Tracking Suit vs Wing Suit?

[Doug_Davis 0]

Ive been reading up on tracking and wing suits.
Tracking and angle flying is something Im very interested in. As is wingsuit flying, once I get the experience and numbers I need.

I hadnt considered buying a tracking suit previously, as I would assume that as you move into steeper angle flying you would want more of a FF suit instead.
But then I saw this:
"For skydivers and BASE jumpers, tracking is a crucial step towards wingsuit flying. Whether you plan to move up to a wingsuit, or just hone your tracking skills, the SUMO is the answer."

Is getting a tracking suit really that crucial? Or is it just marketing by the company to sell more gear?

[ridebmxbikes 0]

Its not really crucial to get a tracking suit before wingsuit as there are beginner wingsuits. Learning his to track safely with others is really important to learn in terms of flight patterns and proximity to others. Ask someone at your dz about who likes tracking jumps and have them do some coaching on different body positions and how to fly a safe pattern.

[jakee 1,558]

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Tracking and angle flying is something Im very interested in. As is wingsuit flying, once I get the experience and numbers I need.

I hadnt considered buying a tracking suit previously, as I would assume that as you move into steeper angle flying you would want more of a FF suit instead.

First you need to think about who you want to be jumping with and what they're using. Tracking suits and FF suits are not compatible with each other within the same group dive. In the skydiving environment the vast majority of tracking, tracing, atmonauti, 3D-flying or whatever you want to call it is going to be done with FF suits.

Quote

"For skydivers and BASE jumpers, tracking is a crucial step towards wingsuit flying. Whether you plan to move up to a wingsuit, or just hone your tracking skills, the SUMO is the answer."

Is getting a tracking suit really that crucial? Or is it just marketing by the company to sell more gear?

Squirrel is primarily geared towards the BASE environment. In BASE tracking is a hugely underrated skill set (and I'm as guilty of neglecting it as anyone) but one that, when you nail it, can be hugely satisfying.

In skydiving a tracking suit can be a helpful step towards wingsuits, especially with some beginner wingsuits getting bigger and more powerful, but I certainly wouldn't say it's crucial to own one first.

And at your stage, a decent FF suit will be a massively more versatile investment.

Do you want to have an ideagasm?

[maretus 0]

Doug_Davis

I hadnt considered buying a tracking suit previously, as I would assume that as you move into steeper angle flying you would want more of a FF suit instead.
But then I saw this:
"For skydivers and BASE jumpers, tracking is a crucial step towards wingsuit flying. Whether you plan to move up to a wingsuit, or just hone your tracking skills, the SUMO is the answer."

Is getting a tracking suit really that crucial? Or is it just marketing by the company to sell more gear?

As long as you are talking about skydiving I would even go as far as saying that getting a tracking suit is waste of money as there are perfectly good beginner WS´s around and doing tracking / angle dives in tracking suit just doesn´t work (as no one else is flying tracking suits on those anyway).

If you wish to venture in some point in your career to BASE, I would say the story is completely different. Although the transition from WS skydiving directly to WS base jumping has been made successfully (and is being done even more and more), personally I do consider base tracking skills (in a modern tracking suit) an essential tool to have in any BASE jumpers arsenal. And doing a season or two in tracking suit will prepare you very well for your WS base career if that´s a direction you want to go.

http://www.ufufreefly.com

[DSE 5]

Tracking for wingsuit skydiving isn't at all essential, and in some cases is even detrimental to the WS process.

That said, tracking suits are fun, but are also more beneficial to people who already know how to track and want to add to the experience.

[Doug_Davis 0]

Cool. Thanks for all the info all!

[dthames 0]

DSE

Tracking for wingsuit skydiving isn't at all essential, and in some cases is even detrimental to the WS process.

That said, tracking suits are fun, but are also more beneficial to people who already know how to track and want to add to the experience.

Detrimental how? (curious)

Instructor quote, “What's weird is that you're older than my dad!”

[GoneCodFishing 24]

dthames

***Tracking for wingsuit skydiving isn't at all essential, and in some cases is even detrimental to the WS process.

Detrimental how? (curious)

You use up all your available excuses for landing off before your FFC

[wasatchrider 0]

GoneCodFishing

******Tracking for wingsuit skydiving isn't at all essential, and in some cases is even detrimental to the WS process.

Detrimental how? (curious)

You use up all your available excuses for landing off too early in your career
I dont see an excuse to land off with a wing suit or track suit for that matter

BASE 1519

[GoneCodFishing 24]

Damn, my edit immortalised there for all to see

[DSE 5]

dthames

Detrimental how? (curious)

Sometimes we'll get students in that have been practicing tracking for WS that have the idea that maximum flight is what they want to achieve on their first few jumps. Part of a good coach's job is to catch it before the first flight occurs. If it's not caught, frequently the FFC will generate instability through a rigid, and usually improper body position.
An FFC should be focused on exit, navigation, deployment, and nothing more. Body position, maximum flight, etc all come later in the process.

[skow 6]

DSE

***

Detrimental how? (curious)

Sometimes we'll get students in that have been practicing tracking for WS that have the idea that maximum flight is what they want to achieve on their first few jumps. Part of a good coach's job is to catch it before the first flight occurs. If it's not caught, frequently the FFC will generate instability through a rigid, and usually improper body position.
An FFC should be focused on exit, navigation, deployment, and nothing more. Body position, maximum flight, etc all come later in the process.

I personally wouldn't go as far as detrimental, becasue it can (and in my opinion will) be useful later, in those things you wrote. Good trackers are usually good WS pilots.
E.g. The fact that somebody does a lot of head-down fliying doesn't mean they will do that on their FFC with WS (yes, I am exaggerating)

[LiborJanicek 0]

I have decided to take the tracking suit to wing suit path. I've talked to DSE about my sitrep and he is a very wise man when it comes to ws flying. He's helped me with my body tracking position and gave me great advise to future WS flying. I'm a few jumps away from the wingsuiting. I've been flying my Intrudair tracking suit since I bought it and love it. Where I think it's helped me out the most is in forward flight. When flying solo, I'll practice a wingsuit style exit. Once in flight I'll get on my flight path. My flight path is what I focus on since I leave the plane first and have the potential of flying in the wrong direction or landing off. When it comes to pulling, it's roughly the same motion as with WS but a shorter reach (I think). Another element that I think that translates to WS flying with pressurization of the tracking suit, not as nearly as much as a WS but you get the feeling. I'm no where near of flying a tracking suit correctly and have a lot to learn. I'm looking forward to flying a WS. I'd really like to try the GEN 3 tracking suits from SFLY & Tony.

Some of my jumps @

http://www.youtube.com/user/airassassinstv

Good luck in your forward flight.

[aarthus 0]

" Warning: the Cruise from S-FLY is a high performance expert level tracking suit. It requires training and currency to achieve full performance!
Even expert trackers will benefit from adequate training in the skydiving environment in order to adapt to the Cruise’s new flying technique.
The reward from sufficient training will be groundbreaking tracking performance."

it means those GEN3 tracking suits are not easy fly & perform with them, I am not sure it's a good way to wing suit path ...

Patrick de Guillebon

[johnmatrix 21]

They're both good.

[dqpacker 7]

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007IS1ZX8/?tag=047-20

[FreeFallFiend 0]

DSE

***

Detrimental how? (curious)

Sometimes we'll get students in that have been practicing tracking for WS that have the idea that maximum flight is what they want to achieve on their first few jumps. Part of a good coach's job is to catch it before the first flight occurs. If it's not caught, frequently the FFC will generate instability through a rigid, and usually improper body position.
An FFC should be focused on exit, navigation, deployment, and nothing more. Body position, maximum flight, etc all come later in the process.

"You Keep Using That Word, I Do Not Think It Means What You Think It Means"

Fiend

I am about to take my last voyage, a great leap in the dark. - Thomas Hobbes.

[jakee 1,558]

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I've talked to DSE about my sitrep and he is a very wise man when it comes to ws flying.

Dude, if you're going to use gay-ass tactical speak at least use it properly. You gave him a situation report or you talked to him about your situation. You didn't talk to him about your report about your situation.

Aside from that, enjoy getting into wingsuits!

Do you want to have an ideagasm?

[The111 1]

jakee

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I've talked to DSE about my sitrep and he is a very wise man when it comes to ws flying.

Dude, if you're going to use gay-ass tactical speak at least use it properly. You gave him a situation report or you talked to him about your situation. You didn't talk to him about your report about your situation.

Aside from that, enjoy getting into wingsuits!

Don't make me rep a sitrep about you to the sitrep receiving crew.

www.WingsuitPhotos.com

[DSE 5]

FreeFallFiend

******

Detrimental how? (curious)

Sometimes we'll get students in that have been practicing tracking for WS that have the idea that maximum flight is what they want to achieve on their first few jumps. Part of a good coach's job is to catch it before the first flight occurs. If it's not caught, frequently the FFC will generate instability through a rigid, and usually improper body position.
An FFC should be focused on exit, navigation, deployment, and nothing more. Body position, maximum flight, etc all come later in the process.

"You Keep Using That Word, I Do Not Think It Means What You Think It Means"

Which word?
"sometimes?" Or "and?" "In" is a particularly difficult word for some.

[FreeFallFiend 0]

Detrimental.

Nothing about being a good tracker is detrimental to anything in skydiving or BASE jumping. It is one of the single most important skills someone can have no matter what discipline they choose to follow.

I understand your point...vaguely, but saying it's detrimental is highly inaccurate. In addition to being incredibly important i dont see how learning to fly your body can hurt with wingsuiting. Is it a different skill set that is performed differently? Sure. However it is no different than showing a student how to relax and/or dearch for WS or FF instruction. This falls on the coach regardless of discipline.

Inexperienced skydivers are very impressionable. There are already far too many skydivers out there who "didnt want to waste time on their belly because they dont want to pick up bad habits for freeflying." Let's not also send the message that inexperienced jumpers shouldn't constantly work on their track just because they want to WS.

Fiend

I am about to take my last voyage, a great leap in the dark. - Thomas Hobbes.

[DSE 5]

Re-read. "may even be" detrimental isn't the same as "always" detrimental.

For an FFC to put their body into a hard track position will *frequently* be detrimental to the quality of the experience. Yes,there are some people that won't have issues.

Rather than focusing on tracking until 200 jumps, focusing on more important skills like being belly-aware, clean deployments, accuracy, navigation, and being able to perform RW will benefit someone far, far more than buying a tracking suit and learning muscle memory that won't help them during the initial wingsuit jumps.

I understand that some BASE-bound people have a different view, yet this is a skydiving forum. The conversation would be significantly different in a BASE forum.

How many FFC's have you taught? Do you have data to help determine what factors often play into better or worse FFC experiences on a broad scale? What are other indicators of potential problem students vs likely successful students?
Having observed several hundred FFC's, there are a few consistencies that have manifested themselves. One of them is that hard-core trackers often turn out to have muscle memory that doesn't serve them well in an FFC.

[mccordia 74]

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Nothing about being a good tracker is detrimental to anything in skydiving or BASE jumping.

Not wanting to mix too much into the language/writing discussion.
But when someone does jump 10-200 as solo tracking jumps, thats for sure detrimental to his progress, and those people usually miss a big background in safety and awareness that is of great importance when they put on a suit that allows them to head-but a person with 200 mph differences in speed if they screw up.

Tracking is a good skill, but you dont need more experience beyond seperating from a good freefly or RW jump that had a decent plan/debrief to be a safe and skilled wingsuit pilot from 200 freefall jumps or (preferably more) onward...

JC
FlyLikeBrick
I'm an Athlete?

[Doug_Davis 0]

LiborJanicek

Some of my jumps @

http://www.youtube.com/user/airassassinstv

Good luck in your forward flight.

Pretty nice stuff. Was watching how you exited and pulled.

mccordia

Quote

Nothing about being a good tracker is detrimental to anything in skydiving or BASE jumping.

Not wanting to mix too much into the language/writing discussion.
But when someone does jump 10-200 as solo tracking jumps, thats for sure detrimental to his progress, and those people usually miss a big background in safety and awareness that is of great importance when they put on a suit that allows them to head-but a person with 200 mph differences in speed if they screw up.

Tracking is a good skill, but you dont need more experience beyond seperating from a good freefly or RW jump that had a decent plan/debrief to be a safe and skilled wingsuit pilot from 200 freefall jumps or (preferably more) onward...

Good points thanks Jarno!