Wingsuit Coaching Northern Italy?

Hey,

After a lot of solo belly flight (400+) I've decided to investigate wingsuits. I was at the FAI wingsuit meet two weeks ago and met a Squirrel rep but I didn't get to follow up for personal reasons. I'd therefore like to know if there are any wingsuit coaches for novices (and vendors for brands like Squirrel) in Northern Italy. The area ranges from Skydive Verona in the West to Skydive Venice in the East; Aeroporto Tricolore (Reggio Emilio) / Skydive Pull Out Ravenna in the South. Alternate is Reichenbach in Switzerland (which I prefer to avoid because CH-CHING)...thanks!

I would just ask around at your dropzone or whichever DZ has the most healthy WS population. I wouldn't worry about brand just yet.  I would recommend trying to find someone who can do your FFC but then also help you with your all around flying.  You will want additional coaching to learn to back fly, fly fast, fly close, etc.

I know there are a few squirrel/next level guys in northern italy but they do a lot of base so I'm not sure they would be tons of help but possibly worth an inquiry if you are really struggling to find someone.

James Boole (basestore.it), Maurizio di Palma and Cris Bendini (brentobaseschool.com) are all awesome wingsuit pilots and great coaches for all levels. They are located at Lake Garda but are also available for skydive coaching at dropzones there. Just contact them!

On 9/8/2019 at 12:05 PM, Fall0ut said:

James Boole (basestore.it), Maurizio di Palma and Cris Bendini (brentobaseschool.com) are all awesome wingsuit pilots and great coaches for all levels. They are located at Lake Garda but are also available for skydive coaching at dropzones there. Just contact them!

Lago di Garda is actually pretty darn close ~80km / 50mi). Monte Brento is about 160km / 100 mi.Thanks!

16 hours ago, markharju said:

Lago di Garda is actually pretty darn close ~80km / 50mi). Monte Brento is about 160km / 100 mi.Thanks!

Cool. Just don't ask them if you can do your very first wingsuit flight off a cliff instead off an airplane 

2 hours ago, Fall0ut said:

Cool. Just don't ask them if you can do your very first wingsuit flight off a cliff instead off an airplane 

Heh. Nope, not the plan. At my age I doubt I'll ever grow a pair big enough to do BASE of any kind (except maybe a place like New River Gorge WV). Besides, the aircraft wingsuiters whom I know personally over here have no desire to do proximity and neither do I, though one from Switzerland whom I recently met at Ravenna showed me a video he'd captured at Eiger. He launched from a helo, like Jeb Corliss did at the Matterhorn, but unlike Jeb he didn't fly down zipping between the pinnacles, he just flew alongside the notorious North face at a safe distance. Very, very cool and something which, given enough training and experience, I'd like to do too, especially because Eiger is in the Bernese Alps and only 5 hours by rail from where I'm sitting right now in Northern Italy.

I left a voicemail for James Boole last night and am awaiting his reply. I told him I've got around 400 AC jumps w/no BASE and am interested in wingsuiting. I made no mention of doing BASE, just wingsuiting from aircraft.

The weather forecast for this weekend is highly favorable so I might just drive over to Monte Brento and watch. Like most, I've only seen BASE jump videos and never in person (I was too lazy to drive over to Perrine Bridge ID and see for myself though I did get invited once, but that never panned out [no follow-up from the one doing the offering and I lost contact with him]).

12 hours ago, Fall0ut said:

Cool. Just don't ask them if you can do your very first wingsuit flight off a cliff instead off an airplane 

I'm meeting James Boole at Skydive Verona tomorrow for what I hope will be wingsuit familiarization and a time-before-the-second wingsuit jump 

9 minutes ago, markharju said:

I'm meeting James Boole at Skydive Verona tomorrow for what I hope will be wingsuit familiarization and a time-before-the-second wingsuit jump 

Have fun!

On 9/13/2019 at 8:37 PM, Fall0ut said:

Have fun!

I met James Boole yesterday (Sat 14 Sep 2019) at Skydive Verona. The DZ was pretty busy with tandems and he was already scheduled to work with another student so I had a long wait. Nonetheless, his indoctrination briefing was very good, his training prep was thorough. I was as well-prepared as any wingsuit nugget could be.

He got video of my wingsuit jump. Old bellyflyer habits asserted themselves and I found myself struggling with the suit most of the time. It was very unstable because of my body position and the way I was attempting to control the suit rather than letting the suit do its thing. I was doing flips and rolls and struggled to maintain stable flight. Good thing I had a ditter because I was totally preoccupied with flying the suit. Video here