm advocating you start swooping large ponds to experience it. Remember I personally don't instruct anymore. I don't have a horse in the race, don't even have a horse suitable for a first flight course in the stable. Anything that happens won't happen to me or effect me personally one way or another. After reading the proposal in whole I don't think it will pass on its own merit unless there is some secret unknown legal action presently breathing down necks to get it in writing. Something akin to the skyride counter suit and wouldn't that be embarrassing for the governing body, twice. So lets be clear my head is not in the sand, I have no fear one way or another, I'm not stupid enough to walk down any rail tracks so that is not a concern of being run over. If this is beyond the well meaning intentions of a small group of friendly wingsuiters and more a concession to a pressing legal matter that has a gag order then its beyond a wingsuit forum discussion. It will explode in the bonfire, general,instructor, incidents forums in the end. Time to join basejumper dot com or start the non -USPA dropzone forum @dropzone.com I guess.

No other skydiving discipline has moved at the pace of wingsuiting. People weren't showing up on DZ's 10 years ago saying "I wanna learn to skydive so I can freefly." " Wrong again after a 14 year lay off I came back into the sport just to Freefly. Pat Works came back in after a pretty good RW career again just to freefly. I know another old guy with a lay off that came back. We wingsuiters are not growing as fast as you claim. The wingsuiters do not have sequential formations the size that the FFers can pull off. We will not be surpassing them any time soon.

Whoa! What exactly caused Price to go in? Do you know? Are you sure? There were a few people who chimed in to posts after Dan went in with statements like " this couldn't happen under our instructional program its the most stringent"----- borderline marketing. Huge contempt for this!!!!!!! These lads payed the ultimate price, no payment higher. Don't use them to prove your point you couldn't prove otherwise with real facts.

It doesn't matter what I want.... it will never happen. Everbody who sez its coming is just breathing hard. Lets see it was coming in 03, 04, 05 then it went away then in 0....

If wanting to get some of the shitty instructors out of the wingsuit instructing game makes me a pussy, Glen then all I can say to that is "meow." Well Douglas I can see you are taking this personal. After all everybody behind this "thing" only wants to do good things, I will concede that all intentions are good from the movement. But do realize that taking WSI from a recommendation level to a governed, regulated level will not clean up its act. Not like some hope. You , Jarno, me we've all been burned by frauds and hacks in the name of the badge. Its painful but as real men we have to get over it and take it like a man, dammit! This is just not a solution, not like you want. Not Like I want. We can't let our personal disdain for the bad factory guys manifest itself into something like this. This is the creation of a bigger abomination. I love you like an inspiring older brother, with all you have accomplished in such a short time in the sport. I'll still love you but I can't on this one instance forgive. Its not me calling you a pussies Douglas, brother. The governing body has been around this sport a long time, seen a lot of bad ideas, deadly practices as an SOP. Maybe even had their hands on a corpse. You will have to arguably prove the need. They will be harsh. Hopefully not openly. To everyone else in the " movement" shut yer fuckin pussie mouth!

Jarno you get me but not quite. I am the loudest voice when someone is abusing a manufacturers rating or miss representing the authority it brings, which is none. The frauds have given us all that have been around a while a lot of ammo. But you know what? There are instructors on the lists and off that do good work when it comes to first flights. Some always did from the start. The fact that I personally haven't had to give one in four years and that I meet more and more nice young people that have wingsuit skills and just also happen to have a rating. I haven't been aware of any abuses like in the old days. Good news does not merrit gossip but bad news travels fast. The good work is being done. Trust me in my "perfect world" there wouldn't be any wingsuit instructors per se. Instead just like in the CRW and canopy piloting disciplines you would have sought after very experienced people that can guide some one new through the first flight and on through various levels and challenges. More like a mentor organizer. In a perfect world every DZ would have a little of each but currently we have to travel a little , its worth a little road tripping I think. Next I'd like to point out you not one but two-epic fails First you have no ( as in none, zilch, zero, nada) correlation between any fatalities and the current system of available WS instructors and how they conduct operations. If you think its hard to change my perspective on the matter without an once of conclusive data your dreaming if this approach will work with a board who has done this for a very long time who will easily screwtinize every nuance of a presentation with no hard facts. It will get torn to shreds. The presenters will get screwed, thanked on the way out, but you know. laughed at. Your second epic fail is the failure to realize your plight ( its not mine) is nothing next to perfectly healthy jumpers flying perfectly flying canopies at high loadings into the perfectly hard ground.... The USPA would love to solve that one if it was as easy as throwing out some regs. They would be the heros. The canopy manufacturers would love it all around too. Shit, S&TAs are having a hard time keeping jumpers from doing 270s into each other on approach at DZs where anything over a 90 on approach is already BANNED! This is your second epic fail and its a biggy. You claim we have a train headed our way, brother you don't even have a steam whistle. I'm not a customer nor provider of wingsuit instruction so when your train comes buy I simply step to the side off the track, which currently looks pretty rusted. You will never ever sell me on a bigger improved shinyer turd than our current wingsuit instructor program. A governing body level wingsuit instructor turd will still smell like shit. I guarantee you will have fewer participants in the program from our current rank of wingsuit instructors. You might even be able to travel all together to boogies in a jetta.

Wingsuit flying might not fully be the same as teaching an AFF course, but its also not on the same level as sitfly or CREW coaching. Its introducing many new aspects in a jump in terms of gear, navigation, body restriction and added procedures in case of emergency. And thats all next to added difficulty in movement (flying). Do you even do CRW? Pulling a two stack at the end of a skydive with a sport canopy or larger more complex formations? CRW requires way more awareness in all of those things you mention above than wingsuits ever will. Emergency procedures that can change based on the situation. The possibility of being encouraged NOT to cut away until somebody else in the formation accomplishes some form of recovery first? Much more complex than a tandem. You are right there is no comparison between CRW and WS, WS is a walk in the park by comparison. CRW relies on mentors and coaches that are not on any factory roster and will probably never see a USPA CRW instructor rating. Pretty good job of self policing and CRW is not new. Its been around for decades. Once more with the right gear and the right coach you are encouraged to play CRW with 50 jumps if you have the balls. This thing going on now is 100% organized, written and set up by wingsuit flyers. Thinking about our best interests. Making sure we advance. Instead of making sure we get held back later.. With the current situation, and growing attention for our sport. keeping things the way they are (hiding our heads in the sand) is THE way to make sure we wake up one day and find a big set of rules and regulations made up by people who have no clue what it is we do... Everyone thinks its 'them' making rules, while in fact it's 'us'....maybe not everyone here personaly. But people who know what they are talking about. Regulated schmegmalated what secret pipeline of information leads you to believe that the regulators are coming? I don't know what I don't know but I do know that every time somebody is running around screaming we are going to get pinched by the regulator, complaining we all have our heads in the sand its typically one of our own with a pathological conspiracy theory disorder with their head up their ass trying to prove something they made up out of thin air "poof". I can just see when these proposals are brought before the governing body the one word that pop into their minds regarding the presenters of this proposal, "Pussies"

Really breaking it down....It looks to me like the only critique people have on this is 'ooh shit...I may need to do 2 jumps to prove my skills' and follow one or two days of class to get everyone on one line in terms of instruction..... You are way over simplifying the probable end result. Many quality guys just won't take the steps to become the new and improved wingsuit instructor regardless of costs or time required. Some of us have a life. Two days to me are a pretty valuable resource not to be squandered. All of this has come about because we , some of us not all, are tired from personal experience of a few assholes we believe to be tarnishing a part of our sport. So instead of encouraging the assholes to stop being assholes some of you want a more powerful sanctioned authoratative asshole...... NOT ME! When it comes to assholes less is more! You can quote me on that.

But have "we" considered the price of this new rating system? I'm just a fun jumper. I don't make any money from jumping this is not my job. No one has ever given me a suit or gear for free. I've taught people for the love of the sport. If the process of being a wingsuit instructor becomes too much of a hassle, I'll simply stop doing it. Yes as much as we like to complain about the gimmie ratings doled out over beers to friends we also need to consider that some of those easy bake ratings have given us some quality and available instructors along with some of the problem instructors. Those problem guys were ( are) not that big of a bad deal really, they are just silly. People complain now that there are no instructors, of any quality or origin, or demo suits in their area. Wipe the slate clean and start over with a smaller fraction of governing body approved wingsuit instructors in fewer places and we will see a monumental increase in the plan C method of wingsuit first flights. 1 Buy a used suit ( all of those old style S3, V2, SM1 are so last year now that the new suits are out with a larger number following letter and a much better bargain than those classics. 2 Read the PDF manuals online. Read all of them its free 3 Watch a lot of You Tube video stuff for posing. Skip this step if you want.its only a recommendation. 4 Go to a boogie were the S&TA doesn't know you from Adam. After playing it cool and well behaved. Wait till manefest is real busy and get on a load solo. For all of those viva la revolussheeiion movement guys that promiss to get out and be more places more often, who's traveling expenses will get grafted on to the costs of a first flight. You should get paid you are offically rated now not like all those other clowns from previous years..... My logic flow chart sez this will lead us to an increase in plan C first flights. Not all plan Cs are created equal, some have even lower quality. Be real.

wingsuit flying is definitely in need some some stricter policy as to who teaches what. Viva la revolution.. How do you conclude that? For example if someone has more than 500 jumps it is excepted by governing body guidelines, and the manufacturers that they can just read the manual and proceed from there. Unless they want the benefit of some 1 on 1 with an experienced coach, instructor it is not a mandatory recommendation. 500 jumps use to mean someone had a few seasons of experiences, knew to take thing slower and not push the envelope,think about safety more, maybe even have had a cut away and saved themselves. Does this need to change? AND WHY, examples please? What exactly are some current wingsuit instructors doing wrong or not doing that is drasticly different and harmful than someone ( with experience) just reading the manual on there own? I gotta say this is the only skydiving discipline in my experience that has its own built in "wuffo fear/ TSA faction" within its ranks........ I expected much smarter than this.

What do you call a guy on a crotch rocket wearing only shorts, shades and sneakers?? An optimist A doner

Andreea you kill me.