Wingsuit 2 way over the Middle Rio Grande Valley

Here are some pictures Skippy took last weekend. We were doing a flocking dive and trying to dock on each other for the first time. We got the dock, which consisted of tapping fists for a brief moment, and then somehow El Skip flew into the dead air burble directly above me and wound up barrel rolling out of the formation. After that we both just gunned it for the DZ .

Above: Diving out of the Cessna

That's Skippy's leading edge in the foreground.

Desert Squirrel

Wingsuit solo at Skydive New Mexico from JC Brown on Vimeo.

I just got this cool Go Pro Helmet Hero camera from my friends at Super Fly. It's a tiny little unit that will shoot video or stills and mounts to the top of my helmet, so the camera sees whatever I see in flight. Here's one of my first attempts at making a flying video with the Helmet Hero.

As you can see I'm a complete beginner at shooting and editing video, but it sure is fun to be learning something new! I can't wait for the next day with some big surfable cumulus clouds...

New Wings

 I've put about 130 flights on my Tony Suit Intro, so I think I'm ready to fly a bigger,faster suit. Here I am wearing my brand new 2009 Tony Suit Raptor. I'll have to wait until next Saturday before I get to make my first flight on it. 

Skydive The Farm & Chuting Star

I spent 10 days at Skydive The Farm near Atlanta Georgia recently. The main purpose of the trip was to attend an 8 day Senior Parachute Rigger class at Mike Gruwell's Chuting Star rigging loft. It was more like Rigger Boot Camp - eight long days of parachute packing, rigging, repairing, and construction. The students and instructors were great, and the class, despite it's grueling pace, was awesome. I returned home ready to take my written test with the local FAA. Once I've passed the written I'll take my oral and practical test with Rich Greenwood, who is the local Designated Parachute Rigger Examiner. If I can pass the tests I'll be a licensed Rigger.

The trip was fantastic. It rained hard every single day, which was a real treat for a desert rat like me. I camped out in my tent on Serenity Island in the middle of one of the Farm's natural swoop ponds. The facilities and folks at the Farm were top notch. Between the weather and the class, I didn't get a lot of jumping in, but I did get a few nice long wing suit flights from the Farm's Twin Otter. 

Here are a few pictures from the road.

Sunrise on Day 1.

Rain!

Serenity Island.

Riglet.

Jump # 666!

Here are some photos that Kyle Bailey (aka FR# 2) took over the last few weekends at Skydive New Mexico. The first one shows me and KB posing with Skippy H (FR# 3) in front of 42X. This photo was taken right before my 666th skydive. Just to be safe, I did a 3 way with 2 other ministers from the Church of Spiritual Humanity on that jump. 

Parachute Landing

Photos by FR#2

Tools

This winter I've been working on getting my FAA Senior Parachute Rigger rating. One of a rigger's jobs is repacking reserve parachutes, so I've been practicing repacking Dave Harper's Vector 2. Here are some photos of the freshly repacked Vector and the tools I used to do the job.