How stupid?

[bofh 0]

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I do believe I have a slightly higher chance of making a stable exit from a balloon than from a plane,

Really, um, why?

I have no dead air experience but what I will say is that a solo ws exit from a plane is pretty damn easy, but in BASE vids you often see experienced ws pilots go very headlow (or worse) when they first introduce ws to dead air exits.

I have no experience of WS as I've said already, but I have not had any problem going unstable nor headlow when jumping in still air without a WS. I believe, but perhaps I'm all wrong here, that going headlow from a balloon wouldn't be a big deal. In BASE that's a different thing of course. But it is of course just idle speculation.

[jakee 1,500]

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but I have not had any problem going unstable nor headlow when jumping in still air without a WS.

I would really hope that also holds true for solo aircraft exits as well

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I believe, but perhaps I'm all wrong here, that going headlow from a balloon wouldn't be a big deal.

Of course, but note that I was talking about experienced WS pilots who know exactly how to recover to level flight once the speed picks up and that, in going headlow, they were not in full control of their exit.

Do you want to have an ideagasm?

[mccordia 74]

not aimed at you in particular..

but quite often, when someone with little to no experience comes in here and asks what to do....its seems like they're only yelling 'look at me!' instead of honestly asking for advice...

As when a lot of people say 'dont..its not smart' they dont listen..but do what they originaly planned..and come up with a lot of excuses and reasons for doing so...

If you're asking for advice...and people give it to you...listen to what the majority says...most of them have made mistakes before and learned from them..no reason for you to make their mistakes again (or to make all new ones)

And most people in here reasoned it wasnt smart....maybe they're on to something...

JC
FlyLikeBrick
I'm an Athlete?

[bofh 0]

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not aimed at you in particular..

...

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If you're asking for advice...and people give it to you...listen to what the majority says...most of them have made mistakes before and learned from them..no reason for you to make their mistakes again (or to make all new ones)

Is that last part still not aimed at me? Otherwise I want to know if you just didn't read my other posts in this thread or if I expressed myself so poorly in them that I am not making myself understood.

I quote from the second posting I made (post #11):

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I guess I'll take some pretty pictures with the new belly mount instead.

Thanks for the opinions!

Perhaps I should have written the full sentance: "...instead of making a WS jump from the balloon", but I thought it was obvious.

Post #15 (my 4:th in the thread) said almost the same thing as your post here, or at least that was my intention with it.

[mccordia 74]

I know you werent planning on jumping the balloon anymore...I was just ranting ...(and trying to work on my post-whore status here)

But jumping your suit for the first time...hope you have a ball and definately hope to see you grow addicted to this incredible dicipline...!

JC
FlyLikeBrick
I'm an Athlete?

[bofh 0]

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but I have not had any problem going unstable nor headlow when jumping in still air without a WS.

I would really hope that also holds true for solo aircraft exits as well

Well, there is this turbulence around the aircraft body that one normal compensates for when exiting (as well as having a lot of motion while jumping out of the door). With a WS that compensation will of course be slightly different and since I've never done it before, I would think that there would be a slightly higher risk of becoming unstable.
But what do I know? Its not something that I'm really worried about since I'll will have another 2000m to recover and practice the pull.

[TomAiello 26]

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...I have not had any problem going unstable nor headlow when jumping in still air without a WS.

The exit difficulties with and without wingsuits are totally different.

In general, going head low on a zero airspeed exit is the result of poor launch technique. You can see it in the first 5 feet, and work to improve it, because it's all the result of momentum carried off the exit point.

In a wingsuit, by contrast, the head low position is usually a result of things that happen after the launch. You can have a perfect zero-rotation launch and find yourself going head low 3 seconds down (because of the way you are presenting the leg wing, and how much of it you have open).

Two very different sets of skills. Having good results in the first is not much of a guarantee of good results on the second.

-- Tom Aiello

Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com
SnakeRiverBASE.com

[MarkM 0]

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I have no experience of WS as I've said already, but I have not had any problem going unstable nor headlow when jumping in still air without a WS.

How much still air experience do you have? It sounded like you're mixing a very low skill experience(still air jumping) with a totally new experience(WS jumping), which isn't good.

[bofh 0]

Due to the weather, the balloon jump was moved forward a bit so I got to make three WS flights out of our aircraft on Saturday.

Before my first flight a grumpy jumper claimed the suit wasn't better than a pair of tracking pants and someone experienced with the pants could fly just as long, so an experienced tracking pants flyer exited with me. I only concentrated on the practice pulls and heading/flight path and didn't see him until I had pulled and was looking around under the canopy. He was around 500m shorter than me, had taken a narrower path compared to the jump run and had pulled 700m lower than I did... .

On the third flight I let go of the grippers five seconds before pulling and it was easy flying with the arms forward as well. I had some nice clouds at 1700m which I got to make a turn around as well.

As avonfoto said, the Prodigy is a really easy suit to fly, the only problem I had was that I was a bit tense on the first flight and oversteered when turning and due to my inability to read the altimeter without turning my head (or moving the hand) I turned a bit when checking the altitude, both problems got better on jump two where I relaxed more. On the second jump I got 92 seconds of FF time (at least that was what my altitrack said) when exiting at 3700m and pulled at 1500m and I mostly tried different body positions during that jump.
I also got to try some backflying on jump two too, when I opened up the right wing a tiny bit when jumping out of the door.

After this I felt confident that I could handle the suit well enough to survive a balloon jump so I took the suit with me and had a really fun jump without any incidents, except opting for another second of flight instead of slowing down enough for the sabre to give me a comfortable opening. My love for the safire increased.


We were three birds on the balloons, the other two wanted to make nice BASE-practice exits which went well for them. I just wanted to maximise the balloon experience, so I jumped feet first until I got enough speed to turn over on the belly and fly away.

Now I just want to jump with my new wings over and over again. Some rescheduling and I get to make a few more jumps this season.

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[phoenixlpr 0]

Wow!

Congratulations!

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Before my first flight a grumpy jumper claimed the suit wasn't better than a pair of tracking pants and someone experienced with the pants could fly just as long, so an experienced tracking pants flyer exited with me.

With the size of his ego he may fly futher.

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On the second jump I got 92 seconds of FF time (at least that was what my altitrack said) when exiting at 3700m and pulled at 1500m and I mostly tried different body positions during that jump. Smile

Nice job!

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After this I felt confident that I could handle the suit well enough to survive a balloon jump so I took the suit with me and had a really fun jump without any incidents, except opting for another second of flight instead of slowing down enough for the sabre to give me a comfortable opening.

So your plan does not sound stupid anymore.