Costyn

Don't worry, European drivers are just as bad. Especially, as you mentioned in the "impatient lane", the left lane which is the overtaking lane here in Europe, where the impatient people drive and tailgate eachother. I like the US way of highway driving, in which you are allowed to overtake on the right. Here in Europe you can get fined for it, if they catch you doing it. I still don't know why, seeing as people in the US seem to get by fine overtaking on the right. Costyn van Dongen - http://www.flylikebrick.com/ - World Wide Wingsuit News

I had just over 300 jumps when I started wingsuit. Focus was mostly freefly before that. Costyn van Dongen - http://www.flylikebrick.com/ - World Wide Wingsuit News

Don't feed the troll... Just ignore him. Costyn van Dongen - http://www.flylikebrick.com/ - World Wide Wingsuit News

Have you ever been in a traffic jam on the road? Especially one where all of a sudden, the traffic in a lane suddenly slows down very quickly and everybody has to brake full-on? This is because people drive too close to the person in front of them. Something then happens in the row of cars causing one to slow down a little. The person behind them thinks "whoa!" and has a kneejerk reaction and slows down just a little more, to create some more space between him and the car in front of him, just in case he has to brake more. The same happens to the car behind him and behind that one etc. Everyone is braking and the further back you go, the harder you have to brake. The same happens in wingsuit formations. Somebody up front makes a little 10cm/3inch correction. The person behind thinks "whoa!" and corrects too, only he corrects a little too much, maybe only 20cm, because he wants to create some margin, as he doesn't want to get caught in the burble in case the guy in front of him moves some more. This ripple effect passes through the formation. At the back of the formation, the movement is huge... people are surging back and forward, left and right, up and down. I was in the back of one of the wings in the formation in Elsinore, and the amount of movement back there was absolutely nuts at times, no way in hell to fly your slot, because it was moving around all the time. Thats why the mindset of WS flock organizers has been changing the past year: space the flock out a bit more, leave people some margin so they don't straight away correct if the person in front of them does a little wobble. The wobble won't matter because there's no danger of getting in the burble or colliding with someone's foot. Getting a flock with little movement is hard. Everybody in the flock has to conciously try to remember to fly like they're the base, "don't move, don't move, don't move...". This is what the organizers in Elsinore were drilling us on as well... fly stable; if the person in front of you moves a foot, don't move with him... look ahead 2 or 3 people, see whats going on there, see if you can fly relative to them if they're not moving around. Tight flocks can be fun, but as you add more people, it becomes exponentially more difficult to keep the movement out of the formation.. Edit: additionally, we have way more control in our cars over our relative position to the road and other cars than we have in wingsuits, especially because it is easy to judge distances and speeds, as you have the road to judge objects by. It is a lot harder in the sky with only your fellow wingsuiters to use as a reference. Cheers Costyn van Dongen - http://www.flylikebrick.com/ - World Wide Wingsuit News

Very nice. Website looks awesome. Too bad I can't read Swedish. Good work guys! Costyn van Dongen - http://www.flylikebrick.com/ - World Wide Wingsuit News

Very nice!

I don't agree with you that there is anyone poo-pooing the result in this thread. Nobody questions the fact that it was an awesome event, that is was groundbreaking and unprecedented; the only thing everbody is asking, where is the 'we did it' picture. I worked really hard during the days I was there, and I too would like an official picture and press release about the event. Costyn van Dongen - http://www.flylikebrick.com/ - World Wide Wingsuit News

Yes I'm an Apple nerd, but I've never used the WinTec. But if you only want do download the data from your GPS and import it into Google earth, try GPSBabel. If you want to analyse your tracks for speed, etc your best bet is Paralog. Cheers Costyn van Dongen - http://www.flylikebrick.com/ - World Wide Wingsuit News

Hi, I'd like to get in contact with Joachim "Jojo" Pfahler, who was at Elsinore as well, flying in my group. I think he lives in San Diego? Anybody got an email addy or something? Send me a PM please. Cheers Costyn van Dongen - http://www.flylikebrick.com/ - World Wide Wingsuit News

Cool, I know it's not everyones taste, but El Ten Eleven Well I like it... in my humble opinion it's more suited to the relaxed kind of skydiving that wingsuiting is, than some of the angry metal that's put to wingsuit movies sometimes. I just bought the album on iTunes... gotta love that instant gratification Costyn van Dongen - http://www.flylikebrick.com/ - World Wide Wingsuit News

Yea sounds cool, but in practice there's no way you're going to be able to maintain a 40mph fall-rate for 7 minutes. It's just too much strain on your muscles and you are going to get tired after about 3 minutes max. If you relax and do maybe an 60 to 70 fall rate, you might be able to maintain it throughout the flight. But damn, 30k, that's serious business... thats the altitude commercial jet-liners fly at. Its usually -40 degrees (both Fahrenheit and Celcius - thats where they match up) up there. I wonder if you can fit enough clothes under your regular wingsuit to keep out the cold. Calling Scott Campos... you've done this stuff before, let us know the details! Costyn van Dongen - http://www.flylikebrick.com/ - World Wide Wingsuit News

Yes, inquiring minds want to know... Costyn van Dongen - http://www.flylikebrick.com/ - World Wide Wingsuit News

Out of politeness to other skydivers I always do them up before I get on the plane. putting them when you walk into the plane and before you are seated stops boarding right there while everyone waits for you to be finished, and putting them on at altitude is rude too cause you have to stick your butt in someones face while you bend down to your booties. I haven't flown any planes with straddle seats, but I hear people put their legs to one side. Bend them, reach down to the zip and unzip. I don't make the wing any wider by spreading my legs. Does that help? Depends on how much time I have and how much wind there is. If there's very little wind and I have to run out the landing, I'll stow them under canopy, otherwise you might step into your booty while running and rip it wide open (just ask Mccordia

Very nice!

Very nice pics! Mark did a great job (as usual

Very cool!!! Costyn van Dongen - http://www.flylikebrick.com/ - World Wide Wingsuit News

You might not be stretching your arms out far enough; they might be behind you? Really try to stretch out your arms out as far as possible, and also make sure they are on level with your body. Then try to max your leg wing. Although it might also be that you just feel like you're going headdown a bit. In max glide ratio mode, I usually tip my head down a little, this seems counterintuitive, but usually the extra forward speed gets you more lift and you end up going slower downwards than if you just try flying floaty and cupping air. Let us know how it works out. Costyn van Dongen - http://www.flylikebrick.com/ - World Wide Wingsuit News

James, although we don't have the final pic from the 71-way, you might want to try the 36-way diamond that flew at the center of the formation in Elsinore against your standards. It looked very good on every jump. See this pic from Matt Hoover's collection. And another one Cheers Costyn van Dongen - http://www.flylikebrick.com/ - World Wide Wingsuit News

servage.net is what we use for Fly Like Brick and Birdman Top Gun. Dirt cheap and lots of space and bandwidth is available. If you sign up through the link above you get 25GB extra space! (as do I ) Costyn van Dongen - http://www.flylikebrick.com/ - World Wide Wingsuit News

We? I don't remember seeing you there. Well said Jarno. And thanks to Jarno and Andrea I now have a new profile pic. Costyn van Dongen - http://www.flylikebrick.com/ - World Wide Wingsuit News

Spot, Matt, and other guys in the know: I have a question about the work the photographers do; please do not see this as an attack on anybody, I'm just curious as to how this works. Weren't the camera slots paid for by the organization? That is to say, from the registration money? So isn't it so that the camera people were "hired" by the organization to take pictures of the flock, and so the pics should be owned by the organization and not the photographers themselves? Or are pics always owned by the photographers and only "licensed" out to magazines to print them etc? I understand of course that the ground shots by Nick and Linda are a different thing altogether. I too had mixed feelings about the anouncement that we'd "done it". I was very curious to know what exactly we'd done, because up 'till wednesday afternoon we'd been doing the same thing for 3 days, with gradual improvement as we got more jumps in but nothing that was clearly "it". I very much wanted to (and still do want to) see the actual picture the organization considered "it". I mean, I understand that pics need to be sold to magazines and such, but a low resolution pic or even displaying the picture in question on the debriefing projector surely could've been done? Surely we didn't get everybody in their 3x3 box, which was way too hard for a formation of this size, but what exactly did we achieve then? That said, I had a really great time even though it was exhausting and really hard work. Flying that formation was absolutely epic! I really liked meeting many of the dz.com regulars in person, that was very cool! Cheers, Costyn. ps Where can I change my avatar picture here on dz.com's forums?? I'm a pretty computer savvy guy, but I can't find this option anywhere in my 'Edit Profile' page, nor anywhere else really. Costyn van Dongen - http://www.flylikebrick.com/ - World Wide Wingsuit News

That's it, thread over. DSE wins! Too funny. Costyn van Dongen - http://www.flylikebrick.com/ - World Wide Wingsuit News

Hahaha too funny man! Costyn van Dongen - http://www.flylikebrick.com/ - World Wide Wingsuit News

Very nice. This is a good thing: getting flocks more challenging and interesting. Many people have of course already been doing multipoint formations, but there's a bunch of new ones in the document that look interesting and fun. I haven't read all the rules and regs yet, but will do so later. And yes, I agree with what others have said, there needs to be a way to have people doing a certain forward speed. Otherwise just falling straight down will make some of the formations a lot easier. Costyn van Dongen - http://www.flylikebrick.com/ - World Wide Wingsuit News

PSA: Please don't jump out of the aircraft without wearing a rig with a parachute in it. Costyn van Dongen - http://www.flylikebrick.com/ - World Wide Wingsuit News