Event Report! Moo Wings 2: Wing It, To Win It

I’ve been meaning to write this post for a while, but life keeps on getting in the way!

Unfortunately, with a couple of weekends under my belt including a wedding, and various trips with my day job, all I’m left with now is the overwhelming impression of just how awesome “Moo Wings 2 – Wing It To Win It” was.

But given that my impressions will make for more interesting reading than a jump-by-jump, day by day, account of the camp hopefully no harm done with the slight delay in getting the post up!

Wingsuiting in NSW is going from strength to strength and off the back of the success of the first Moo Wings earlier in the year, Moo Wings 2 “Wing It To Win it” took place over 4 days over the ANZAC day long weekend.

The camp catered for small, inter and big suit pilots in three groups coached by Brayden Mawson, Chris ‘Douggs’ McDougall and current world champion of speed Tahi-Paul Monroe. Fifteen pilots descended on Skydive Oz from all over NSW with some ring ins from Victoria and Anubi Yu who hailed from Inner Mongolia.

I’d say Anubi came just for the camp, but I doubt anyone would believe me. Anubi – who throws tandems in China – was spending a month in Oz and took the opportunity to get involved. Anubi is an absolute legend, and we’re already missing her happy smiling face and epic skills. Come back to Oz soon Anubi!

The camp was skills based with each of the coaches focusing on the needs of the individual jumpers in their groups. For my own part, I’ve only just moved up to my ATC (from a Phantom Edge) so was getting used to a suit with a tonne more power and range. I’m also in the middle of trying to lose 12kgs so I’m not so heavy in my suit but unfortunately until I shed the kilos it’s always going to be a challenge not to sink out, which I did on numerous occasions. Tim Cassar had the exact opposite problem trying to get his skinny little frame down to the base instead. We gradually worked it out.

Still, all the coaches were awesome taking the time coach each of us in our body positions (arms, legs, butt, core, shoulders, head – it’s way more complicated than you might think if you’re not a wingsuiter) and heaps of progress was made by everyone.

Tahi wanted to see how I was flying to give me some tips so made me the base for the big group. It was meant to be an easy circuit…. 45 off the door, another 45 to the right 10 seconds later and then a slow lazy 90 for the home leg. But I was trying WAAAAAY too hard and instead of going right, the suit decided to fly to the left into some head down carving. Which caught everyone, apart from Carter West, by surprise. Carter was back flying underneath me and I can still picture in my minds eyes shouting ‘FUCK YESSSS, LESSSSGO MARCUS!’ as I took everyone on a bit of an adventure. Credit where credits due the entire big suit group stayed with me as on my ‘choose your own adventure’ flight.

Aside from realising that I need to relax my arms a lot and generally not stress so much, the only thing that I took from that jump when the body is fully engaged, I can really fang it in a wingsuit, so I’m really looking forward to working on some wingsuit performance jumps in the months to come.

The weather was a little hit and miss with rolling cloud cover putting us on weather hold every now and then throughout the camp, but the final day the Eurobodella weather Turned. It. On. and everyone went hard to get as many jumps in as possible before the end of the day.

I’ve been fortunate enough to do some amazing jumps in my time – the surreal terror of my AFF1, the euphoria of successfully completing a 130 way out of 7 planes at Perris, the stillness and quiet of a sunrise balloon jump or the mad epicness of running out the back of a C130.

Skydiving has given me some of the best times of my life and it’s what keeps me coming back week in week out to the sport.

And to add to that list I have to add the absolutely bonkers 15-way vertical flock the inter and big suit group did for the final jump. It was mad and I’m never going to forgot finding the base and gradually losing height to take my slot in the formation.

The smiles and froth of the back flyers, the flyby by the Caravan of the absolute exhilaration of being in a group of absolutely epic human beings screaming up the coastline as one big flock. The jump made all the frustrations and mistakes off my earlier jumps pale into insignificance as I realised, I can actually do this. Ha! I can’t wait to get some more camps organised and chase that feeling again.

And that was it. A totally epic four days at Skydive Oz with the best bunch of legends you could hope to share the skies with. There was even an uninvited guest with Amanda sneakily managing a wingsuit rodeo (of sorts) every jump on the camp. Congrats Amanda and I can’t wait to be back in the sky with you soon 😊

As always, a massive thanks to Poo, Zac, Bindi, and everyone else at Skydive Oz and the Moruya Skydivers Club. You guys rock! And a big shout out to the New South Wales / ACT Parachute Council for their ongoing support of Jump Junkie. I really appreciate everything you guys do to make my life easier when it comes to organising events 😊

And finally big shout out to the coaches, Brayden, Tahi and Douggs as well the other pilots on the camp. I’m only as good as the people I jump with, and you guys sure as hell lift me up 😊

Roll On “Moo Wings 3.Carter” in late June as we say farewell to Mr West as he takes off on his travels. If you want to get involved the event, click here to go to the event page. All welcome – including non-wingsuiters!