danielfornies

Regarding the ATC: - I upsized from a Swift 1 to an ATC, and I agree in that the ATC is a pretty easy suit to fly, if you have put enough jumps on the Swift. Exits, turns, dives and flares are really cool and easy to achieve. That said, I immediately noticed rougher deployments, where my higher speed, probably not-so good technique, and my long-snively 9-cell canopy didn't get along well together. So I would also make sure you have a docile enough canopy before upsizing. - Regarding bending legs... this is a topic I always get contradictory advice on, and where the definitions people have in their heads seem to be all over the place. Bending legs meaning bending them down-forward, correct? To me the retro leg-bending is when people would bend them up-backwards, arching-style. I've been told that it's a good measure in moderation, combined with dihedral wings to keep the speed/sink rate under control, while having your pitch focused on your spine (head to hips). Angle of attack is a very confusing concept depending on who uses it and how. To my understanding, keeping your suit straight doesn't guarantee any decent angle of attack, if e.g. your pitch is too flat and you are arching a bit. I understand angle of attack as the angle between your spine and where you are flying to, regardless of speed. Also I perceive the leg-bending (with moderation :-) ) to be more aligned with freefly angle-flying, where you put your body in a configuration from which it's always ready to "accelerate" with ease.

I had an interesting development with my Safire 2 after upsizing from my Swift to an ATC. Many more line twists, unreliable headings and ultimately a pretty nast spinning twist with cutaway: (scroll directly to 2:10) https://drive.google.com/open?id=1ZMlQxAXR8iJ7Nq6wMPyd2cu8mF8_7S4X So i’m definitely moving to a 7 cell. I demo’ed a PD horizon and it was a big difference with being stable afer openings. BTW has anybody heard of the coming Icarus Kraken?

In the meantime, I wonder if it'd make sense to upgrade to a Freak 2 from a Swift 1 given enough amount of jumps (say 200 jumps on a Swift 1, being able to backfly it and go steep, blah blah). I know it's always best to upgrade in between, but I don't wanna spend so much on custom-sized suits, so perhaps I'd rather go second hand for an intermediate step, or wait more and turbo-upsize with enough experience...?

I have high expectations https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7pkxx1-Iwc

So apparently it was a "Tempo" 150sqft...

No idea, will ask. Would be around 150-170sqft I guess. Does the model matter that much in that extreme situation?

His AAD fired between 500 and 600ft. The main reason he survived is because it made him crash feet-first on soft ground (it had rained heavily the days before).

I currently jump a Safire 2 169, wingloading around 1.2x. If I wouldn't do any hard turns-swoops below the firing altitude, it should be safe to reduce my AAD's firing speed to 45mph, correct? A friend of mine is in a wheelchair now, because in a non-WS jump he got knocked out in freefall, and his AAD (won't mention the brand now to avoid further discussions) miscalculated his falling speed greatly. Imagine a very heavy guy unconsciously backflying and the AAD thinking it was at 70mph at 1000ft. The speed reading went good again too late, triggering the reserve opening just on time enough for him to crash on the ground with the reserve at line stretch. We all say we need to trust our AADs etc, and indeed they are proven to work in many situations, but I've seen this issue happen with my own eyes, and made me realise that our AAD settings might be a bit too tight, especially if you are not concerned with a sporty canopy. So, especially with WS, and not having a sporty canopy, I have already raised my activation altitude to 1300ft, and considering to lower the firing speed to 45mph, and well, simply fly my canopy in a relaxed manner, which I already do.

I jump a Swift 1 (which is mid-size wingsuit) with a Safire2 170sqft (9-cell) and I'm pretty happy with my openings. I totally agree that with good body position and symmetrical pull, the chance of having twists is greatly reduced. I still get - only some times - sudden 90-180 turns though at the last deployment stage, but I correct them quickly if needed. I believe they might be related to my packing technique, since I pack for long openings and the canopy spends more time "searching". But maybe 9-cell canopies are more prone to those sudden off-headings at the end of the deployment, compared to 7 cells? I also use a semi-stowless bag with 4 locking stows, single stowing with microstows, and a SkySnatch pilot chute. A friend of mine actually moved from a Storm 135 to an Epicene 150 (or 170, I forgot) because the Storm would nosedive him on openings without stopping by itself, until he ended up with 2 cutaways when combined with line twists. I think that if he had upsized the same Storm to 170, he wouldn't have those issues anymore either. And all those examples of happy wingsuiters who combined switching to WS canopy with upsizing, are a bit unclear since more than one thing got changed in there. I personally believe that keeping a low wingloading is more relevant than the canopy type.