Freefly Friday (or any other day!)
Only toyed with vertical flying a bit, but did a lot of belly flying myself. I do recall the time I intentionally treid sit flying, I found it did make you fall with a huge silly grin on your face.
Anyhow, since I’ve refrained from jumping, it seems the freeflyers have quite advanced their methods:
When I began jumping in 72, “relative work,” now called “formation freefall” was still coming into it’s own, with luminaries like Jerry Bird (it was his real name, no kidding!) were making 10 man speed stars. In Oct, 1997, on a cool and clear Friday morning, I was inside a King Air, #4 plane in the formation over West Point, VA, eyes focused on the 10 others aft of me, not blinking, so I could move the instant they left the plane, so I could be a part of what turned into the VA State formation record (87), which was only exceeded in 2009. In the air with 89 people (2 videographers), falling between 200 and 120MPH, then entering the formation on the outer edge was a long way from 10 way speed stars.
So…check out the related YouTube videos on freeflying. Oh, did I mention I packed my rig besides Olav Zipser one weekend in Eloy, AZ?
Next: The Wing Suits…