Deimian

Just to clarify, in these two days the mix of jumpers was not at all more aggressive than usual. It included tandems, students, weekend warriors and staff on fun jumps, neither of them particularly aggressive. The number of jumps per day was also not larger than usual. In fact last Sunday it was just half of the day, in the morning it was cloudy and rainy, so no jumping before 1 or 2 PM. Also a significant number of those cutaways were tandems (3 or 4 in the two days), and packers have packed the mains in 4-5 of the cutaways. But at peaks of more than 100 tandems per day I am not surprised of that, I think last Sunday there were more tandem jumps than any other kind, so statically makes sense, even though tandems tend to have less cutaways than other kind of jumps.

Just out of curiosity, for the experienced people out there. Did you realize of a "clustering" of cutaways in your DZs? I've been frequently on my home DZ on the weekends this season, and a very few days I've seen cutaways. However, on two different days, I've seen 4 cutaways each. Seeing 4 cutaways on the same day was shocking for me the first time. Seeing 4 on the second day was like WTF? BTW: one of the cutaways on the second day was quite intense, including main entanglement, reserve on the bag for way too long, and finally a reserve opened like 100-50 meters from the ground and a hard landing without flaring with a main still attached by one riser, make sure that you pull completely your cutaway handle before pulling the reserve guys! Bricks were shat. So, the question is, did you observe a tendency of not having cutaways in weeks, and then all of a sudden having lots of them on the same day? It is just coincidence? I think so. But I would like to hear from other people. PS: We were joking about those days, saying that we should play "reserve bingo".

I use windfinder pro. It doesn't tell you cloud altitude, but it gives hourly information, temperatures, wind speed and direction, cloud forecast (cloudy, clear, partly cloudy, rainy, snowy, etc) and precipitations. Moreover it has 2 models that predicts the forecast, so if both agree you can be more sure about the meteorological prediction. There is a free version of the app, but it has ads, just one model, and instead of hourly information it tells the forecast for every 3 hours.

Resurrecting an old thread.... Any comments regarding the behavior of these earplugs when wearing audibles? Making the airplane and freefall quieter is a good thing for sure, but I wouldn't like to stop hearing my audible.

So I shouldn't expect anything I guess

So I have a Sabre 2 170 with something around 280 jumps. I load it at around 1.15. Last weekend I've measured the lengths of the A1 and A5 lines. The difference between them was around 9 centimeters (3.5 inches). I think the A5 was around 322 centimeters. I've read here that with more than 3 inches of difference in shrinkage between A1 and A5 we should seriously consider relining the canopy. The canopy flights great to the best of my knowledge (I have 64 jumps now, don't expect my judgement to be very accurate). The flare is great and the only complaint I have is that the canopy snivels a lot, so usually I pitch 100 or 200 meters higher than usually (by usually I mean 1000 meters/3000 feet). It leaves in the saddle usually at around 800 meters. I am planning to reline the canopy this winter (previous talk to my rigger). The question is: What should I expect from the relining? Shorter openings? Better flare? More responsiveness on toggles? What about risers (mainly rear, since I rarely touch the front ones)?

That's my hometown (but I'm an expat now) and yes, pretty much everything has been shutdown, which is huge bearing in mind that this week are the local festivities, with tens of thousands of visitors. Sad days for us. BTW: airtwardo, we have a small world, I didn't expect to find anybody in this forum that visited my city. I hope you enjoyed your time there, I think we have a beautiful and charming little city

Don't blame the driver just yet. High speed trains should have automatic control and braking systems. In this case they obviously failed to operate as they should. There are lots of misguided information right now, so don't jump to conclusions blaming solely the driver. Probably he has his share of guilt, but it is absurd to have 100 km of straight line with speeds over 200 km/h, then a tunnel and right after the tunnel a turn with a limit of 80 km/h, without proper signalling and enforcement of the speed limits. This kind of accidents, like in skydiving, are never the consecuence of a single wrong action, is a chain of events. Humans fail, if the only barrier between 78 deaths and a happy arrival in the station is a single guy then there is obviously something very wrong with the system. Things that went wrong: -The lack of ERTMS (European Rail Traffic Management System) in that section of the line. This is a modern normative mandatory in the EU that controls automatically the speed of the train in the whole line. -Failure of the ASFA (Automatic Announcement of Signals and Brakes), kind of precursor of ERTMS, implemented in the early 70s, for trains much slower. Most probably the system worked as advertised, but the distance at which the system triggered the alarm was not enough. -Pushing the drivers to keep trains on time no matter what, with economic surpluses if they always make it on time. -Designing of a rail track with a difficult turn right after 100 km of straight line. -Lapse of concentration of the driver. -Lapse of concentration of the driver assistant. To make things worse the company that built the train line (ACS) has been pointed in the last weeks as one of the main contributors to illegal financing of the current government (both national and regional) in the last 20 years. The current president has been accused of receiving illegal money since the late 90s. Raises two questions: -How capable was the company to build a safe rail system? -If the "extra" money safely keep in some politicians pockets have been spent in implementing the ERTMS in that section, would these people be alive? But then of course the driver will take all the blame. As it happened before.

Looks like it was taken in front of a mirror.

No need to ask. I took a look at the helmet, and it is simply too thin (from the edge of the neck to the edge of the visor) to make a hole there for an audible. So I'll keep it like it is, swearing a little bit everytime I have to pull the audible out. Swearing once in a while can't be bad .

You mean to remove the altimeter from the helmet pocket? I don't think that will work. That tool pushes the edge of the viso pocket to make room to insert it or remove it. The pocket of the Phantom X is made of fabric, is not rigid, and you have to put the altimeter inside and then push it in a corner. It is difficult to explain if you didn't see the pocket but I don't see how this tool can help.

I've been thinking for a couple of days about this. I have a Phantom X and an Optima II. I am quite happy with both, but taking out of the helmet the audible is a pain in the ass, it is quite tight and because of the shape of the pocket it is difficult to have a good grip on the audible to pull it out. So I was thinking in making a window "ala Tonfly" or "ala Fuel". Keeping the audible inside, so a riser hit won't force me to say bye bye to the audible. The way I was thinking so far is: Cutting a hole and "sandpaper the edges" to make it smooth and of the appropriate size. Glue some rubber edge on it. Put the audible in a sew-in pocket like the one for viso. Cut a hole in the outside part of the padding and sew the pocket to the padding. Variation: glue the sew-in pocket to the shell of the helmet. The problem is that the padding is not removable, so I'm not sure how to handle this. I am also afraid of misaligning the hole in the helmet and the audible, and I would like to be able to remove the audible and put it in another helmet or change the battery without having to disassemble the whole thing. Opinions/ideas? Will I mess up the helmet?

What would be the appropriate response there? Hook knife to the rear main riser before cutting away? But just if you really have to cut away, I imagine it can be a side by side that can stay stable. I guess. I have a hook knife on my rig and I hope I would never ever have to use it. Chances are that I will ruin my shinny underwear if I have to .

I also jump in Spa. I got there my license last year, and I'm quite happy with them, even though I don't speak any of the major languages there (French, German or Dutch). Many, many people are fluent in English, and a couple of them even in Spanish. I have the feeling that the rigger can speak any language too haha (fluent in the 5 languages that I've said before). I have a friend that jumps in Spa too, and she drives from Brussels, so that shouldn't be a problem. Very international DZ, with people from Belgium, Netherlands, Germany, Luxemburg, France, Spain, Russia, Poland... Extra bonus: The landing area for students is HUGE, the hangar has pretty big carpeted area, they have caravan and grand caravan and often operate them simultaneously, and people from very good (competing worldwide with very good results) 4-way RW teams and VFS are around often (that doesn't make it necessarily better for AFF, but they should be doing something right to have them there ;-))

I am pretty new to the sport, so don't take my words too seriously. I've been told that tightening the chest strap first is better, because it is easier to forget to tight it later (as opposed to the leg straps, that you will notice easier if they are not tighten).

Why is it an inferior design? I've wear a few rigs, all of them with the "D ring" (student vortex II and omegas, and play around, without jumping, with Teardrops and Advances), and the most comfortable for me happens to be a wings (non-student). The placement of the ring right at the hip (as opposed to a little bit lower like in the other rigs that I've mentioned) makes it pretty comfortable in my opinion (and the fact that the leg strap is moving with your leg as a single piece, as opposed to have two attachment points to the ring).

The problem is obviously on your mind. I think many of the tips given here are pretty good. In case none of them work out maybe you can try to book a couple of minutes in a wind tunnel. The wind conditions will be very similar, the only difference is that probably you'll be more relaxed, hence you'll breathe as normal. Once your body gets used to breathe with strong winds you'll do it on freefall without noticing.

It ranges between 0 and 15 usually. It depends in a lot of variables, number and type of airplanes, number of skydivers in the DZ, weather conditions, hours of light, how fast you are packing (or how many rigs do you have if you use packers) and many more. On my (short) experience for us, normal people (ie: not instructors or professionals/people with tons of money to spend), 5-6 times a day can be considered like a good day.

1) In "non-swoop" scenarios, can you really be falling at 78mph, at 130ft from the ground, and still land properly? I don't think so. If you are under those circumstances you'll hit the ground quite hard, and an AAD firing won't create a bigger problem. 2) Sure, I absolutely agree, it is not helpful to open it so low. But my whole point is that in some circumstances you might be landing slightly below what the AAD thinks. In those cases, a few more feet can be the difference between pounding hard, with as much nylon above your head as possible, and pounding for the last time. Again, for no swoop scenarios. 3) Ok, that makes sense.

Correct, but if you are not swooping there is no way your AAD will fire if you are under a functional main at that altitude. You simply won't have enough speed to trigger it. If you have enough speed you don't have a functional main. Right?

What about that? Radical dives with speeds exceeding 78 mph (96/102 mph in Cypres Speed) might also happen at an altitude higher than 130ft (330ft). Even if this didn't happen, if I'm not swooping why would I want a disarming altitude? I understand that the lower you are in your dive, the faster you might be falling. Therefore it is more likely that your speed can exceed the firing speed at the lower point, and a disarming altitude can help to prevent such scenario. But for me I see two problems here: (1) if you initiate your dive higher, just to practice, you can still exceed that speed and "force" an undesired firing; (2) if you are not swooping you won't be in a controlled dive that you can pull out, and therefore you'll be in a fucked up situation that most probably will be slightly better with more nylon. For (1), you should know your gear and if you are doing such practice you should shutdown your AAD before the jump, like many swoopers do with "non-swooping" AADs. But for (2) I still can't see the point of the disarming altitude.

Sure, but I would assume (maybe/probably I am wrong), that a BPA membership without insurance would be cheaper than membership+insurance, right? Or it is not possible to separate them?

I am not sure if it would be completely useless. I jump in Belgium and the insurance here is supposed to be international. I am not sure about the details though. And it might change if you are getting it in a DZ in Wallonia or a DZ in Flanders.

One, probably stupid, question. Why does a disarming altitude exist? I can't think in any scenario where it is necessary. Without it in the worse case the AAD fires too low to be useful. In the best case there is an offset (I mean ground offset, not offset in the configuration of the AAD) between the real altitude and the altitude the AAD thinks you are, and in that case it fires high enough to be useful, even though it might think you are too low.

I wonder if this is the stupidest question ever on the forum and that's why there is no answer