dcfreefly

I'm 5'6 and weight has ranged between 170 - 190 in the last few years. I've tried a bunch of suits over the years and by far my favorite is vertical. Quality is super high and service is remarkable. I have multiple suits, and the ones I wear depend on what I'm doing. For dynamic flying in the tunnel, I wear a fairly tight tonfly 630 (replacing with a vertical fusion), when I fly VFS I wear a medium fit raptor, if it's warm out and I'm angle flying, full shorty. I can do all types of flying in everyone of those suits, but what I choose to wear makes a difference in effort required and flying performance. You're new, and you're not gonna get a bunch of suits right off the bat, nor do you need them. An awesome well rounded suit is the Viper by Vertical. Super solid construction and great for all types of flying. A medium fit would probably serve your body type best and the suit will serve you well into your progression. I just ordered a new Viper last week.

I live in Ontario and work about 15 minutes away from the Niagara Tunnel quite often - sometimes, I stay in the hotel directly across the street and literally could walk for 60 seconds and be there. I make lots of cash and am not shy to spend it on random shit. Point is, I would not spend a dime on that thing. My home tunnel currently is Montreal. If for some reason I couldn't go to Montreal and my options were either Niagara or no tunnel, I would choose no tunnel. Save your cash for when you'll be flying in Seattle. If you're planning to be in the area often in the near future, there is a tunnel currently under construction in Oakville, about 45 minutes or so from Niagara. The projected opening date is November/December. All of the components are currently onsite, and the foundation/footings have recently been poured. Regarding coaching, absolutely get it. It's invaluable.

Skyventure Montreal has a couple of DZ's within an hours drive

How long have you had it? Do you keep the visor open a lot on the ground? There are little o-ring like thingys in the closing mechanism which are what hold the tension to keep the visor closed. They come in different strengths and I've seen different types in both g2's and g3's. They also can wear and lose their strength. I recently had the issue and have replaced mine with the stronger versions and now it's perfect. Shoot cookie an email and ask them to send you some repacements.

14 footer - construction planned for spring. Been to the site already, it's not Mississauga, but it's very close to there.

Ordered one in October 2010 and got it in about 5 days ( got rush order ). Suit fit perfect and seemed very solid. Since then I got about 50 hours in the tunnel on it as well as several hundred jumps and it's been perfect. My entire experience with Ouragan was excellent.

Wow, you've ordered suits from most of the manufacturers to come to this conclusion? I've bought suits from 4 manufacturers in the last few years. The last two suits were from Ouragan (last year) and Vertical (this year). I had responses from both companies on the same days I made the inquiries and both called to confirm the measurements and details of my orders to make sure everything was perfect. I received my Ouragan in 6 days and my vertical in 2 weeks. The pre-purchase and post-purchase service has been absolutely excellent and has exceeded my expectations. Both suits also fit perfectly and are ridiculously high quality. I have several hundred jumps and about 35 hours in the tunnel on the Ouragan and it's still like new. Doesn't seem congruent with your experience of all manufacturers being not that great with delivery times and communicating to their customers.

I tried contacting firefly several times earlier this year to order a suit via email and telephone. Never heard back from them. Would never consider this company again.

Ha. First time I flew in his plane, the initial briefing point was "If you fart, he will drop you where you are" Yup, and that's no exaggeration. Back in 2001 at Quincy, he tossed us out about 4 miles from the airport cause someone crapped themselves.

Like I mentioned before, while you can't directly practice these specific things in the tunnel, overall tunnel flying can help improve in these areas. Prior to my tunnel addiction, I could barely hang in a head down 4 way that left the plane together. I can only remember a few times where I exited unlinked, and actually made it to the jump, let alone docked on something. After about 25 hours in the tunnel over the winter, I was last diver on 8 and 10 ways getting into the jumps relatively quickly (relative means not quick by quick standards, but compared to before - I was docked onto the base within 12 - 18 seconds after exiting). This was only after about 10 jumps - and I hadn't jumped for about 6 months prior to this. After about 100 - 150 jumps post tunnel, I was doing 20, 30 and 40 ways. There is no way that I would have been doing this without the tunnel ( i did attend a lot of camps and got coaching from the best during my first 100ish jumps after the tunnel - and I had about 800 jumps so already had some general sky awareness) Now, I had to spend ALOT of jumps improving on diving, floating, exits ect. and still have a ton of work to do, but there's no doubt there were tremendous improvements that are directly attributed to flying in the tunnel. IMO, its best to do both. Both skydivers-only and tunnel-only peeps will be left in the dust by those who do BOTH regularly and consistently. I fucking love the tunnel and I fucking love skydiving.

>>The exit itself is different than a tunnel. The wind direction and speed are different, and making the transition from the door to freefall, and flying in the subterminal air on the hill are not things you can learn in the tunnel.

Cheaper than that depending on which tunnel you fly at. I've done 30 to 35 hours in the last year or so and it's the best money Ive ever spent. It would have taken me years to get where I'm at without it - if at all. It gets cheaper when you start splitting costs with other flyers. Around 200 bucks an hour if your doing 4 way. That can be achieved very quickly with belly flying and substantially longer if freeflying.

Tried buying a firefly earlier this year but never got a single email or phone call returned after many attempts. Also ordered some FF pants from Freakin suits only to get them with the sized eff'd up and the wrong design. Oh, and I should mention that I paid rush for the pants which was not returned to me. I believe you get what you pay for, quality and service, and will happily dish out big coin for both from suit manufacturers like Ouragan, Vertical and Liquid Sky.

Call the tunnel (514) 524-4000

I live in Windsor, Ontario also and while I do travel often for work and jump at several other DZ's, when Im local I jump at both Midwest Freefall and Skydive Tecumseh. Both are great DZ's. Midwest Freefall is a about 45 minutes from the bridge and Tecumseh about 1 hour.

I've heard that Deland has banned them - of course in no way am I saying that is in fact true, simply a comment from someone when I mentioned I was buying one for cheeeap...

Packer didn't cock my pilot chute

For those of you with G2's, can you please comment on whether you found the fit of the helmet "loosen up" after wearing it for a while? I tried on a large last week and it was just a tiny bit snug. They didnt have an XL in the G2 but I tried on a GAS in XL and it fit well. If the G2 in Large loosened up even slightly, it would be perfect. Thanks! DC

Read the book "Psychocybernetics" by Maxwell Maltz. It is filled with valuable information that will help you overcome any performance issues you may have along with any subconscious beliefs that might be sabotaging your success.

Haven't flown in AZ yet so not sure about the temps, but I typically wear long sleeve rash guards that are either made for surf or grappling. Most comfortable rash guards I got are made by Manto and can be bought online from budovideos.com

Anyone know if a Mich vertical record has been set or attempted yet?

Beowulf is right on. I don't think anyones's keeping stats, and comparing yourself to others can be a bad idea and lead to a lot of frustration. If you read through some of the threads on tunnel progression, you'll see that it varies drastically. Also, the learning curve doesn't seem to be linear. The first several hours can be very frustrating, but once things start to click and come together, the learning curve typically becomes steeper. My progression was something like this: About an hour belly Around 2 hours back flying and walking About 4 hours sit flying An hour or so of HD on the net 4ish hours working on HD For me, getting a decent sit was more difficult than HD for some reason. I was flying off the net in HD after about 20 minutes and holding it relatively well. After that I started working on sit to head transitions and occasionally did some work on the net. I have around 12 hours or so now and my sit is relatively decent, can do both sit to sit front and back loops, carve (not well), take docks etc. I've got all the sit to HD transitions, front flip, back flip, cartwheels in both directions, Head to head front and back flip, stalling, taking docks, carving etc. All of the above needs lots of cleaning up, so by no means would I consider myself proficient. I've seen others with 4 or 5 hours total flying very well on their heads, and yet others who have well over 10 hours that are still sit flying. I have about 1000 jumps, 500 freefly with about half or less being head down. My head down in the sky was so-so, with it being on the better side the more current I was (I haven't jumped since October and have done my last 6 or 7 hours in the tunnel after that, so I can't comment yet specifically on how I've improved in the sky.) A few things that I know would have made my progression faster... More leg and core strength as well as flexibility. I'm short and stalky, so I initially had to fight at first for lift. Also, if you are closer to the tunnel, you'd probably better off doing shorter amounts of flying over longer periods of time. I've always done at least an hour in a day on every trip and ended up getting pretty burnt out by my later blocks. If I lived closer to the tunnel, I would have done 30 minutes per week instead of an hour. Also, about 9 hours of the time of done has been with awesome coaches. The time I've flown previously without a coach, I didn't progress much. Get a coach!!! Finally, prepare to become addicted. I started in May last year with the intention of doing 4 or 5 hours. I ended up doing around 12 or so and I've already book 7 hours for this month and next month. Expensive as he'll, but worth every penny

>>And the standard for this is to be within 25 degrees, not dead on. It would be nearly impossible to get the outer planets (yes, Pluto is a fucking planet, nerds) given their long revolution and Pluto being off axis.

There are many variables that will determine how long it will take someone to get to the level of flying on their head in the tunnel. Even if you you were able to fly head down proficiently in the sky, it is extremely unlikely that you'd be able to do it in the tunnel within 10 minutes. It can be anywhere between 1 hour and 10 hours of tunnel time before a flyer is ready to start training in HD. Then potentially one to several hours of net work before lifting off stable. If you can afford it, do as much time as possible and get a good coach. Its worth every penny.

>>Sacrifices come in many shapes and sizes. The sacrifice Christ made was to neutralize the consequences of sin and remove the barrier between us and God. Availing us to the personal relationship God created us for.