jose

What the hell kind of a reply was that? Maybe I am missing something here, but doenst it seem that he is looking for an explanation in order to understand what has happened to his teammate. How the heck is selling those canopies make him somehow target for judgement and criticizm?

dont know what to tell ya, it works fine for me. Huh...

I would like to create this a thread to advertise the date of when we are going to be doing morning hop and pops at Pitt Meadows. As long as we have a full Cessna load, the jumps will be 15 CAD which is 11.11 USD. Jumps will be videoed and debreifed. We usually meet around 9am. Tomorrow morning, July 1st, which is Canada Day, is the date for our next meeting. This is the start of a great idea up here. It has already helped me realized that what I thought was a slow controlled carving hook, isnt as slow as I thought it was. Come on out and play! Yank.

Come on peeps, dont ya know about this one? http://jumpvideo.com/thestore/

Well if it is in fact that cover we are talking about, yeah, it sucked ass. I considered writing to the magazine in regards to that pic. I am always looking forward to my next month's magazine, and when I saw that pic on the cover...I distictly remember saying to my wife, " Hey honey, take a look at this picture on the front cover of Parachutist." She said back, "Yeah, what the hell kind of picture is that?" And shes a whuffo, never gonna jump kinda gal.

Are we talking about the helicopter 2 way?

I spoke too soon. The blades will be here soon, not tomorrow. Oh well, we will just swoop between the opening in the fence. Yeah, thats the ticket.

This is Canadian funds people. With exchange, thats $11.11 USD. Hope to see many there. There are blades up for our use.

Do you own, or have currently owned a Lotus2? Do you own, or have currently owned a Safire2?

Well, as your post really had nothing to say other than "your wrong" attitude, I give minimal weight to your claims. I have seen a buddy spin up his Crossfire doing exactly this, so dont tell me its not possible. Good for you that you havent done it, but if your telling me and the rest of the skydiving world that its more of a possiblity with a Crossfire as compared to a Lotus, your really not that informed. As for my Safire, I believe that I had a fucked up lineset, as the demo opened very nicely. But after 50-70 jumps under my new one, and more slammers and line twists that I care to count, I shoved the piece of shit in a bag in the middle of a boogie and jumped another demo safire for the rest of the week. Problem went away. Yeah, it might have been just that canopy, but I will never give my money to a company that hires morons like Simon, that LIE to you every time you call about your canopy after a 15 week wait. You get real sick and tired of hearing,"oh, it will there in less than 2 weeks" Bullshit. When I went to return the bag of shit, all I got was greif from him about it. No questions asked my ass. Brian jumped my canopy twice before sending to me. Name another OWNER that would do that.

I think that unless you have more than 330 jumps, you should not even be allowed to look that the swoop forum, that way, the new people couldnt even see what we are talking about. Just bullshittin Steve. Your post made me go back and add some disclaimers to one I just made, so your approach is working already. Thanks jerky. And what the hell is up with not callin me when you were in Vancouver?

I have owned 2 differnet Sabre1's, a Safire2, a Sabre2, and now a Lotus2 135. You really cant put the Sabre1 in the same class, so lets forget it when comparing. The others are designed to compete with each other in the semi-elliptical high performance class. Some a little more aggressive on the planform than the others. First off the big difference between the Lotus, from Big Air Sportz, is that it is an airlocked canopy. Some people love it, some hate it. I personally love it and I cant think of owning a non-airlocked canopy ever again. I have heard that if you have many jumps under your belt and you fly an airlock, you tend to not feel comfortable under it. I guess when you get used to one style and trust it, its hard to change. Understood. But the best redeeming quality to the airlock is that in instances of canopy depressurization, ie high crosswind or downburst, the airlock can mean the difference between walking away or being carried away. Some will argue against the airlock till they are blue in the face, so it is alot like the cypress debate. My only statement to this is if you have not jumped one regularly, or owned one, you should really not be talking ill against it. Practically every person I have spoke with that do not agree with airlocked canopies, have NEVER flown one. Enough about that. Now, on to performance. Nice openings. Most on heading, but that is probably me. Likes to be psycho packed, at least my 135 does. Pack it just like you would a Crossfire, or similar where you dont touch the nose, but roll it and bag it to get it in the D-bag. Toggle response is quick and if you load it nicely, around 1.4, you can regularly toss yourself above your canopy for some entertaining flight. I have really pushed the limits of opposite toggle and front riser turns and I have never seen the tendency to spin up on me. I'm not saying that its not possible, but if I were to do this under a Crossfire, I would have line twists up the ass. Speaking of line twists, I have only had on set of twists that only slightly put me on the outside. Almost every time I twist it up, it flies like a good little boy and gives me nothing but time to fix my problem. I wouldn't say that it twists up alot, but I do a fair amount of tube jumps and I usually have some line twist issues when doing them. I am sure its just body position, but at least the canopy behaves. On to landing this thing. Riser pressure is moderate. The Safire has the best riser pressure out of the 3. Very light. But the Safire sucked in the opening department and swooping department. If you load a Lotus enough, the swoops are amazing for a non-elliptical canopy. It has a nice long recovery arc allowing for slow speed building front riser dives. I can safely perform 270 "hooks" and get awesome turf surfs. I parenthasize hooks, because I dont really consider it a hook. It is a controlled carve that really builds up speed and allows you plenty of decision making time to see your approach progression. You can slow up the turn speed with opposite front riser without increasing your riser pressure, or buffeting. Or you can increase it with more riser pressure for a quicker turn. Either way, this baby gives you alot options, and still produces a very respectable swoop. When it comes time to shutting it down at the end your surf, there is more flare than you will ever expect. With the slightest wind, I can usually pop myself up if I'm draggin nutz. It really shuts down nicely, and does it relatively quick as well. If you find yourself in a downwind situation, it performs nicely. Obviously there is not as much flare, but I have done several downwind, crosswind landing on purpose and not, and have always stood them up. I'm not saying that you will stand them up as well, because you have to respect the situation more so than an upwind landing. If you know your landing downwind, this canopy has the ability to let you run it out. So, theres not many cons in my book regarding this canopy, other that the fact that its a bitch to gather up on windy days as the air does not want to leave the cells. Kinda irritating sometimes, but definitly worth it. If I could sum all of this up, I would say that you should get a canopy that you are comfortable with. The way to find this out is to DEMO, DEMO, DEMO, DEMO. Keep demoing until you find one that works for ya. Be safe when jumping new canopies, at your level, don't friggin hookem to find out what they are made of, or you'll find out what your made of. Give Brian a call at Big Air Sportz, and be prepared to chat for a while. He will talk to you more than ANY other canopy rep every will, and this guy is the owner. He is the inventor of the airlock and hold the patent. Sorry so long, but I hope this helps. Later Edit: Ok, I feel like a dumbass after reading Canuck's post. You can fly this canopy straight in under any conditions. I have had to do half-braked turns at the last second and land from half-brakes. Yeah its a harder landing, but it stays inflated at barely zero penetration and it didn't crater me. No PLF needed that time. I should have stated that it is a safe canopy to start with then talked about its high performance characteristics. So please dont go out there and try to swoop it and crater in, or I will have to hear it from Steve. Another edit: Go here to read about it. [url]http://www.bigairsportz.com/lotus.php

*cockblock initiated* See Chachi's Picture... *cockblock completed*

Keep flying it baby....keep flyin it.

So I flew my new ringsight this weekend on a track jump for the first time. I didnt want to try it out on a paying tandem, so I decided to do a fun jump with it instead. Long story short......I freakin HATED IT. I did not like that thing in front of my face at all. I felt very out of my element and really flew like shit. Has anyone had similar experiences when starting to use ringsights? Is this something that takes a couple jumps to get used to, or should I hang this thing up and put a dot on my goggles.

Without getting too into discussion about why, I personally would give it more time in the jump number category. There is nothing like experience, and when doing something like this......you never know what could happen. IE: stripped handles, broken harness, smashed face from knees when you cant hold on, overloading a canopy, waiting too long to deploy, not exiting at sufficient alti, broken fingers, bruised fingers, the above 2 making it so you cant deploy, I am sure there are several more, and if you think that you can handle all the hazards that come with this stunt, by all means give it a whirl. But I strongly suggest that you ask to do it with someone with much more experience than you, and see if he wants to do it. I am weary as to why 2 very new people would want to try something they have never done before, together. Better yet, ask your S&TA about this. Hell, ask as many people as you can AT YOUR DZ as then make up your mind. Asking people here that dont either of your skills and awareness levels, is kinda pointless, we can only point out the hazards that are associated with this. Oh well, I thought I wasnt going to get too into it. I think you know where I stand. I know that if I had some of what I listed happen to me at jump 66, I would have been very concerned. Be safe.

You know this because...........?

Oh dear.....It looks like I'm going to buy a weight set bench. No weights, just the bench and bar. Yeah yeah, thats the ticket... "Honey, I'll be back in a while!"

I sold everything that I hadn't used within the year prior to finding skydiving. This included: Boat Scuba Gear Sniper Rifle 12 guage shotgun ( I had 2 anyways....) SKS assault rifle Street bike helmet Those were the big ticket items, but I also got rid of a bunch of knick knaks on Ebay. This bought me my AFF and a decent rig to start. I didn't have much cash left over after that, but damn....it was worth it. Now, a couple years after my liquidation...I still seem to find the cash to feed the gravity trolls....much to my wifes shagrin.

Hey Monkey, When I started, I wanted to share it in the highest order with all my whuffo buddies. I eventually became really annoying with how much I talked about jumping with them. Its like the 8th wonder of the world to us....how can they NOT like this sport? I still dont know, but the trick here is to forget trying to convince anyone that its the best feeling in the world. As far as being new and wanting a friend to jump with, I can agree with your feelings there. I attached myself to a few when I started jumping, but I tell you what, jumping with new and differnent people is one of the greatest things about this sport. Its such a high to have a great jump with someone you just met and instantly have that connection with ANOTHER jumper. Almost having another best friend to add to your list of all of your other jumping best friends.... Kinda lame explanation, but you'll see in time. As far as the drive, relish it dude. Its one of the best drives in the world for me, to and fro. I get energized with music and the thought of all the jumps I am going to do that day on the way up. I make phone calls to all my jump buddies and make sure their sorry asses are going to be at the dropzone. On the way home, usually after a great dinner with 5-8 of my homies, sushi rules, I get to think about how I am the luckiest person in the world to have the opportunity to do something that is so fullfilling and satisfying. AND I have a hot wife waiting for me when I get home. I just never know whether shes going to be annoyed at me for going jumping, or glad to see me, cause she misses me. But hey, its the chance I'm willing to take. Dont worry about friends dude, all the ones you have now will be a memory in a matter of years if you really take up jumping alot. Unless they are really tight buds, you will have a completely new set of friends that will ALWAYS be your brothers. Bumpy brothers included. Out with your old life, and into the new!!!!

I have you all beat. How about a whole skyball worth of #9 shot. It was in the cup, until I knocked it off the table.....

Ya know, I forgot about the nylon bolts. I will replace those stainless screws ASAP, as in, before I jump it. Thanks for the heads up. I also read the fatality reports associated with camera jumpers, and that ring sight is responsible for alot of fatalities. That and bad body position during reserve deployment. Gives me more respect for what I am putting on my head and the hazards that come with it. Later..

Hey all.... I am the kind of person that cannot leave well enough alone. I have to mess with everything as to leave my mark on it, call it personalization, call it too much time on my hands, or call it bored. As I set my my new ring sight on my Hawkeye, I found that if I wanted to use my helmet for freeflying and tandem vids, I needed to figure out a way to rid my helmet of that nasty steel post thats such a hazard to everyone during big group freeflying. I didn't want to have to unscrew the mount every time I wanted to take it off, so I made some modifications to the whole extension post. First, I drilled out the holes in the helmet to accept the threaded backing washers that I epoxyied to the inside of the helmet. Of course, that meant drilling out the threads in the articulating ring sight and milling the aluminum where the screw runs thru down about 3mm for a low profile. After shaving off the excess of the threaded backing washers that protruded thru the helmet, I bolted the mount to the helmet and epoxied the washers to the inside of the helmet. I let that set for 24 hours. Now on to the articulating ring sight's post. Punch out the pins on it and take it to a machine shop. Have them mill a groove 30 thousands of an inch side at the second pin hole, the one closest to the end where the spring pressure is. This will accept a 1/4 inch E-clip. I techincally could have used a 1.8 inch e-clip, but getting that baby on an off would have been a bitch. So because the 1/4 inch e-clip would interfere with the inside dimension of the ring sight mount, I had to shave out the area around the outside of the e-clip where it sits in the mount. This allowed the clip to rotate when the sight is moved. I also had to shave a minor amount off the ears of the e-clip to clear the helmet when it rotated. So, when I want to take the sight off, instead of unscrewing it, I just pop off the e-clip and the whole thing comes off and all that is left is the mount that will not cause harm to anyone. Hopefully the pics will clear up any obscurity that I have created with my inability to explain anything techinical.

Makes me wonder if there is a statue of David in the corner.....

Yeah, a profile to start...... And really, in the end, what could a couple weeks of accuracy work towards another rating hurt. He should really take the opportunity to check off a bunch of canopy flying and landing skills for the future. Make a game of it, like put a soccer ball on a pylon and try to kick it. Of course if he feels that he can handle the ball and landing at the same time.......then again....maybe not a good idea for 30 jumps.... Got a tuffet? Drag that out for him and let him at it..... All is see is opportunity to learn new things that would be unsafe under a smaller canopy. Like landing from brakes so he knows how that works. Landing right out of a half brake turn....its saved my ass several times when getting cut off. I think you get the point. And really, put up a profile already, it gives credibility. Later