i feel like freefly is dead. What is your perception?

[pilot-one 0]

Temple? For freeflying? :/
A good example of the growing free fly scene in Central Texas is Ari Perelman is now organizing at Skydive San Marcos.... Yes, THAT Ari Perelman. Even though a few of us were at a tunnel camp in Austin there were at least 10 people at SSM flying this weekend with all of them flying well on their heads... It's only going to get better.

[JoeyH 0]

When Temple gets busy, the majority of fun jumpers there are free flyers. Granted, it's a small dz. but there are a few fun jumpers. Atleast that's how it was 5 years ago when I practically lived there.

Carpe Diem, even if it kills me

[Squeak 17]

l ill be at the Sebastian invasion and trying to get to Flaj Flaj so I dont think it's a done deal yet

You are not now, nor will you ever be, good enough to not die in this sport (Sparky)
My Life ROCKS!
How's yours doing?

[feuergnom 28]

DARK

there is a split between the people who learn and progress in the tunnel and those who only skydive.

There is also a huge discrepency between the number of people who can freefly and do those 8 way jumps you were taling about and the number of people who have those skills and are willing to jump with the noobs and bring them along step by step.

To an extent its understandable, people spend a lot of money in the tunnel so that they can go on these more complicated freefly jumps and they dont want to invest more time with the noobs but it is leading to this big skill gap.

In my experience experienced belly flyers are a lot more welcoming and helpful to inexperienced belly flyers than experienced free flyers are to inexperienced freeflyers.

edited to add; it seems like to the belly flyers a free slot is good enough reward to organise and jump with the noobs but that the freeflyers dont feel the same.

that!

The universal aptitude for ineptitude makes any human accomplishment an incredible miracle

dudeist skydiver # 666

[Trafficdiver 8]

I've put a shitload of time in the tunnel learning FF and it has opened up a lot of doors for me.

I guess it's all what you're willing/able to do/spend which colors your perspective.

For me FF is just starting and has so much coming on the horizon. I love the challenge it's presented to me. I still do a lot of belly jumps but my ambitions now are to get good on all parts of my body, and the angles and transitions between them, not just one.

[adamUK 3]

I did the same. I realised that in order to get to the next level that I'd have to commit to doing a huge amount of tunnel. I'm lucky in that there's been probably about 7 or 8 of us doing the same thing so we get to do some great jumps as we are all about the same level. If you don't have the resources and a tunnel close by then it'd be very difficult to progress. The standard is just so high these days.

When I had not as much time and jumps in the bigger group jumps would be inaccessible, mainly due being able to stay in control safely.

[Pablo.Moreno 0]

I think also has to do where you jumps most of times.

I have spend over 15 hrs doing tunnel time and I dedicate a lot of jumps 30-40 (of 300-350 jumps a year) just doing 1 to 1 free coaching on sit fly or head down, not to mention the other zoo dives where is mostly for the other jumper but I still manage to work on my own skills as well.

Now when I go away on skydiving holidays, even when I travel with my group (about 10-15 of us) I only jump with the organizers or people that are at the same level or better than me making every jump challenging hence fun. Maybe once I am a little worn out I would go and do some "fun" (every jumps is fun) jumps.

Main reason to this, There is only one other person at the same level or at a higher level than me at my dz, so there is very limited time to do challenging skydives, and on this holidays I can jump with people at my level and any skydives are a challenge, so I don't want to waste it jumping with people that I can jump at home with when I can jump with more experience people.

[stayhigh 2]

Despite of turn limitation, you are one of the coolest DZO out there. That is probably why people still flock to your dz, along with big name freefly LO that organizes freefly camp.

But in general, most of the fun jumping scene is getting smaller. I remember when I first started jumping at Elsinore, every weekend, we had to fight to get into sunset load that went up so late that seemed illegal at the time, and often they had to sent two otters since both of them filled up very quickly.

I think freefly or any fun jumping scene is slowly declining due to many factors.

One major thing comes to mind is cost. When I started jumping you could start off with less than 10000 dollars(aff course, gear). Now I'm shocked to see price tag of 7000 for a brand new rig. Skydiving needs new students in order to keep the population going, like cigarette companies, we need new, younger crowd that gets hooked to freefall. With the current price tag and trend you'll see less and less licensed jumpers and more and more tandem students.

Bernie Sanders for President 2016

[adamUK 3]

Thankfully in the UK the number of regular jumpers is up on 2012 (5557 vs 5260) and the total number of jumps is up 4.5% to 261,951 (which is a drop in the ocean compared to US total numbers). How many of these are fun jumps is not clear though.. but generally the UK's getting better despite the cost which, admittedly these days, is getting prohibitive.

[stayhigh 2]

Does that number truly represent the number of active fun jumper?

Maybe you guys probably have more than that, since I've seen many UK jumper who never bothered joining BPA

Bernie Sanders for President 2016

[adamUK 3]

There are quite a few that do jump regularly but join the USPA. These guys tend to jump in spain or the US. In order to jump at BPA dropzone in the UK (there's one in Cyprus and Germany too) then you have to have BPA membership as a (very significant) portion of the membership includes 3rd party insurance in case you land one someone's house or car. The actual number of jumpers in the UK will be slightly higher than those given by the BPA.

Most jumpers are flat flyers though. I would estimate that there's probably about 100 or so freeflyers that are good enough to do big-ish way freefly jumps in the UK.

HTH
Adam.

[megamalfunction 1]

hjumper33

I think that freeflying has progressed so quickly and is so advanced now that there are fewer new people doing it. I used to be one of those, "hey lets throw a 4 way out of a plane and play head down" people, but now there are only two kind of groups, the random ill try to sitfly without corking group, and the lets turn 11 points with transitions and docking groups who spend $10k a year in the tunnel. I dont really fit in with either of those groups, so ill stick to my wingsuit.

A lot of us younger/working class folk can't afford to spend the money that it takes to become world class VRW caliber skydivers. But we also don't want to wear belly suits and turn points either. So instead... we put on our shorts and t-shirts, and try emulate Point Break - focusing on exit style, back flying, and Bodhisattva stand-fly backloops.

[LAIR 0]

FREEFLY is growing up in France !
New french record ! 48 ways from only 13500 feet !
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IW0rYF8blQ0&list=UUBHpP_e6cVFkh2uJ1tlbdtQ&index=3

And some good guys doing good job !
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJ9c_xfjyQU&list=UUBHpP_e6cVFkh2uJ1tlbdtQ

BLUE SKY

[Stephen 0]

The SPACELAND records claimed today are as follows:

Texas State Record - 60-Way VFS Head Down Large Formation, General.

Texas State Record - 2-point, 57-Way VFS Head Down Large Formation Sequential, General.

USPA Open National Record - 2-point, 57-Way VFS Head Down Large Formation Sequential, General.

World Record - 2-point, 57-Way VFS Head Down Large Formation Sequential, General.

Freefly Lives?

[piisfish 140]

Record for most GoPro's on a jump

scissors beat paper, paper beat rock, rock beat wingsuit - KarlM

[adamUK 3]

piisfish

Record for most GoPro's on a jump

And G3s..

[danielcroft 2]

Stephen

Texas State Record - 60-Way VFS Head Down Large Formation, General.

https://vimeo.com/110278199

Stephen

Texas State Record - 2-point, 57-Way VFS Head Down Large Formation Sequential, General.

USPA Open National Record - 2-point, 57-Way VFS Head Down Large Formation Sequential, General.

World Record - 2-point, 57-Way VFS Head Down Large Formation Sequential, General.

https://vimeo.com/110289106

Also, don't forget the:
Texas State Record - 3 AND 4 point, 33-Way VFS Head Down Large Formation Sequential, General.

USPA Open National Record - 3 AND 4 point, 33-Way VFS Head Down Large Formation Sequential, General.

World Record - 3 AND 4 point, 33-Way VFS Head Down Large Formation Sequential, General.
https://vimeo.com/110304678

WE ARE A TEAMWORK!

[grimmie 186]

stayhigh

Despite of turn limitation, you are one of the coolest DZO out there. That is probably why people still flock to your dz, along with big name freefly LO that organizes freefly camp.

But in general, most of the fun jumping scene is getting smaller. I remember when I first started jumping at Elsinore, every weekend, we had to fight to get into sunset load that went up so late that seemed illegal at the time, and often they had to sent two otters since both of them filled up very quickly.

I think freefly or any fun jumping scene is slowly declining due to many factors.

One major thing comes to mind is cost. When I started jumping you could start off with less than 10000 dollars(aff course, gear). Now I'm shocked to see price tag of 7000 for a brand new rig. Skydiving needs new students in order to keep the population going, like cigarette companies, we need new, younger crowd that gets hooked to freefall. With the current price tag and trend you'll see less and less licensed jumpers and more and more tandem students.

Thanks

The turn limitations help keep me sane

[GoHuskers 0]

IMGR2

Well Greg, I would probably take you up on your offer to come see what has been happening at San Marcos but I don't own and will never own an AAD, so that will never happen. That along with several other reasons that don't need to be public.
From all of my watching and listening it just seems that it is my time to step out of the freefly scene. It was an amazing adventure and will still enjoy my occasional jump. For me it just is not as fun as it used to be.

Thank you for everyones input. It was very educational.

Quote

Central and South Texas Freefly is growing like crazy. It was before the Austin tunnel and is even growing faster now with the tunnel.
San Marcos is where it's happening so if you're not there you probably won't see it. I can think of more than a dozen good flying regulars and another 15 less experienced that are sit flying well and on their way to head down flying. Just 2 years ago there were maybe a total of about 5 altogether. I call that growing big time.

Quote

I grew up in the infant stages of freefly, when I was going thru AFF hardly anyone knew what it was much less could even do it.

In the next few years many people on my home dropzone were very efficient freeflyers, we were closing 8 ways and there were many freefly teams in Texas.

I can't figure out what has happened to our discipline.

Over the last 5 years I have watched an aggresive decline in freeflyer skills, I have been to several dropzone and foundit very hard to even get a 3 way to close, much less do multiple points.

I was curious if this is happening anywhere else other than Central Texas. Years ago Texas had one of the largest presence at Nationals in freefly and had some of the largest headdown state records across the nation.

San Marcos Grand Caravan is getting a Blackhawk conversion. Talent level ranges from world record holders to first season. We have at least 30 freefliers on a good weather saturday. You have good FF DZ's to your North, South, and East, there's plenty of options for you if you want them. I don't know if your DZ will ever get a talent pool. The rules for going to "full altitude" aren't very attractive.