Another Way to Get High

By Jimmy Hopper

Team Member

Thanks to the introduction and encouragement from teammate, David “Dingo” Royer, paragliding has become one of the mainstays of my weekly routine here in the Bay Area. Our local site, known as Mussel Rock in Pacifica, CA, is a fantastic playground and a host to an eclectic group of pilots. These guys have become like family and we all thrive on the consistent conditions each summer season offers.

After a few years of paragliding I couldn’t help but to be a little envious of all the hang glider pilots who shared the skies with us. Sure, paragliding has its own unique advantages with transportability and ease of set up topping the list. The reality is both sports have their time and place. There’s just something about the maneuverability the hang glider offers. I mean these guys had literally been flying circles around me in my paraglider for years now! A hang glider pilot’s body position during flight is probably what attracted me the most to this new form of flight. Unlike the reclining seated position in a paraglider, the prone position assumed in a hang glider is much more like a bird and likely the closest we will ever get to flying like they do. To me it is reminiscent of flying wingsuits only we can now maintain and gain altitude. What could be better?!

This spring it was time to get on the path and add this skill to the quiver. Friend and fellow wingsuit pilot, Brian Drake, was also eager to learn the sport and we were soon introduced to instructor, Jon Blome. Under Jon’s direction we kicked off our first lesson at Ed Levin County Park where we spent the better half of the day practicing takeoffs and landings on a 50 foot “bunny hill”. All in all the day was a big success and we ended it by taking a test and receiving our Hang 1 rating. Unlike my experience with paragliding, right out of the gate it became evident that there were many more rules and hoops you have to jump through in order to earn the coveted Hang 3 rating needed to fly the most consistent local site, Ft. Funston. Convinced the payoff is going to be worth it, I didn’t let this get to me.

Over the next few weeks Brian, Jon, and I met nearly every Sunday at Ed Levin County Park to keep the momentum going. Once we could demonstrate strong takeoff/ landing skills, ground control of the glider, and the ability to change direction and fly to a target, the next step would be moving higher on the hill to the 150’ launch. To our dismay there were several weeks in a row where wind conditions proved to be challenging and we were confined to the 50’ launch at best. We were beginning to feel like we were stuck and would be “bunny hill” lifers. Right about when frustration was truly setting in, weather cooperated and Brian and I were granted permission to move up to the 150’. We each had 4 good flights and our motivation was restored.

The following weekend was looking promising and we were almost certainly going to have the chance to launch from the 300 footer. This would bring us that much closer to our Hang 2 rating which would allow us to fly a few more places than just Ed Levin. Typical of any three day holiday weekend, the coming Memorial Day weekend presented a myriad of action sport opportunities and the challenge was to figure out how to do it all. Dingo and several experienced hang glider pilots were planning to fly in the Owens Valley to celebrate his birthday, but this was thwarted by a sudden change in the forecast. With conditions looking favorable in the Reno area, a new plan was underway. This region offered something for all skill levels and it soon was agreed that Brian, Jon, and I would join forces with these guys.

A Bump in the Road

We arrived at our friend, Bill Cuddy’s house just south of Reno early that Saturday morning. Due to the amount of gear and number of people in tow, we were a comical caravan of five vehicles, though this didn’t seem to bother Bill. Time was of the essence since temperatures would be rising in an hour or two and would get too rough for Brian and I. We wasted no time and drove a short way to the landing area where we received a thorough briefing of the landing area. We then piled into 3 four-wheel-drive trucks and bounced our way up to the launch that Brian and I were suited to fly. I think I set a new personal speed record for setting up the glider. I did a quick pre-flight inspection, hooked in, and walked the glider to the launch. After a few minutes of assessing conditions we all agreed that they were nice and mellow and perfect for launch. Walk, jog, run and I was off with a strong launch. Almost immediately I felt a tiny bump of lift (rising air) so I pushed out on the bar to milk it for a little more altitude. This was the mistake that would lead to the next series of events.

In accordance with my flight plan discussed with the guys at launch, I initiated a left turn after flying straight for 10 seconds or so and flew along the ridgeline careful not to get too close. The glider suddenly seemed to want to bear left toward the hill so I immediately bumped to the right to point it in a safe direction. Nothing happened. I bumped right again even harder and more deliberate this time. Still nothing happened. The glider continued to come around to the left until I was now flying on a collision course toward the hillside. The terrain was formidable, littered with sage brush and boulder piles. This was all bad as it became obvious this is where I was headed. As the hillside got closer my ground speed became uncomfortably apparent. As a BASE jumper ground rush is a thrill you learn to enjoy and look forward to. In this case I was overcome with a sick feeling because I knew there wasn’t a parachute to save the day.

Just before impact I remembered the stories of crashes I had heard from other pilots. Natural instinct is to maintain a death grip on the control frame all the way into the ground which often is responsible for spiral fractures of the humorous. With this in mind I pushed out on the bar (flared) as hard as I could and let go of the control frame pulling my arms near my body. The wings weren’t perfectly level with the left tip lower than the right. This caused the glider to shoot upward and into a big left turn. With a loud metallic ‘clank’ me and the glider pounded into the hillside like a piano falling from the second story. I was quick to my feet and immediately started assessing myself for injuries. Teeth. Check. Legs. Check. Right arm. Check. Left Arm. Ch…Damn it!! There was a very visible deformity on my left wrist right about where it joins the hand. I let out a shout of disgust with myself which was a signal to everyone standing on the launch that I was conscious and more importantly, not dead.

The guys made their way to me pretty quickly with cameras rolling. I’m not exactly sure what I said but I’m pretty sure it was to the effect of, “summer has been canceled.” The glider turned out to not be damaged that badly with only one down tube bent. The hike on the other hand back up to the top was a bit uncomfortable to say the least. The scratches on my helmet and my face indicated that I had taken a bit of the impact on my head. This would explain why vision started to blur periodically and a break or two was required before reaching the top. At least this time everyone was spared the repetitive questions that are typical of a concussion. Before the inevitable bouncy ride down in the truck, Bill splinted my arm with a stick, a bath towel, and some duct tape.

So back to the mistake and what lesson was learned here. By pushing out on the bar right after launch I reduced my airspeed right off the bat. Instead of letting off of the bar and letting the glider fly I am almost positive that I still had the bar pushed out an inch or two the entire time. There was just enough energy left in the wing to make the left turn but after that there was nothing left to correct back to the right. In hindsight I could have pulled in on the bar generating more airspeed and turned to the right with no worries. Better yet, don’t kill your airspeed so soon after launch and so close to the ground! Let it fly! And in case you’re wondering, I look forward to picking up where I left off.

Big thanks to all of my friends on the trip for going out of their way to help me out. Special thanks to Anne Kroemer and Laure Willams for sacrificing their day to get me to the hospital and for looking after my dog. Thanks to the Cuddy family for opening their home to me and all of our riff raff friends.

Happy birthday, Dingo. This one will be easy to remember.

-Jimmy Hopper

Phoenix-Fly Product Line Challenge

By Ricardo Valbuena
Team Member

Photography by
Iwan van der Schoor

Once again Team Ill Vision has gathered to accomplish another challenge. This time the challenge consisted in Flocking the entire product line manufactured by Phoenix-Fly, Human Flight Innovations.
The challenge came as an idea after super light and skinny Team member Jhonathan Florez realized he was able to generate a fall rate of around 80mph with just the Tracking Suit. The realization prompted Jhonny to call up other team members to see if they could match up their Wingsuits with his Tracking Suit fall rate while staying within proper proximity to make an actual flock.
Practice jumps were called on June 18th and June 19th with just a few members. After a few practice jumps, and going through a process of trial and error, Jhonny was able to dial the right body position and fall rate to make it possible for the Wingsuits to stay within proper and consistent flocking distance.
On Saturday 20th at the Parachute Center in Lodi, California, the challenge was called up. The challenge counted with the presence of most Team Ill Vision members along with participation and collaboration of Aerial Videographer and Photographer Iwan Van Der Schoor and other members of the Lodi Wingsuit community.
An early morning first jump was made with the idea to flock a perfect diamond with 10 Points, including 6 different Wingsuits types led by a Tracking Suit. Only about an 85% success was achieved on this jump mostly due to the distraction generated by anxiety and anticipation among some of the participants. Nevertheless the jump provided the participants all the necessary inspiration and facts to work with in order to make a second successful attempt.
A second attempt was made, and short after exiting the plane a beautiful flock assembled to form a perfect diamond containing every type of Wingsuit and Tracking Suit made by Phoenix-Fly.
Participants included:

Jhonathan Florez, Team Member, (Tracking Suit)
Avery Badenhop, Team Member, (Shadow)
Damien Dykman, Team Member, (Acro)
Ed Pawlowski, Team Captain, (Prodigy 2)
Kristin Sosso, Team Member, (Ghost 2)
David Royer, Team Member, (Phantom 2)
Brian Drake, Team Alternate, (Vampire 3)
Brian Sobe, Team Alternate, (Stealth 2)
Rex Pemberton, Team Alternate, (Phantom 2)
Sean Horton, Team Alternate, (Ghost 2)
Iwan Van Der Schoor, Team Alternate, (Ghost 2 -Photography & Video)
Ricardo Valbuena, Team Member, (Ghost 2 – Aerial Direction & Coordination)

Baffin Island BASE Jumping Expedition

By Katie Hansen
Alternate Team Member


May 15 – April 14 a team of 20 BASE jumpers plus a photographer traveled to Sam Ford Fjord on Baffin Island to discover new exit points to jump from, as well as leap off old favorites. Baffin Island is located in northeast Canada up in the Arctic – the same island where the BASE jump off Mt. Asgard was filmed for the James Bond movie, The Spy Who Loved Me.

The team met in Ottawa then flew north to Iqaluit, boarded a smaller plane and flew into the small town of Clyde River, population 800. We stayed the night in town camped out on the baseball field where kids were excited to take us sledding, ask us questions, and play tag. In the morning we loaded up our big 12 foot sleds the Inuits call “Qamituks” with our gear, piled in, and were taken by a fleet of snowmobiles north into the fjord. Seven bumpy hours later we set up our tents in 30mph wind to establish our base camp.

With camp set, let the jumping begin! Our first jump was off Kiguti, a 3000’ overhanging cliff that camp was set up near. We hiked up a gulley and across a ridge to the exit point in about 3.5hrs kicking steps into the snow the whole way. I made my first wingsuit BASE jump! Flying the Team Ill Vision colors in Jhonny’s (“Medusa”) suit, I had a beautiful first flight. Camp made an awesome reference for scale to judge how high I was since depth perception is a challenge over the frozen sea ice below. Unfortunately, it didn’t help with my first snow landing in awhile. I ended up doing a home-run style slide and put my crampon through the back of my (Jhonny’s) leg wing…sorry Jhonny… It was nothing a little rip-stop tape couldn’t temporarily fix.

With the wing repaired and a string of good weather, we set out each day with different groups of teammates to different exit points all over the fjord. We jumped the Chinese Wall, one of the widest big walls in the world, towering over the fjord at 5000’ with a clear view out to the frozen Atlantic. It was cold and windy on top of this particular exit, making for a stressful gear up. Putting on crampons and stowing ice axes, hiking gloves, radios, stash bags, layers of clothing while sweat dries and fiddling with camera gear with numb fingers, James’ nose dripped onto the metal friction bar of his leg strap which froze instantly. With the friction bar iced over with snot, there was no longer any friction and James had to punch it and beat it to break the ice off, with us laughing while he punched himself. Everyone had awesome flights. I did a sweet 2-way with Douggs, flying left along the wall with Douggs below me.

Overall, we were camped on the sea ice for 28 days, half of which were jumpable. Of the 14 jumps I did, all of them were amazing. I would half to say three of the top jumps though, were Walker Citadel, The Citadel of The Sail Peaks, and Vertical Playground.

Walker Citadel was a 4 hour hike straight up a steep couloir. As we emerged out of the narrow passage, we were rewarded by the breathtaking view from the top overlooking the fjord. Constant antics of Jim Mitchell, Douggs, Livia Dickie, Cato, Ted Rudd, all while trying to follow the crazy Frenchman, Rudy, made the hike fly by. The exit was in the back of a huge bowl over a snowfield thousands of feet below. We flew out over the bowl and made it out between two enormous pillars of rock, then carved around the wall on the left, flying even farther. Livia and Ted Redd went to a different exit point and jumped the main wall of Walker Citadel, opening a new exit point that had never been done before. Livia had a beautiful and long flight, carving back and forth along the wall, and Ted did one of the most impressive tracking jumps (a jump with no wingsuit) that I have ever seen. He was proximity tracking along the ridges! Ted, you are my hero.

The other citadel we jumped was The Citadel, one of the Sail Peaks of Stewart Valley. Ben Mitchell, James MacDonald, Livia Dickie, Rich Webb, Rudy, myself, and our photographer, Krystal Wright, loaded up two Qamituks and set out with the help of our two Inuit guides to leave the fjord and pass into Stewart Valley. Snow conditions were better suited for traveling at night, so with our 24hrs of daylight, we headed out in the evening to face a pass full of rocks and boulders guarding our way. Our guides were able to pick their way through the pass with us in tow, except for one stretch that was just too treacherous. We unloaded from the sleds and using teamwork were able to push the sled over the rock field. After arriving at our destination and setting up camp, we finally crashed around 4:00AM. We slept in and started hiking around 2PM the next day. Judging by the topo map, and with Ben being an IFMGA mountain guide, we decided the best looking way up to the top was up the glacier. The route was growing increasingly windy to avoid crevasses until finally Ben and James said to stay put while they scouted out the best way to proceed. Ben’s exact words were, “This is getting borderline retarded!” So we took his word for it, got off the sketchy glacier of doom, and headed straight up the scree and rocks for the next few thousand feet to the top. It was definitely the direct route.

After an hour of 6.5 second rock drops with a “good push,” aka hucking the rock as hard as we could…we finally found what we were looking for; a 20 second rock drop with a beautiful, easy access exit point directly in line with camp – perfect. We named the exit point, “Qamituk Push” in honor of our epic journey into the valley. James jumped first, tracking, followed by me in my wingsuit, then Ben in his, Rich, and Liv and Rudy did a 2-way bringing up the rear. Everyone had nice long flights over the biggest talus I have ever seen. After we landed, we warmed up, ate some delicious bag food, and broke down camp. Shortly after, Krystal arrived from hiking back down (staying off the glacier) and we did the epic journey back that night, stopping only for a little 3AM bouldering session on one of the rocks guarding our way.

After some rest and a few other jumps, Livia, Wildman, Randy, Jay Moledski, Ben, Cato and I headed up to an exit point called Vertical Playground. It was across the fjord from our main camp, spotting originally from one of the boys while he was relieving himself on the pee ice-sculpture they had made. Every group that had jumped it came back saying it was the best jump in Baffin. 4900 feet and 4.5hrs later after looking over the edge, I could see why it was named Vertical Playground. There were so many potential lines to fly! Ridges and gullies… we had perfect weather; sunshine and no wind. I exited off the diving board rock outcropping, got flying and headed hard right. I dove down steep and mobbed through a gully between the cliff and a ridge. I shot out of the gulley and banked left around the front of the main cliff face then turned right to get away from the wall and fly out over the ice for a safe deployment. So far, this has been my favorite exit point I can recall to date. It blew my mind…

Between the quality of the BASE jumps, the majesty of the fjord, and an awesome crew of jumpers, the Baffin 2010 BASE jumping expedition, lead by Collin Scott, was the best expedition I have ever been on. I can’t wait to go back with the rest of the Ill Vision playas…

--Katie Hansen

Flock Lodi Video!!!!

By Brian Drake

Lodi Wingsuit Weekend - May 21-23, 2010 from Brian Drake on Vimeo.

WestCoast Wingsuits "Flock Lodi"

By Ed Pawlowski

WestCoast Wingsuits, "Flock Lodi", paints the sky with awesome wingsuit pilots wearing purple and red!

The "out of towners" showed up at the Parachute Center Friday morning with their A-Game and ready to fly! To start off the event they joined a few local pilots with some nice 10-ways, while awesome clouds filled the sky for all to fly around. Unlike how Florida's humid cloud cover fogs up lenses and makes the video and stills go into a blur when entering cloud elevation, the cool crisp Northern California air refreshed the pilots and made some awesome video!

Most of the group completed 5 jumps on Friday. Normally, at all WestCoast Wingsuits events, the last jump of the day on Friday is a demo jump into Ed Pawlowski's Wine and Wings Ranch. But due to a prior engagement some locals only did 4 jumps, so they could support a local skydiver Will DaSilva, at his premier boxing match. Will's fight was well worth watching, getting the crowd on fire up with a 53 sec TKO!!!

Saturday started off with clear skies and eager pilots ready to fly. With the Ed Pawlowski leading the flock in his TIV Vampire3, and the Team Ill Vision contingent ready to fly, the sky soon filled with 20 very talented pilots in a fast flying formation through the sky.
Do to recent shoulder surgery, Team Ill Vision's Kris Sosso, was not able to fly with us this year but showed her support at the event. We also had some other talented female pilots with us too. Brook Shinsky, Cate Henegan, Lori Butz and Katie Hansen, rocked the sky with the flocks! The dirt dives were relatively easy, with only a few cats to herd, and the formations went as planned. Jade Christopher Tatom rocked the Team Ill Vision Stealth2 on the flocks and provided some awesome video for the debriefs and still pics that will make your jaw drop.

After jumping on Saturday, the flock and about a dozen other skydivers gathered at Lodi Beer Company, where great food and drink was consumed by all, with only a little concern from the restaurant staff....lol
Sunday's weather showed us that the wind was still The Boss on a couple of jumps, but the flock continued to fly some awesome formations. Tight precise flocking lead to some awesome vertical stacking throughout the day. The day also lead to Team Ill Vision breaking out its entire arsenal of Phoenix Fly wingsuits including:
Acro
Shadow (custom order)
Phantom2
Ghost2
Stealth2
Vampire3
This soon lead to almost the entire 20-way formation rockin' the TIV purple and red!
Team Ill Vision members at the event included, Avery Badenhop, Ed Pawlowski, Jimmy Hopper, David "Dingo" Royer, Damien Dykman, Ricardo Valbuena, and Jhonathan "Medusa" Florez.

Wingsuit Pilots who joined the flock included:
Cate Heneghan
Ben Mitchell
Katie Hansen
Brook Shinsky
Brian Drake
Don Simmons
Lori Butz
Charley Kurlinkus
Nic Russell
Sean Horton
Randy McCoy
Chase Bradshaw
Zack Morlock
Glen Fafard
Ira Meiberger
Kip Chambers
Andy
Melissa Pemberton
Jade Edaj

Thank you to all the new pilots that attended the event, as well as all the ones that have flown with us before! WestCoast Wingsuits and Team Ill Vision look forward to flying with you again sometime soon!

Long Flights
ED