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If You’re Gonna Be Stupid, Ya Better Be Tough

A few days ago I posted a video of three wingsuiters doing some “amazing” close proximity flying.  I put the word amazing in quotes because one man’s amazing is another man’s freaking nuts.  It’s a crazy video to watch with the pilots flying extremely close to the ground and the skiers they were filming with.  Now I’ve wanted to fly my wingsuit close to the ground or cliffs for a long time and watching videos like that really gets my heart pumping.  Ripping along at 80 mph with my face just inches from the ground would crazy fun, I mean I’ve literally had dreams like that for years. What can I say? I’m not normal.  But even though I live what most people would call a very dangerous and risky life I do know that some things are just a little too dangerous.  That’s why I don’t BASE jump, so far.  If I ever do start BASE jumping it will be from someplace really high like the 3,500 foot fjords in Norway or the 4010 foot drop of Mt. Thor in Baffin Island, and even though it would be fun to fly next to the rocks I’ll just jump and track away from the wall and open my parachute, so it would be, you  know, safe.

  Yesterday the three jumpers in the video jumped out of a helicopter in Switzerland and were playing “follow the leader” We’re not sure exactly what happened yet but it appears that they got too low and couldn’t recover.  Two of them died and the third is in critical condition.  Here are two screen shots from the video that show then flying just inches from the snow.  Sure hope it was fun, cause you’re done.

wingsuit low danger<br/><a href="https://i2.wp.com/oi62.tinypic.com/sepy7d.jpg?resize=525%2C292" target="_blank">View Raw Image</a>

https://i0.wp.com/oi62.tinypic.com/2wbw0h2.jpg?w=525

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More Oops

This video is an account of an incident that happened to a jump pilot a few years ago in Australia.  It’s a diver driver’s worst nightmare an open parachute over the tail.  After watching it you’ll understand why I wear a rig when flying jumpers.

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Boy Scout

I leave for Florida next week, I hope, still no visa for India or conformation that the plane is ready yet…but I digress.  It’s time to start getting my survival kit together.  Getting ready for a 10,000 mile cross country is challenging, I have to be prepared to go down in the north woods of Canada, still winter in the great white north, the north Atlantic, Greenland’s Ice cap, the Mediterranean, (not so bad off the coast of Greece), the empty quarter of Saudi Arabia, (largest sand desert in the world) The gulf of Oman,(at least the water’s warm) then finally the deep jungle of Burma. Piece of cake.  At least I found this helpful information from the FAA.

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Yes, I do have a ball of string, gotta be prepared ya know.

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Ferry Flight Pic Of The Day

Here’s a picture of me flying a Phenom 100 in Australia for an episode in season one of Dangerous Flights.  I go to do all of the flying that day because the captain wasn’t able to fly formation with the camera ship.  Now in his defense the camera ship was a helicopter and therefore unsafe who’s top speed was just above the stall speed of the Phenom.  Still it was probably my most fun day of flying ever.

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Truth

1. When a flight is proceeding incredibly well, something was forgotten. – Robert Livingston, “Flying The Aeronca”

2. Just remember, if you crash because of weather, your funeral will be held on a sunny day. – Layton A. Bennett

3. Never fly the ‘A’ model of anything. – Ed Thompson

4. When a prang seems inevitable, endeavor to strike the softest, cheapest object in the vicinity, as slowly and gently as possible. – Advice given to RAF pilots during W.W.II.

5. The Cub is the safest airplane in the world; it can just barely kill you. – Attributed to Max Stanley, Northrop test pilot

6. A pilot who doesn’t have any fear probably isn’t flying his plane to its maximum. – Jon McBride, astronaut

7. If you’re faced with a forced landing, fly the thing as far into the crash as possible. – Bob Hoover

8. If an airplane is still in one piece, don’t cheat on it; Ride the bastard down. – Ernest K. Gann, advice from the ‘old pelican’

9. Though I Fly Through the Valley of Death I Shall Fear No Evil For I Am 80,000 Feet and Climbing. – Sign over the entrance to the SR-71 operating location on Kadena

10. You’ve never been lost until you’ve been lost at Mach 3. – Paul F. Crickmore

11. Never fly in the same cockpit with someone braver than you. – Richard Herman, Jr., ‘Firebreak’

12. There is no reason to fly through a thunderstorm in peacetime. – Sign over squadron ops desk at Davis-Monthan AFB, AZ, 1970. (It was still there in 1972.)

13.The three best things in life are a good landing, a good orgasm, and a good bowel movement. The night carrier landing is one of the few opportunities in life to experience all three at the same time. – Author Unknown

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Gravity Check

 Being lazy to day, OK not lazy just trying to get my taxes done before my Bangkok trip.  So for now here’s a skydiving video that was all the rage a few years ago.  It does a good job of showing most of the aspects of skydiving that us jumpers get excited about.  Enjoy! (If you have an hour to kill)