- Jul 24, 2020
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Where were you?
Went down 120’ in the Blue Hole in Belize. Wasn’t much to see after 50’. Eerie but it all looked the same after a bit.
Squirrel Suits
- Thread starter NVGator
- Start date
Where were you?
Went down 120’ in the Blue Hole in Belize. Wasn’t much to see after 50’. Eerie but it all looked the same after a bit.
- Jun 11, 2014
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Founding Member
Full disclosure, I’ve never skydived, parachuted and became nauseous when my wife & I took a hot air balloon up for an anniversary. That said, I’d think there’s a huge difference between jumping out of a plane and deploying your chute and screaming down the side of the mountain in a flying suit with a helmet on face first. You’re basically a pilot at that point, right?
No offense @bradgator2 your work is remarkable. I guess I developed a frontal lobe too fast.
No offense @bradgator2 your work is remarkable. I guess I developed a frontal lobe too fast.
- Jul 15, 2014
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- Jul 24, 2020
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- Jun 12, 2014
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Ehhh.... sorta. Make no mistake, they are falling the entire time. There is noway to create lift of any kind. Think of it more this way: his suit is actually a mini-parachute.
Even "normally", you can put your body in that same delta position and scream in a more horizontal direction. Based on our videos and gps, we figured about 60mph horizontal. You are falling at 120 mph. So you can travel 1 foot horizontal for every 2 feet down. Those wing suits just change that ratio. Their terminal velocity is slower nearer 100 mph and they can go faster than that horizontal. So more than 1 foot horizontal for every 1 foot down.
Their videos look so damn cool because they have found hillsides that match their glide ratio. So it almost gives the impression that they are not even falling.
- Jun 12, 2014
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Here is great short video where you can see what I am talking about. This idiot lands into the boxes with no parachute. But he is wearing a wing suit. Pay attention to his glide ratio. Now imagine there is a mountain side 20 feet below him.
- Jul 15, 2014
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Yes. You're basically at 6x atmospheric pressure and the nitrogen in your air can do very, very, bad things to you if you do not ascend/decompress properly. Like RR said, my dive had two lengthy decompression stops on the way back up.
- Jun 12, 2014
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What's funny about the scuba talk is.... there is no fuching way I would do ever do that. Even when I was younger.
- Jul 15, 2014
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I was 15 when I made that dive. I crewed on a boat that summer and we did about 15 wreck dives, 3 had dives below 100 feet. The purpose was to make a documentary that was on PBS. The Emperor had been a "closed" wreck up until then and we located two corpses and a severed arm, all perfectly preserved in the cold water (34 degrees in August). The National Park Service allowed us to recover the wedding band from the arm and it was returned to the family.
- Nov 1, 2017
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A hole off West Palm Beach that actually has a very short cave that goes thru a bed of coral. Nice little dive where they told us we would probably see some sharks but we didn't.
- Jul 24, 2020
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Nice - I did my open water certification in that area.
Done several dives in front of the Breakers and Jupiter for lobster.
- Jul 24, 2020
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- Jun 12, 2014
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Interestingly, there are 2 safety mechanisms to try to help with this.
One is called a reserve static line, RSL. If your main canopy is messed up, for whatever reason, there is a super easy way to disconnect it from your rig. An RSL hooks your reserve to that mechanism. So if you release your main, your reserve is automatically deployed. Personally, I didnt like this. Worst case scenario is if your reserve canopy and main canopy get tangled. So I wanted to be able to release my main, get away from it, then deploy my reserve. I stopped near 1000 jumps and I never had an issue with my main.
The 2nd device is an automatic activation deployment, AAD. This was a little computer that monitored speed and altitude. Typically, everyone deploys their main at roughly 3000 ft. However, if you are traveling through 1000 ft at terminal, then the AAD would deploy your reserve. This could happen because you were unconscious, or you simply last track of altitude. The VAST majority of skydivers have one of these.
Time for another story. We all wore an altimeter. Due to the kinds of jumps that I did, I also wore a full face helmet. Mainly because it was easy for someone to accidently kick me. I also wore an audible altimeter, which was in the helmet and would beep at several pre-programed altitudes. The temp drops about 3 degrees for every thousand feet of elevation. I personally had a rule of how cold it could be on the ground before I went up. This particular weekend, we hired and flew in a world renown coach. But it was like 40 degrees outside, making it 0 at altitude. 120 mph windchill in sub freezing temps is really unpleasant. Ugh, we couldnt waste the time and money so we did our first jump. Typically, we keep our helmets off in the plane. But my teammate kept his on because he was so cold. The instant we jumped, the condensation on the inside of his helmet immediately froze and he couldnt see. No problem, we all recognized what happened and abandoned the plan on the jump. We stayed locked together for the duration of the freefall. Usually at 4000 ft, we give each other the finger, turn in an opposite direction, and fly in a delta formation away from each other for 1000 ft, then deploy. Well this time, we gave each other finger and he didnt turn around, he just kept falling straight down. Recognizing this is bad, I immediately deploy and just watch him falling down towards Earth.
Now in his head, he is waiting to hear is audible altimeter. Turns out, the batteries were dead. His hands were so cold, he didnt even realize we let go and deployed. He obviously couldnt see his manual altimeter. His instinct crept in and he knew the freefall was longer than it should be. So he said fuch it and deployed his main. However, he did that really close to 1000ft. Therefore, his AAD fired and automatically released his reserve at the same time. They didnt get tangled, but they were in a configuration that is just as deadly. He finally was able to lift his visor at roughly 100 ft above the ground and plowed into a recently tilled cornfield.
Now I watched all this unfold directly below me. The others on my team didnt see any of it and landed back at the dropzone. I was able to fly to him and landed right beside him, which was about a mile away. Back broken. Forearm bones busted through his jumpsuit. Ugly man. This was before the days of cell phones. I mean, I think I had a flip phone, but nobody would think about actually bringing it with them. So what do you do? I of course stabilized him. He was in shock, so I decided to just stay with him vs running back in the hopes that someone else saw. Which someone did, and the cavalry came in about 30 minutes.
In scuba, or skydiving, or whatever "dangerous" situation.... dont violate your safety protocol. And it's never 1 thing that goes wrong.... it's 4 or 5. That jump messed with my head. Anyway, he recovered and still one of my best friends. He also became a regular jumper again. Although is now retired like me.
- Jul 15, 2014
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Whenever "bad" things have happened around me or to people I know (or reading incident reports), or even read a story like yours, I analyze it in detail and ask myself: "Could this have happened to me?"
I am NOT being my usual arrogant kvnt self here, but the answer is usually "no" and I have specific reasons why the answer is "no." I have certain rules and I don't violate them (in full disclosure, this really kicked in after a helicopter crash in Afghanistan, before that, I was "full Brad"
). So those cases never messed with my head. Like, "What kind of DUMBASS would drive on Airport Road between the embassy and KAIA on a Friday morning in the hours after first prayer?!?!?!?!?" One almost deserves to get blown up for doing that. If it's something that COULD have happened to me, yeah, it messes with my head, but I can't remember the last time that happened.You guys chose to drive Airport Road between the embassy and KAIA on a Friday morning in the hours after first prayer knowing it was a bad idea and violating your first rule (ground temp), then it compounded from there... this one's on YOU genius!
- Jul 15, 2014
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Like Brad said, it's usually 4-5 things that allll snowball from the first mistake.
- Jun 12, 2014
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He has some permanent hardware. But if you met him now you would never know he broke his back or had his forearm broke in half. He made his first jump back on the one year anniversary. We actually recreated the same jump. Luckily... it wasnt as cold.
