Costyn

Started april 2001 with a static line course, have 250 jumps now. Costyn van Dongen - http://www.flylikebrick.com/ - World Wide Wingsuit News

Very very nice. Looks pretty damn difficult. Perhaps someday I will be competent enough... Cheers! Costyn. Costyn van Dongen - http://www.flylikebrick.com/ - World Wide Wingsuit News

Hmmm... I apologize. I am truly sorry about this. I use the Linux console version, and it is free of spyware of any kind. I've never actually used the Windows client, so I was unaware that the Windows version did come with bundled spyware. I'm just happy with the Overnet network. You can try eMule. It uses the eDonkey/Overnet network too. Its an open source tool (for Windows only, unfortunately), so I assume that it does not have spyware, seeing as it is not a commercial project by a company. But then again, don't take my word for it. I was wrong before. Happy sharing nonetheless! Costyn. Costyn van Dongen - http://www.flylikebrick.com/ - World Wide Wingsuit News

There's a lot of crap that comes with KaZaa. KaZaa Lite is pretty much without it. But I don't really like KaZaa. Too much crap floating around. For quality stuff, try Overnet (the new eDonkey). The nice thing is that they have indexing services like ShareReactor where you can search for stuff. You then paste a special link (ed2k://) into your client and it'll download that file for you. You can be assured that you don't have a fake file (a file that has a title of one thing, but is something else, a problem that exists with KaZaa) and that the file will definately work. Overnet has all the features KaZaa has, like downloading from multiple sources and checking downloaded blocks with checksums. Very cool stuff; I'm very happy with it after I ditched KaZaa a while back and I highly recommend Overnet. Cheers, Costyn. Costyn van Dongen - http://www.flylikebrick.com/ - World Wide Wingsuit News

Heh, puking smileys are funny: http://community.the-underdogs.org/smiley/prank.htm Cheers! Costyn van Dongen - http://www.flylikebrick.com/ - World Wide Wingsuit News

Oh definately. I had an exam this morning. Should be the last for a while. Now for a final project and be finished with this whole education thing.. Ugh. Costyn van Dongen - http://www.flylikebrick.com/ - World Wide Wingsuit News

Amen! I love Mozilla! Costyn van Dongen - http://www.flylikebrick.com/ - World Wide Wingsuit News

Well, exactly as Slappie said.. you download ad-aware (using the link he provided) and run it on your computer every once in a while. Just like a virus checker. Speedracer, spyware is stuff that tracks what sites you go to and sends information about it back home, so they can put it into their evil marketing database. http://www.spychecker.com/spyware.html See URL for more info or do a search on Google: http://www.google.com/search?q=spyware Safe surfing! Costyn van Dongen - http://www.flylikebrick.com/ - World Wide Wingsuit News

Nah, as far as I know ad-aware is completely cool & froody. Nothing to worry about. You're actually not that 'infected', With only 3 registry entries and some cookies but no programs. I've seen worse, believe me (not on my own PC, btw. ). As for cookies, with some browsers you can reject them easily (Mozilla, Phoenix, Konq). I'm sure there's plugins or whatever for IE too. You go to a site and if the site tries to send you a cookie your browser'll ask you if you wanna accept a cookie. If you don't feel like it, hit the reject button. But some places you need cookies (like posting to the dz.com forums!) so you hit 'accept'. Have fun in the sky! Costyn van Dongen - http://www.flylikebrick.com/ - World Wide Wingsuit News

Don't worry, my machines (home and work) will be submitting their WUs soon. We'll be over a 100 soon. Cheers! Costyn. Costyn van Dongen - http://www.flylikebrick.com/ - World Wide Wingsuit News

Oh yeah, thats a great suggestion. That really helped me too, wearing shorts and a sweater. I was always bouncing around a little wearing my freefly suit, but the shorts/sweater combination was absolutely rock solid. Cheers! Costyn. Costyn van Dongen - http://www.flylikebrick.com/ - World Wide Wingsuit News

If you're in your sit and find yourself going unstable, try raising your arms a little higher (so they're no longer level with your shoulders). That worked for me to get me stable. After a while I was able to lower my arms to where they are level with my shoulders. I'm not sure why it worked, maybe the badminton-birdie idea with your arms higher. Good luck! Costyn. Costyn van Dongen - http://www.flylikebrick.com/ - World Wide Wingsuit News

The Merit is an older canopy, and its successor is the Electra, which is a much much better canopy. I'm writing this review on the basis of a canopy I jumped which already had quite a lot of jumps on it (500+). I can't tell how a new Merit would behave, although I've heard that some of the characteristics (hard openings, difficult flare) happen during all stages of its lifetime. The Merit is a semi eliptical canopy (tapers at the trailing edge) which was meant to be an intermediate canopy. The Merit opens hard. I've tried all sorts of different packing techniques, some of which reduced the opening shock a bit. It is unfortunately a design issue which parachutes from Parachutes de France of its generation had. The canopy turns nicely, although it takes a while before it responds to toggle input. The toggle input is not crisp, that is. The flare was exceptionally difficult, although the age of my canopy might have been to blame. I tried many different flare techniques and asked lots of people, but the canopy kept slamming me into the ground, especially on low wind days. The pack job was always pretty easy, especially since the fabric was somewhat worn and no longer slippery (your mileage may vary). Parachutes de France no longer manufactures this canopy but there are still many second hand Merits available. All in all, I don't recommend this parachute. Get a PdF Electra instead (see my review about this canopy here on dropzone.com too).

I jump an Electra 170 at a windloading of 1.2. It is a very good intermediate canopy to jump after one is off student status and is allowed to buy their own gear. The Electra is a well behaved, stable canopy. Good flare characteristics. A relatively flat glide slope and excellent half brakes distance capabilities (it'll get you back from a bad spot). The recovery arc is fairly short, what you'd expect from an intermediate canopy. Toggle and front riser weight fairly heavy but responsive. Again characteristics of an intermediate canopy. A down point is that the bottom skin is made of F111 fabric. I guess therefore it wouldn't last as long as a fully ZP canopy. Another down point is that you can't get custom colors. They have stock canopies in various nice color schemes from which you can choose, though. The canopy looks very nice from the ground though, with the "smiley" in front. All in all I highly recommend it as an intermediate canopy.

Same here... Standing near the edge of a building a couple stories up or on a traverse between two buildings that only has glass sidings makes my stomach turn itself into knots, while having no problem at regular skydiving altitudes. My guess its what others have said as well. At building heights you still have depth perception and you can actually see how high you are. At 12K, everything is just flat and you basically fool your brain (its no longer sending quesy signals to your stomach). Cheers! Costyn -- http://skydivelogbook.sf.net/

This actually helped me a lot in the beginning. After a couple coach jumps my coach told me to try it with my hands down, because when I had my hands up, my arms weren't relaxed. I was straining to keep my hands facing "upwards" (towards the ground), and it was screwing up my upper body posture. having my hands down helped a lot in relaxing my upper body. After like 10 jumps I felt sufficiently relaxed with everything else that I was able to just switch my hands facing down again and everything was just fine and I was stable. So now I can fly both ways.

I have metal inserts (my rigger refers to them as 'Power-housing'), and the only downside is that they make the risers a bit more stiff and bulky. They sit right where the bend in the risers is greatest (when the rig is closed), making packing a little more of a chore. Its harder for me now to put my tuck flaps back into place. I think that I will have to replace the stiffners in my tuck flaps a little sooner now. Even so, I'm glad I have them. I have a comparatively low wingload, but I'd rather be safe than sorry. :-) I really recommend everyone to get them. They're not expensive (compared to the rest of your rig), and if you are ever in a situation where you need them, you'll be happy that you got them installed. Great to hear everything ended well with SkymonkeyOne. Cheers, Costyn.

Sorry, never mind... I see that you sell your pics. :-) Costyn van Dongen - http://www.flylikebrick.com/ - World Wide Wingsuit News

Yeah, really nice pics! I especially like IMG_0751.jpg Do you think you could send me one of a larger resolution, so I can use it as a desktop background? Cheers! Costyn. Costyn van Dongen - http://www.flylikebrick.com/ - World Wide Wingsuit News

Hmm... there was a discussion of a list on rec.skydiving a while back... I still have a list hanging around my homepage: http://www.xs4all.nl/~costyn/skydiving/songs.html

I've had a similar situation. Amazingly stupid, when I think about it now, thank god nothing happend: I usually do a barrel roll in tracking to check the airspace above me. Well, this time I guess I wasn't paying attention enough, and I pulled a little early while in the roll, so I was on my back when I pulled. The pilot chute slipped by my right leg and the canopy opened with only half a line twist (I usually never have twists). I realized at the moment that I felt the pilot go by my leg that I was in trouble... I stared at my canopy while it was opening, waiting for a mal. I thought I might have fallen through my risers during opening and that I'd have some nice risers twists... Anyways, I was ready for my reserve ride right there. It actually felt kinda good later, knowing I was alert and ready to dump my main and pull my reserve in an unusual situation. Be safe... Complacency kills. Costyn.

Hi everyone, Here's some software that I wrote, an electronic logbook for skydivers. It's free and feature rich. For more information see the website: http://skydivelogbook.sourceforge.net Cheers, Costyn.