ChrisD

YES. And relaxing, cause that spin is a result of holding a certain body position. Unless of course you guys want to persist in believing this type of shit happens in which case some of you are going to go back to 2 jumpmasters and relearn and demonstrate basic stability all over again. C But what do I know, "I only have one tandem jump."

Lets talk about this idea of "Balling Up" ShotterMG you want to give an answere here, ??? Balling up is the most Fucked Up thing I have heard this week.... Need I say more????? Don't do it, God gave us brains people, please use them....

Go back to the SIM and re-read what it says about "smaller Canopy's." Something about zippierier or something. We want you to learn about a lot of stuff and different canopies is one of those things as well. But try not to get confused into thinking that downsizing to a postage stamp and a wing loading of 2.0 is a good thing. IMO downsizing by many saying you should enjoy going from a 230 to a 210 sets up a pattern with many that downsizing is the way to go, and to continue to downsize because this is something that was condoned and encouraged as a student. Once you start to approach wing loadings of 1.0 (We can argue about this.) You should start to have hundreds of jumps. And for those that are contemplating wing loadings of 1.1 and greater we should have perhaps more than hundreds of jumps. But for wing loading for students that have around 10's of jumps going back and forth from 0.8 to 0.75 etc should be a learning experience and you have the benifite of all of those on the ground watching your landings as your coaches should be doing. I suspect by the limited amount of fun stuff you have shared is that you have discovered the necessity of flaring for real with this downsize. This is the point where flaring under those tents, which is why your under those in the first place, is that you can literally hit the ground without flaring, not going to be pretty, but you will walk away. Now with a slightly higher wing loading, still very very safe in comparison to 1.0 wingloading you start to feel the effects of proper timing or lack therofeee... You will get it, it is an easy skill to master, have fun and try not to think about it too much. When you have 40 jumps you will look back upon all of this very differently!!

When you pay to see a movie in a theatre, do you expect to get a copy of the movie as part of the deal? Ya know that's not a bad idea. What with some movies costing 12 bucks and all. On the other hand If I wait 6 weeks I can buy the DVD to take home with me to study and watch over and over again. C And that's a lot of note taking by the way. What your suggesting is a choice between taking notes from the media presented or listening to the presenter. I want the whole package, just so that in case you only get one jump in and the course isn't taught again till a year later, unless you want to travel. And then there is the subject if there is a considerable length of time in between courses, what you don't want a participant siting in to watch or listen in unless they pay the course fee again??? And that's fair???

7.1.13 I posted the link in a prior posting. Now this is going to sound a little like I'm speaking down to some of you, I'm not..... You know and I know how to tell about performance, but I frequently forget that there are large numbers of individuals that can not understand the "Matrix" of line trims. As riggers are you guys shooting yourself in the foot so to speak by sending canopies back to the factory when we could be using the matrix and trimming lines more often? I'm also trying to point out that your friendly local rigger has an alternative to an expensive new set of lines when it's not necessary to change them all.... I think that this whole line trim thing has been pushed to one extreme and the benefits of keeping our canopies trimmed, well before any line even gets close to 3 inches, have been lost. There is great benifite to flying trimed' canopies even if most gear purchaseRs don't realize this! Let's get that puppy trimmed to what the original specifications were is NOT the first question most canopy purchasers ask as the first question.... The problem that I've encountered is the population of newbies to gear purchasing,...they have no idea how to tell what is going on with their canopies. There are two populations of gear purchasers: 1. people with some experience, and they know when their canopy is acting funny. They have learned via some trial and error and they have experience. 2. others, frequently their first gear purchase. They spend great amounts of time on the internet, asking questions in person, sending away for literature, etc, etc,....All they can do as far as used canopies and the subject of line trim is wip out their tape measures and measure away. Performance issues are a waste of time even to speak about that with them. I think there are more individuals in category 2 than one. Or at times it seems to be this way....

Good point. Pull priorities were definitely drilled into me during my training. I asked my instructor on the weekend about this incident. He said that although it was unlikely that I would find myself in such an extreme spin, if it did happen I should try delta position or even curling up in a ball to reset myself. All you have to do, at altitude, to see what happens when you curl into a ball, is start a fast turn and then curl into a ball. It's fun to get airsick. Do you guys remember the air hockey table? Give the puck a little push and it basically moves across the whole table?? This is the concept behind start coast stop. Some people have it in their heads that to stop forward motion all you have to do is just go to the "box," or some say "neutral position." There is some truth to this. And I want to say SOME truth because air resistance will slow you down eventually. You can start some motion, whatever that is and then go back to the neutral position and if it is well timed your coast will end up where yo want to be. Simply going to the box doesn't stop any motion instantly. A well timed coast is a thing of beauty. But many of the exercises have us practicing full throttle so to speak. This is so you can learn the position and engrain it to get the feel and "arggh: Muscle memory for ground practice. If your close to something then start, coast , stop can be moderated, no need to use full throttle so to speak. And we certainly don't use full throttle anything in what we call the red zone or final approach area. When flying with others. Let's take a look at forward motion: WE initiate forward motion by fully extending our legs, this is going to get us moving pretty fast, not something we want to do when we are very close to others, we then coast, after all we now have some forward momentum and we can actually coast quite a distance in the neutral position, then we counter the forward motion with some backward body position this is the heart of learning start coast stop. This principle works the same no matter what activity we want to do weather it be up/ down, forward /back and you can include turns as well. Like I said mastering momentum is a wonderful thing. A properly timed action will get you where you need to be, and is something that is learned over time. Remember the air hockey table it has a lot to do with air friction? What do you think happens when you reduce your surface area by curling into a ball? Any momentum you had before doing this is now conserved and as one astute person has indicated angular momentum is conserved as well,... your ball now spins faster. Like I said feel free to practice this effect at altitude.... And when you come out of this you will: Arch, and then relax. If you want to counter the turn if yor in a turn, then simply provide some of that start coast stop principle by turning in the opposite direction. This is the stuff that you learned early on and for some of you this is what you should be practicing. As you can see in this vid that person for whatever reason isn't slowing down, they are in fact not relaxing nor are they arching they are holding an extreme position. Hence tha very high turn rate. If you find your self in some sort of similar situation, which isn't going to happen BTW, but if you want to continue to argue ignoring what you have been trained to do,...then so be it >>>> to get back to belly to earth. (The day will come when this discussion will be a memory, because you all will become animals in the air and will demonstrate complete mastery of all of these unusual positions. Many of you will push this and do this for fun. Just remember to be altitude aware!) Please. RELAX >>>>>So you can assess your body position. If you are a little unstable or turning then, relax and correct your flying. C Have fun! And for those of you that don't know the Ranch has an excellent student web site, or at least they did last year... And in this web site they pose many questions about what to do in formations in clouds or if you find yourself over trees and stuff like this...It is to promote discussion and debate.... You should have asked your self why did I get out of the aircraft if there are clouds below me rather than debating what to do in a cloud if you muff a formation, stuff like that....Can't help the feeling that this whole thread is some kind of you have just been punked.... here is a vid of some nice spins where arms and legs don't fall off: another nice vid ff to 17:20 if your in a hurry But what do I know, "I only have one tandem jump."

Anyone want to take on why class participants can't take home the presentation? I mean for the class they paid for?? I can understand wanting to protect your work and all, but I don't think the efforts to protect your work will ultimitly hurt you guys in the long run, if the material gets out.... and yes I know the web site has the record and milestones there... C But what do I know, "I only have one tandem jump."

Greg Windmiller was charging around 100.00 for a day with him, or close too that amount, might be a little less can't remember. Well worth it.

What I forgot to add and part of my point is / was: that many individuals I come into contact with, want some kind of number, an oversimplification I know considering all of the other factors, but many want a simple number, So they go home and actually read the manual and then I can envision a situation where some or all are in a tizzy about how when they measured their canopy it deviates more than a half an inch. I agree with ya, but I am looking for a way to make things easier for some and stop rumors from starting for others. C

Thanks for the picture of the tag. No It's just when it's late at night and I'm doing two things at once that frequently I jumble things up. I only mentioned the PIA 108 thing cause of what I remembered from the opening paragraph of that test, that I do belive is still part of the 2005 FAA Riggers man. (A - 19) and some of the confusion surrounding the subject of shall, must and recommended etc, etc. I do think it's relevant to mention as an additional reason for keeping good records cause , correct me If I'm wrong but dosen't PD specify a pull test if the logs are missing, or incomplete? Or something? I'm not sure of the exact wording used. Don't get me wrong I agree with ya on so many issues and completely agree that PD seems to want to extend their control over their products. Do you think more education for the masses would help with many issues. Buying and selling gear I mean.... there seems to be a lot of confusion and a dearth of information or perhaps an unconcerned bunch of skydivers out there sometimes. I have often thought a list of "best practices" published somewhere would help jumpers tell the care'ing riggers from those that perhaps don't care as much??? I mean if your packing a pile of reserves is it too much for a stamp so that you can actually see who did what? Or is it better to write in something that no human can tell who or what did what??? (As an example?) I also get confused sometimes with the "reply" function on this site, I don't always reply to whowm people assume i'm repling to cause I just frequently go to the bottom of the list and forget that that may be construed to a reply to the last person, this causes confusion I know, I'll try to be better about that in the future. No I don't see the BSR'S as law, but really I do , cause they are just trying to do the min to save peoples asses.... take that Gerado bull crap when he, without permission, tried to evade, intentionally , the BSR's to do what he wanted...turned out bad for skydiving. Or at least the publicity had a really shitty feel to it, it certainly wasn't positive. I didn't hear the media in CA quote any of the reccomondations "he" was supposed to be following. I just try to stick with much of them cause it makes life a little simpler and safer Personally I like the one year thing that the Optimum says is ok....not trying to put riggers out of a job though.... C And I try not to steer to far away from the OP's original question, the other thing that could have caused a repack and if it was a PD reserve a permeability test as well is if the thing got wet. But what do I know, "I only have one tandem jump."

The other thing I keep forgetting is that many times this information is in the main canopy users manual. To me anyways confusion abounds. PD,... in their user manual clearly states that the canopy may deviate the "differentials... by 0.5 inches..." and this is out of the box brand new. So what does that say about long term use and or if their are more differentials over time???? This can be a very confusing subject. C But what do I know, "I only have one tandem jump."

I agree with ya, it's cause, I suspect, they want to make money. Just pay attention to the Flight -1 courses they have you starting at basically the biggining, kind of like redoing the B lic canopy prof card. But better. But it is a prerequisite as far as I know of before thay let you move on... C But what do I know, "I only have one tandem jump."

DSE has some stuff: Click here Not sure of what your looking for. I mean there is all of the big on line places like Chuting star, paragear, and that nice lady in DeLand, etc, etc..... I will say this there really isn't a lot of really nice video instruction for free on Utube. There is some stuff but nothing like some of the vids / dvd that are for sale. If your taking some courses take good notes because much of what they show for visual aids, they don't give out. I mean for self reference after the course, something about others stealing their work, which I don't fully understand....The value is the course right??? Not the PPT slide show??? C Axis has some very nice work and lots to see on their site, but not sure about how much is canopy related.... If you do find something on the internet could yo post it???? Good luck. But what do I know, "I only have one tandem jump."

Back to the original question of: How would you deal with this incident? I would remember my pull priorities.... (1) Pull. (2) Pull at the correct altitude. (3) Pull while stable. And quite frankly I'm a little concerned that after your information no-one caught this??? Perhaps like real life they were distracted with what was going on??? C I guess loss of altitude awareness can also take place on the ground . But what do I know, "I only have one tandem jump."

No not exactly, actually some blonde chick said it was cute or something to that effect....Would you like me to change it, I don't really care.... I tend to react to the forces in our society that perpetuate some social problems. So ya I tend to hit hard when and where I can. For most or for many this goes right over their heads and is a concept that is difficult to understand. If you like you can read some of Noam Chompsky's stuff or Sut Jhallys books as well, I may have misspelled their names a little.... Anyways media in America is a financial machine. This is my thesis. And it really isn't the most or best use of a very public forum. What are our children learning, and what did we learn as children that we are not even aware of and how does this equate to skydiving? To be clear I know a very loving "Dark skinned" woman who was raised in a different culture and who can see the effects of American media almost immediately. My conversations with her and others, as well as experiencing other cultures has left me with an awareness of the pain and suffering trying to achieve a goal that is not possible in this society has caused. American media supports this in so many ways, and this is not a good thing. This is all I'm trying to say... C These people do in fact feel the pain when they see something as in your opinion fairly innoccuious as searching for this or that ethnicticity. They came here to be skydivers, not representatives of their skin color. But what do I know, "I only have one tandem jump."

Somebody having a bad day? Perhaps you could enlighten us as to the requirments for a porosity test. Please, take any Optimium, PR, PD Reserve and explain what they mean when they say, (just quoting the tag on the canopy,) "... a fabric permeability test within each 25 jumps and 40 packs. Do not repack unless these requirments have been meet" On the tag there are 40 spaces to be filled in. At 2 repacks per year, well.....that's 20 years of use. What happens to the older PD reserve When all of the little blocks are filled in ???? Perhaps you could also mention PIA 108 and that sentence in the first paragraph that mentions the "confusion between and acid test and the pull test..."? So I got confused, and I corrected myself as soon as it was pointed out, so glad you corrected me with: I was mostly commenting about Glideangles observation about the tag on PD canopies, the OP seemed to think that that was also something that was in or on logbooks. I was just pointing out that this marking is on the canopy itself. By the way when is a pull test required and is this the same thing as mentioned on the PD canopy tag? I didn't even want to get into the confusion about the AAD 90 day 120 day cycle. Perhaps you could clarify that for us as well ? I only offer that as a reason for an explanation for some repacks as well. But as you point out: With everyone making WAG's, could you point out anything that I can't back up? Seriously, I count on you guys with more experience to correct my mistakes.... C Other than that did you offer to help eric buy or sell his stuff?? Just trying to help the kid.... But what do I know, "I only have one tandem jump."

Not going to take that bait today.

Orange will be open for another month, hopefully. Everyone up there has been getting devastated by this years really bad weather, everyone! Another possibility is CPI. And another possibility is to take a trip to DeLand. I wuld have said Florida or CA but coming to DeLand is better.... C Don't let it get to ya, It's all good!!! But what do I know, "I only have one tandem jump."

Wheres Waldo? (Tom) He could do it,...DSE does a fine job as well, although he's not as nice as I am.... Seriously though, I've a number of close friends of color and they are vastly under represented here... When they and I have had this discussion about color, they generally point out how they don't like having this discussion about color. So sometimes I take the time to point out some of the more subtle ways our media brainwashes us into thinking a certain way at the expense of us all.... C And ya I'll admit it, I hijacked the thread....so shoot me... Recruit him, DSE that is...he's colorfull as well

N/A

Well done, great contribution. I take it that the guy in the video is one of your ex students. Looking in a mirror as you typed that, were you?. Don't be too hard on em,...

Recently this surfaced in the wing-suiting section: "Female Black..." And as you can imagine a few posts got deleted.... Some of the supporters of this practice have pointed out how someone has "lost an opportunity.." I presume they are speaking about cash... Which is the problem that they don't understand.... Race and equality, whatever equality you are interested in is only represented in our media, think Movies, when someone is interested in a financial gain. Using this paradigm,... that means that others are loosers... Which is basically how media has distorted any semblance of humanity. The public media is the Anti Christ to what it actually means to be a human being. Hollywood is the Devils whore for all of us...Some may get a temporary thrill seeing and envisioning themselves as participants in Hollywood but the cost to society is too great. It's not about us folks....It's how "they" feel.... A very nice and sensitive person I know of is greatly offended by how society has sold out to the highest bidder... "and how so many of you can't see this for what it is...." So I thought I'd post this webb site / Blog (There are plento of others as well...) if you read the whole thing you may get a small sampling of what effects this kind of seemingly innocent requests have on others.... Black People C But what do I know, "I only have one tandem jump."

Actually I believe the main test they do is a porosity test. Thanks for the correction, sometimes when I'm typin at 300 wpm, I can't really type worth doo doo... "Fabric Permeability Test." is the correct response.... C So sell your reserve before it gets to be 20 years old.... But what do I know, "I only have one tandem jump."

As Jim pointed out already the "X" v. "/" thing is on the reserve and is considered "manufacturers instructions" but only for those manufacturers that do this. Not all reserve canopy's have this feature. PD does this as their instructions warrant an "acid" test at either 40 repack cycles or 25 uses (reserve rides). It doesn't appear that you are even close to this for the non-distructive acid test... C By the way the X / thing isn't used on any of the data cards or logbooks entries. Nor is it a requirement that the rigger note the repack was due to the reserve being used in the logbook. On PD reserves which have the canopy tag attached, then it is a requirement as then the rigger is obligated to follow the manufacturers instructions and as such are required to add the / or the X on the canopy when it is repacked. There is no requirement to open and pack an unused reserve on a regular basis. Many seasonal jumpers have just one entry per year on their cards, which is fine. Other jumpeers to help understand why there could be more than 2 entries per year on the card, frequently will have their rig repacked if they have a concern that if when traveling they could be somewhere and stuck out of date they will just have their favorite rigger do it again. This sometimes comes about because some riggers will write the next repack due date on the card and other riggers don't do this. There is no requirement to write the "next due date" on the card either but sometimes this causes a little confusioin. But what do I know, "I only have one tandem jump."