Short Delays and Wingsuits

[imported_Tom Aiello]

In this thread:

http://www.blincmagazine.com/forum/board/260.html

I noticed this comment:

>I don´t think doing a short delay in a wing suit is pathetic, as long as you feel safe and you have fun...

I was wondering what people thought of this.

My reasoning is:

Short delays are often less safe in wingsuits. Shorter delays result in less horizontal separation from the wall or talus. With the jumper "trapped" (obvious exaggeration) in the suit, this can reduce the safety margin for an off heading opening.

A safer wingsuit flyer ought to take longer delays, to gain greater horizontal separation from the object.

This is one of those cases in which BASE violates the basic safety rule of skydiving, and going lower really is safer.

What do you think?

--Tom Aiello
tbaiello@mac.com

[imported_mknutson]

Short delays.... This is relative.
A short delay in my opinion for a wingsuit is less than 10 seconds. This is way too short of a delay.

As far as the thread you are refering to, My opinion is that a 30 second delay in Italy is not too short, but I have heard of much longer there. But I find it very odd that with a 30 second delay, you would only have a 10 second canopy ride.

I find that very disturbing as my first base wingsuit jump ever was inItaly and I got a 27 second delay, and opened at about 1,500' above the landing area...although I did not make it past the last hill. I pulled just before that last hill. Now I still had massive canopy time for this jump. Not 10 seconds. More like 1-2 minutes.

[PerFlare]

Tom,

It depends what is the definition of a short delay?

My opinion
As long as you can have a linetwist and still just unzip and clear it before hitting the wall or something else it is okay. I do pull high and because I will have that extra time to clear problems before landing ... when it is possible :)

When talking about this cliff ... 30 sec is okay. Both me and Martin did the Minuteman there on our third jump so sure even longer delay are possible in good conditions. But if +60 sec are a short or long delay ... I do not know, it is okay but in 5 years we will smile at it :)

I have met quite a few guys who sometimes pulls low because it is much safer then pulling high. I pull low sometimes of this reason but have not been to a wingsuit object that had this problem.

Did a jump from a 1000ft A once with my Skyflyer just for the fun off it ... then I pulled low but I did it when the wind was sufficient to back me away even if I had done a hop'n pop ...

When jumping with a wingsuit in base, my tip is to pull as high that you have the chance to clear you PC if it gets in the turbulence and clear things like linetwists prior to landing

But the again, who am I to tell someone what to do, or not do.

PerFlare
Member Team Bautasten

[Gabriel]

Hi Tom
What I meant by short delay is having more than 20 seconds in a jump where a great flyer can get 45 or 50 , I have done many base jumps with my wingsuit and I find that there is a point ( depending on the wall ) like around 15 to 20 seconds where you are very far from the wall , enough to be safe in case of a linetwist or something , then after that you are flying in a let´s say "safe boundary" until obviously you start getting very close to the ground . It is in this period of time where you are far away from the wall and still at a safe altitude that I like to open . On some jumps I have pushed it but one day I had a line twist and discovered that sometimes it is not such a great idea. I just like to jump and have a graet time sometimes my delays are longer than other times but I am not worried If I did 35 seconds on a wall where another guy can do a minute , for me it´s all good .

Your Friend Gabriel

:D

[Donk]

FYI: I think Mark was referring to one or two of the flights off the Eiger...not (The 5000' wall in Italy). All (5000' wall in Italy) flights had the type of canopy rides you describe.

Most the flights off the Eiger were between 30-45 seconds, depending on who the pilots were. The one 5 second canopy ride the flyer did seem to struggle with the thin air and a "heads-down" launch.

Being some what ignorant to the wing-suit world. I was wondering if the 14000' altitude would have any bearing on the "lack" of drive some of the flyers experienced...relative to what we saw in Italy. Seems to make sence...but maybe not.

Later,

Donk

[Yuri]

Yo !

This is probably a combination of different factors, a psychological one being the most important. The launch itself, head-down or not, has nothing to do with an elevation. How quick a suit starts flying will depend on the stall speed, as Robert has explained earlier. This stall speed will be slightly higher at 14k (compared to 6k MSL) but the increase is minimal. The flight itself shouldn't feel any different - 14k is a normal exit altitude on a wingsuit skydive, after all. As for the "lack of drive", your forward speed will in fact be a bit faster than at lower altitudes.

Wingsuit flying is incredibly psychological and at least for me, the mood affects my exits and flights more than everything else combined.

bsbd!

Yuri.