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Only if you think "devout Muslim" equals "Islamic extremist". I know that people like you and ron, who are terrified of people who aren't like you, this thought process is likely true. That however doesn't make it fact.

It did indeed get corrupted during the changeover. I figure this is a good time for a second (or third, or ninth) chance for several people here. Let's see what they do with it.

As if I ever left?

are any of those true? That one sure is not. according to snopes it can be traced back to 1996. I discovered out a new feature by mistake, if you highlight text in a post you can easily selectively quote it when a "quote selection" tooltip pops up.

I am a heavier jumper than you and I can give you some feedback. Honestly, the first mistake people tend to do when giving advice to larger skydivers is only considering the WL. Wingloading is one factor that is nowhere near equal for a 170lbs or a 220lbs jumper. I started jumping with a 270 and by the 10th jump I was on 250. Larger canopies with higher wingload will still be less responsive than smaller canopies at the lower wingload. You have to take many factors in consideration, the amount of material, aerodynamic properties of the larger wing, the line length etc. Long story short, you are not in greater danger just because you jump a 1.1wl 210 and the other guy jumps a 150 0.8wl canopy. Your canopy will still react slower, the roll is longer. The only difference you will probably notice is a slightly faster descend rate and a slightly more responsive toggle. From what I jumped the canopies in 270, 250, 230 range all reacted very similar. The first noticeable bump came with a 210, but that was also because of the design of the canopy, it was my first non student modern canopy. Still nothing scary. I was loaded just above 1.1 at this point. Then came the 185 which put me under a 1.25 wl. This is the first time I noticed the canopy started to fly in a totally different dimension. But given my flying capabilities, landings etc. I was cleared for it at around 80 jumps. When I made another 60 I was give na chance to test fly a 170 and honestly again the difference was minor, but you start to notice the speed picking up. The lowest I tested was 150 at the end of this season and the leap from a 170 to a 150 is noticeable at worst. The air is louder, you go MUCH faster and you loose altitude very quickly during the turns. Canopy gets ground hungry. And this is definetely my stoping point for atleast 200 jumps. An interesting thing I have to point out is the flare. Flare keeps getting better and better. You can stop a 150 like you would fly a 210, a lot of power available. Considering the wl: 0.8 to 1.1 pretty much the same, basic flying, if you aren't a total anti talent for canopy piloting you are probably fine 1.1-1.3 Things get faster, sportier but the canopy still manages to forgive some flawed imput 1.3-1.5 The difference gets noticable, every downsize feels like a real step up to the previous size. Things happen fast. Mind you, this is totally my experience with piloting canopies. I am not saying it is correct, but it might help you, since I already went trough the first few phases. I also must stress that I progressed to a smaller canopy only after I successfully landed the previous model in various wind conditions and situations. If you have trouble standing up landings 280-250 then I suppose downsizing still ain't the right call. Here is a video comparison I did of a 185 vs a 150 canopy. I'm piloting in both cases. Notice the time needed for both canopies to land. 185 pulls out and levels while 150 keeps flying towards the ground.

Agreed; It is much better today. For the past couple days, I had learned to: 1. Click on dropzone.com link. 2. Go look at some other websites for a couple minutes. 3. Return to see if dropzone.com link has finally loaded.

Either you did something to fix it or the problem is intermittent. This morning (0700 CST) the site is responsive to navigation and much more pleasant to use.

I was a big user of drop zone.com, but so far this is a big negative change to me, and I suspect usage could drop substantially. 1. Previously google search sorted through the forum topics well - if you typed “katana vs crossfire” google would link to several dropzone.com discussions, and we could read through lots of views. Now those links are gone because the site is reogranized, so the google results just produce page errors. The site search functions don’t work nearly as well as the google algorithms, as they provide a long list of tangential topics in the search results. 2. I tried search for “107” which previously brought up, e.g., the katana 107s that are for sale. Now it seems the search does not work properly within classifieds as I got “no results” although there are some for sale in classified. 3. It seems awfully slow. 4. I don’t agree that this new layout is better. The old one used space more efficiently, while this makes us scroll through more. The slow speed adds frustration when needing to scroll. Sorry to be so negative, but as I said I’m a big fan of the site and hope some of these problems can be resolved. I’ve seen similar sites in other fields disappear when the design changed. The loss of links to google searches is a real disappointment as there is an accumulated knowledge from over ten years of forum discussions which is now much much harder to discover.

Truly a great guy.....hadn't seen him in many years.....

As kind as human being as I've known. RIP dear friend.

......................................................... A long spot at Schweighofen, Germany will see you landing a round reserve in a French swamp! Guess how I learned that???? Hah! Hah!