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The first FreeFlocking team
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_On February, 2003, during the first Puerto Rico FreeFall Fest, after about 150 skydives (mostly freefly) my friend Kevin Keenan offered me to try out his wingsuit. I hooked up the wingsuit to my rig and Chris Martin took me up on my first flight. Like most people, after the first flight, I was instantly hooked. A few months later, I purchased Kevin's wingsuit. Every flight was more exiting than the last. I felt like I did on my first skydives. |
| _Since then, I must admit I have only done less than 20 non-wingsuit skydives. But after about 100 wingsuit flights, which included many fun small way flocks, high altitude jumps, night jumps, cloud surfing and big way flocks, it was all becoming routine and I was growing slightly bored. I began missing freeflying, but as much as I missed freeflying, I could not bring myself to detach my wingsuit off my rig to go on a regular skydive. Instead I began to think on how I could "freefly" with my wingsuit. I told some of my wingsuit buddies about my ideas. They laughed and said "You can't do that. That can't be done". I began to experiment on solo flights. I recorded and studied the flights, and after some practice, I went up with my buddies and demonstrated that in fact it could be done. |
| _Soon, all my buddies were convinced and joined in a new fun way of wingsuit flying. After coming up with maneuver after maneuver, we needed some structure to our routines. And decided to call this new way of flying "freeflocking". Freeflocking is more than the typical aerobatics which consists mainly of rolls, loops and spins. Freeflocking is closer to freeflying, atmonauti and freestyle where there are major changes in fall rate, body orientation, heading and trajectory. It is also mainly done relative to other pilots. |
| _Armed with a growing arsenal of moves and routines, we took the next step. We formed the first freeflocking team, team O zone.Team O zone is dedicated to fun, artistic and competitive "non-standard" wingsuit piloting, such as aerobatics, small three dimensional dynamic flocks, true sequential "flock and docks", passenger transfers, etc. and of course freeflocking. Through the use of technical and artistic videography and photography, one on one coaching, and this website, team O zone's first goal is to spread this new sub-discipline, by educating, entertaining and appealing to the wingsuit community and the general skydiving population. Our next goal is to host small boogies, competitions, meets, etc. |
| _There is more to wingsuit flying than the static flocks, and the speed\distance\fall rate\freefall time\ glide ratio records, (also know as GPS tracking). This is why team O zone is here. |
- Omar Nery's - "Acro-Bat"
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