Re: [MBA-PATTO] How dangerous is a wingsuit?
I can understand that reaction Patto,
but I think anyone that writes off a 15sec wingsuit flight as very little reward is just not appreciating the aesthetics of it. These flights combine a highly technical and visual exit, with a strong dive attacking the terrain, to a nice fat flare and pitch to a tight, sloping, technical LZ. Nothing was straight forward and it demanded a high level of training, focus, and execution. I would usually prefer to climb El Cap, but for some reason I still spend time struggling on silly 15ft boulders, why is that? The actual times ranged from 18 to 30sec depending on the line flown, but I found these just as rewarding as the 75-85sec flights in the bigger Californian mountains.
I mean really, if nothing less than 15sec of flight before pitching is worth it, then all non-wingsuit jumps are a waste of time ;-)
There are many concerns raised here on the risk of bad exits, as there should be. Recovering and flying out a bad exit is a critical skill to be trained, one of many skills to be practiced as a wingsuit pilot. Imagine if the hang/paragliding community was complacent in 50hour novices just running around flying all the expert launches and flying XC giving themselves little/no margin, or with an experienced pilot deciding they are going to start trying aerobatic flying without the proper training. (Adjust this analogy as appropriate, I'm only a wannabe PG'er). Things would probably not look very different from the wingsuit discipline. I know most would reject any regulation or structure around proper pilot training, and that no amount of training can eliminate all fatalities, but I hope this becomes an option for new birds in the future.
hjumper,
as you know there are plenty of sketchy exits and flights in our favorite wingsuit haunt too, but we all need to decide for ourselves why we're flying, the risk/reward, and on any given exit if we've mitigated to the best of our ability the risks and hazards. I know you'll make the right decision for yourself.
