Icon Aircraft co-founder dies in wing suit accident.

I wouldn't call it bad luck. I met this guy at OSH when the F900 owner wanted to look at an ICON. He had an order postion.

After talking to this gentleman and a few other employees I decided to do whatever it would take to never give instruction in one.
 
DE727UPS said:
From what I've seen wing-suiting is an accident waiting to happen. Pretty crazy.
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I used to tow gliders next to a drop zone. Dangerous enough already. When the wingsuits were in the air, I shut down the tow plane and would not fly until they were on the ground.
 
You know, when I’m over trolling the depths on the ‘Tube, the algorithm (All hail the algorithm…) will occasionally spit up a video of one of these wingsuit guys zipping along through some alpine pass. They’ll be ripping along, 20 feet from some impressively gnarly looking terrain, one twitch from turning themselves into mulch, and making it look easy. Then I’ll google the dude’s name, and sure enough, dead at 32 from some mistake, doing something that his friends called “what he loved…” And then you read about his now struggling single parent wife and 3 y/o son who’ll never get to know dad.

Lesson learned: know when you’re looking at enough rope to hang yourself with. Wingsuits are all rope…
 

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BEEF SUPREME said:
I wouldn't call it bad luck. I met this guy at OSH when the F900 owner wanted to look at an ICON. He had an order postion.

After talking to this gentleman and a few other employees I decided to do whatever it would take to never give instruction in one.
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That’s an odd take. What specifically made you think that?

I fly with a guy who instructs in Icons as a side gig and he speaks very highly of the aircraft. He’s a very accomplished and knowledgeable pilot.
 
Just for the record - I've seen more than my fair share of people take their last breath. Violently and otherwise. Come close myself a couple times. I've heard all about the mythical "they died in their sleep peacefully" thing but I have never experienced that and am skeptical. So I'm just gonna lay this out there - there really isn't a "good way" to die. It seems rather uncomfortable and is usually accompanied with bad sounds and/or smells. YMMV.
 
invadertim said:
You know, when I’m over trolling the depths on the ‘Tube, the algorithm (All hail the algorithm…) will occasionally spit up a video of one of these wingsuit guys zipping along through some alpine pass. They’ll be ripping along, 20 feet from some impressively gnarly looking terrain, one twitch from turning themselves into mulch, and making it look easy. Then I’ll google the dude’s name, and sure enough, dead at 32 from some mistake, doing something that his friends called “what he loved…” And then you read about his now struggling single parent wife and 3 y/o son who’ll never get to know dad.

Lesson learned: know when you’re looking at enough rope to hang yourself with. Wingsuits are all rope…
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I remember hanging out at the airport fire station with the medevac crew (IMS we had participated in some sort of youth career day with the firefighters) and we ended up on a similar YouTube rabbit hole. Those dudes are certifiably insane
 
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