CanuckInUSA

Slider up on a 500' cliff? Forget the Raven II (which was obviously not the best choice), but slider up on a low cliff is just not smart. I'm now sending get well vibes to the injured jumper, but don't do that again!!! Try not to worry about the things you have no control over

Good god you would think that someone with 3000+ jumps would have figured this out by now. Good/bad body position come deployment time is the biggest influencing factor on someone's opening. BASE jumpers are taught this from an early age, why do so many skydivers ignore this? Try not to worry about the things you have no control over

It's a parachute!!! It wants to open!!! We just never said it would open on heading or anything like that. Once you understand how the system works, then you'll understand why I say "It's a parachute, it wants to open". Try not to worry about the things you have no control over

I guess I got my numbers mixed up. But nevertheless, I witnessed JT take his jump deep into the basement. Of course who knows what caused him to go so low, but the boy came super close to killing himself. Try not to worry about the things you have no control over

What if you witnessed the jump first hand like Rauk and I did? Sure we don't know what was going through his brain (likely never will), but Rauk is only saying what he saw that day. The jumper in question was super low in the basement, a 5+ second delay before a PC was presented to the air (on a 7 second to impact jump) and his body slammed into the water hard before his slider was even given a chance to come down. Now if that doesn't qualify as "what actually went on", then I'm sorry you guys need to wake up to the reality that Mother Earth doesn't give a shit how cool YOU think you are. This shit will kill you if you don't respect it's dangers. Try not to worry about the things you have no control over

Unless someone is jumping a large "valved" BASE jumping canopy, coming in in 1/4 or 1/2 half brakes is NOT good. Speed == Lift. It may take some getting used to (the speed) but having someone brake too soon because they don't like their forward speed is a way to "kill" them instead of helping them. What we do is NOT easy nor is it trivial. It's not easy to land a canopy exactly where you want to land it. But sometimes you have no choice in the matter. Never said this shit was easy to do. Try not to worry about the things you have no control over

We know it's NOT your fault Jim, but all I've got to say is "Bastards!!!" Swooping is way cooler than whatever NBC can come up with. But we already knew this. Oh by the way, the CPC is an awesome thing. What a great way to prepare us for swoop competitions. Try not to worry about the things you have no control over

Yup they look roughly the same distance we use. Try not to worry about the things you have no control over

It's nothing that 10,000 jumps can't fix. Without seeing video of your jump, your body position looks fine. It may not be how the pros look, but we're not pros. But your gates do look pretty wide. Did you guys take the wide angle lens off of your cameras to video the comp? If not, then you should. Try not to worry about the things you have no control over

They need to line the bottom of the pond before they bring in the water. We're still a couple of weeks away from getting wet. Dang ... this could be an expensive summer for me with reserve repacks after my daily chow ritual. I better become a rigger fast if I'm around water. Try not to worry about the things you have no control over

You're lucky you did score on that re-jump because I would have taken 1st had you not scored points. And how would that have looked considering I was tied for last place 1/2 through the competition. Try not to worry about the things you have no control over

Oh I've thought of that for a long time now. Historically I've always liked cross-country general aviation. But I'd rather limit things to a two place aircraft or a four placer but only carry one passenger. The thought of aerobatics is new to me (I have no real world experience in aerobatics ... yet). But the powerful homebuilt (like the one shown) is likely a good candidate for duel cross-country flight and solo aerobatics. The Citrabria is purely an affordable entry level aerobatic airplane and well the Cessna is your classic cross-country trainer. I still like the bang for the buck of a homebuilt aircraft. But there are issues with this route. Of course I'm sure there's issues with all forms of aircraft ownership (initial cost, fixed costs, operating costs, normal maintenance, annual inspection and resulting maintenance and that ever so regretted and expensive engine overhaul time). Try not to worry about the things you have no control over

The Cardinal is just an example. I'd love a Cessna 182, but those are not cheap. A Cessna 172 is more likely than a 182, but there are no real "gotcha" deals out there that I can find right now and even if I did find it, I'm not in a position to buy right now. I'm just dreaming ... Piper Archers and some older Cherokees are also in the running (cheaper than Cessnas), but a well maintained Cessna should always sell. The demand for Pipers isn't as high. Oh I'd love a Beech or a modern Mooney aircraft, but those are too expensive for me. I'm really thinking someone else's homebuilt (I'd rather fly these next 5-10 years and not be stuck building for 5-10 years), a good Citrabria with some added hp or a Cessna 172 or 177 with fixed gear. Try not to worry about the things you have no control over

The Cessna 195 is an ultra cool airplane (I'd love to fly one), but it's not cheap and it's old. I'd hate to be the last owner of an airplane that needed to be retired before I could sell it. Try not to worry about the things you have no control over

I find myself dreaming of aircraft ownership again. Of course this would definetely mean having to continue to work in the corporate world (a place that has driven me just a tad crazy these last 20 years). But before I can even come close to being serious about owning an aircraft I will need to come up with the money and while I was planning on selling my house and downsizing to a much smaller cheaper home which would free up some $$$ to buy an airplane, it's likely not the smartest thing to do with one's money (there's no way in hell that owning an aircraft would be good for one's retirement ... unless of course the aircraft appreciated and you could re-sell it). Anyway here's a couple of links of three radically different aircraft I think I could buy (if I sold my house). I'm sure none of these aircraft will be on the market if/when I do get around to selling my house. But it gives you an idea as to the type of plane I'd like to have (of course any aircraft purchase must be made carefully without emotions getting too involved). 1) This hot rod already built experimental aerobatic airplane. This airplane would be ultra-fun like a fighter jet (to me), but could it be re-sold in the future and how much insurance would I have to pay and what about access to spare parts? 2) This one is a Citabria aerobatic tail dragger with the ever so important upgraded mental spar wing assembly. This plane should be cheaper to operate, cheaper to insure and likely easier to re-sell. 3) There is also a low-time a Cessna 177 (Cardinal) found in the inventory section of their web site with fixed gear that I'd post the URL for except that the site uses Javascript and the url to the airplane is not shown. Anyway this would be a great cross-country airplane and it should be easier to insure as well as resell. So am I just plain nuts for dreaming of aircraft ownership, or is this normal for aviators to feel this way? Try not to worry about the things you have no control over

The DZ (Mile-Hi in Longmont) is open 7 days a week this time of year. Since I'm now an unemployed bum (with some savings) I'll likely be there jumping on one of those days. Of course we could take the time and find eeneR and Kelel01 a place to live. Try not to worry about the things you have no control over

Wrong state!!! Try not to worry about the things you have no control over

Yes I wasted my time this morning watching that stupid "Today" show on NBC this morning. Instead of swooping they had women having babbies in the late 30s talk, some stupid sore loser high school student who didn't follow his high school graduation dress code and wasn't given his diploma, then they gave it to him but that wasn't good enough as his special interest needs obviously weren't met, then they had some wedding crap, more American Idol crap, a segment on RVs and ending it all with some cook making food. Well when you compare what they showed this morning (women's baby issues, weddings, some special interest shmuck, American Idol crap, aging baby boomer RV talks and food) you can see the demographics of the audience they are trying to reach and well swooping doesn't fall into the same category as all this other crap they had on. Try not to worry about the things you have no control over

Spizzarko (Grant Adams PM'ed me about adding a little recap ... what he normally does ... about our comp this weekend). I'm going from memory here, so hopefully I'll be somewhat accurate. The day was nice. Reasonably sunny (considering the rain and clouds the day before the comp as well as the day after) and the tempuratures were just right. Not too cold, not too hot. But we were dealing with moderately strong 5-10 kt quartering head winds as well as direct head winds all day long. In round one (zone accuracy) only one competitor, Jason Russell was able to land in a positive scoring zone. Most competitors either misjudged the lack of penetration we would get into the wind and landed short of the positive scoring zones, and at least one competitor verted the entry gates. In round two (zone accuracy), Jason Tolliver and Dave both managed to rip nice runs landing in positive scoring zones but Jason Russell went long on the course, Steve and Aubrey both touched down in positive zones, but like past competitions we both slide off the side of the course. Plus Eric and Keith verted the entry gates. In round three (distance) Jason Tolliver appeared to score a respectable distance run (in the moderately strong head wind), but it was later ruled after a video replay than his feet touched down before the entry gates and the video appeared to show his feet dragging through the gates. Dave, Aubrey, Jason Russell and Eric all scored respectable distances while Steve and Keith verted their attempts. In round four (distance) by now the moderately strong quartering head wind coming out of the Northeast was now coming directly down the course from the east. So we knew we weren't going to be scoring big distances. But Steve (longest of the day at 250 feet), Dave and Jason Tolliver did manage to score respectable distance runs while Aubrey, Jason Russell, Eric and Keith all verted. Before round five started (speed) not only did the moderately strong winds shift now coming out of the Southeast (our first speed carving course runs from the west to the south) but two competitors (Keith and Aubrey) pulled themselves out of the competition due to personal reasons. So that left Jason Tolliver to make the entry gates but he hit a noodle (taking a 5 second penalty) while Dave and Jason Russell verted the entry gates. Eric made the gates, but didn't have enough momentum to get himself to the exit gates and his canopy touched down. Steve was the only competitor to run this speed round clean at 3.5 seconds (even though I had to kite my canopy through the course for the last foot or two thanks to the winds). In the final round, round six (speed) we finally had that nasty moderately strong head wind out of our faces and now we were going to swoop from the south towards the west with the wind at our backs. But most of us don't practice this entry gate orientation very much so some people had more problems verting the gates. Anyway both Jason Tolliver and Jason Russell verted their attempts while Dave scored a 2.66 second run through the carving speed course and both Steve and Eric scored 2.60 second attempts through the 185 foot course. Also if you can believe it, I put a sweater down on the ground to aid as a ground reference to know when to start my turn on this rarely used approach orientation. But some fun jumper at the boogie decided to pick up my sweater off of the ground. So not only did I lose my visual reference, I also seem to have appeared to lose my sweater as it was never returned to the lost and found at the DZ and an announcement over the PA also failed to turn it up. So I'm not to sure what to think about this. Anyway ... Dave Billings was the overall winner (taking 2nd in zone accuracy, 1st in distance and 3rd in speed). Steve Armstrong took second overall (tied last for zone accuracy, but 2nd in distance and 1st in speed) while Jason Tolliver rounded out the top three (1st in accuracy, 4th in distance and 4th in speed). I would like to thank Jason Tolliver for organizing the event as well as thank management at Mile-Hi for accommodating us and a special thanks must go out to the judges who volunteered their time. Plus since this was a boogie weekend for the DZ, at night Lyle Presse gave a little seminar to 1/2 of the competitors as well as a few other by-standards concerning competition swooping tactics. Lyle was so kind to share with us some trade secrets concerning the running the zone accuracy, speed and distance events. Of course this info could have been more useful before the comp, nevertheless it was good stuff to hear. Most of the stuff he told us, we already knew, but he did have a few nuggets for us (swooping trade secrets) so our time was definitely well spent with Lyle. I'm looking forward to the next competition which should be over the new pond and we hope that Grant Adams and Ryan Townsend return from their vacations and we also hope that Chris Pope can sort out his health issues and can get back into the air with us. The top two people (Grant and Dave) have dominated the local CPC circuit so far, but Jason Tolliver, Jason Russell, Aubrey Cundall and Steve Armstrong all find themselves in a tough battle to take the remain three top five slots with one of us bound to go home empty handed. I'm currently on the outside of these guys looking in, meaning I still have a lot of hard work ahead of me to qualify for the CPC Championships in September. But I did manage to close the gap a little between myself and the three people ahead of me. It's been a fun summer so far of swooping on the CPC and I can only hope that we continue to have some great swoop comps and that we continue to fly safe. Safety-wise this was our best comp to date with nobody being dangerously low, digging themselves out of the corner and the health of the judges was never in question this day. Steve ... Try not to worry about the things you have no control over

I never got airborne today. So any pics from me will have to wait a few days. So I'm not that cool after all. Try not to worry about the things you have no control over

Weather permitting, I will try and capture some pictures from my video camera tomorrow (preferably from the air) of the new pond and then I'll post them on here at some point. Try not to worry about the things you have no control over

We're not worthy!!! But it is a big pond. No it's huge!!! Just remember if/when some of you do visit us here in Colorado, that your canopy will NOT perform as you're used to. It will come in faster and you will have less lift. In fact PST pros like Lyle Presse and Vladi Pesa were talking to me today on how their canopies weren't performing like they normally do. It's not that the experienced people can't handle it, it's just that you shouldn't try and go big when you first arrive here. You do need to dial it back at notch or two to get used to how your canopy will sink (dynamic stalls can be a killer at our density altitudes). Not trying to scare anyone, but jumping here at altitude is NOT the same as jumping at sea level. Try not to worry about the things you have no control over

Hey leave me out of this thread. I'm not gay (not that there's anything wrong with being gay) nor am I religious. I do believe though that these religious nut cases who claim that their way is the truth cause more trouble than anything. God help us (pardon the pun) when these religious nut cases turn the USA into a theology (as they so much desire). Try not to worry about the things you have no control over

Mountains all the way!!! Try not to worry about the things you have no control over

I'm one of the lesser experienced CPC competitors here in CO and I managed to rip a 400+ foot swoop today in practice (there was a downwind component). So if I can muster up 400+ feet, I can only imagine what the pros will be able to do. I can't wait to see them here in CO come September. But don't forget to bring your water wings people. This pond is huge!!! Try not to worry about the things you have no control over