darkwing

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Everything posted by darkwing

  1. darkwing
    You choice. I know enough dead guys to strongly believe you are making a poor choice though. -- Jeff My Skydiving History
  2. darkwing
    There are lots of variations, but basically everyone's name is put in a hat and teams are drawn randomly from all interested competitors. Then you organize your team and make the jumps. A common variation is to break down competitors by some vague experience measure, so that each team gets about the same number of very experienced and very inexperienced members. Scrambles are always fun, just remember to be safe and not too serious. -- Jeff My Skydiving History
  3. darkwing
    "Penetration" is usually considered the horizontal component of the velocity vector, so that if two otherwise identical canopies have different loadings, the higher loaded one will fly down the same glide slope faster, and thus have a higher horizontal component to its velocity. Thus it has more penetration. As has been mentioned, the first, rough, estimate is that changing loading only changes speed down the same glide slope. A first adjustment to that rule of thumb is that higher loadings will result in a steeper descent angle, thus (on a no-wind day) landing shorter than the less loaded canopy, due to increased drag losses that arise because of the higher speed. -- Jeff My Skydiving History
  4. darkwing
    So, what did you do about it? And what did the rigger say/do about it? -- Jeff My Skydiving History
  5. darkwing
    This can happen to any canopy, and don't let anyone tell you different. The prevailing wisdom to minimize the chance of this happening is to let it fly. That is contrary to the wisdom of many years ago, but canopies and canopy designers and pilots are much advanced since then. I have seen such "fold-unders" many times, and they virtually always self-correct very quickly. They do get your attention though. Main point is to keep your canopy flying straight when it happens. Turbulence is one reason I choose to sit on the ground some times, even when the wind is otherwise OK. The turbulence that can cause this has several causes, including, but not limited to, wake from other canopies, thermals, and generation by ground obstacles. -- Jeff My Skydiving History
  6. darkwing
    report to police. Do you have serial numbers, etc? Report to DZ.com stolen gear database, and also USPA database. Put flyers in the doors of nearby apartments and under the windshield wipers of cars. Offer a reward. -- Jeff My Skydiving History
  7. darkwing
    I will disagree very strongly with this statement. Seam bulk is very significant compared to non-seam fabric. Otherwise identical canopies, with one being 7 and one being 9 cells will have a significant, noticeable volume difference due to the extra seams. -- Jeff My Skydiving History
  8. darkwing
    are you sure it wasn't just fogging up? Try duct tape over your mouth (just kidding). -- Jeff My Skydiving History
  9. darkwing
    Just ignore the bad ones. Like the rest of life, there are people who don't play nice. Tune them out and only remember the good ones. While as a group, skydivers are not perfect, I have found my very best friends there. -- Jeff My Skydiving History
  10. darkwing
    Glad you didn't die. Lots of dead people did just what you did. This is either a good advertisement for the Skyhook, or "note to self" pull immediately. -- Jeff My Skydiving History
  11. darkwing
    Heck, about 10 years ago we dropped a dummy out with a canopy that had been packed for 50 years! It worked. OK, it wasn't made of ZP. It was made of silk I think, although it may have been nylon. Brains don't last as long as canopies. -- Jeff My Skydiving History
  12. darkwing
    Too many people here are saying/implying/concluding that low rate of descent is necessarily connected with high horizontal coverage. As skeptical as I am about 1:1 glide angles, I am not doubting the freefall time issue. -- Jeff My Skydiving History
  13. darkwing
    This is too vague to be useful. Safe to do 2-ways is different than safe to do 100-ways. Safe for straight-in landings is different that safe to do 1040's. 15 jumps spead over a year is different than 15 jumps last week. -- Jeff My Skydiving History
  14. darkwing
    I'm not at all superstitious, but I do have a routine. Routines are great routes to being safe. Checking handles, etc, on my rig and on other rigs I can see before and after loading. -- Jeff My Skydiving History
  15. darkwing
    1. Ask the manufacturer. 2. Search the forum and find lots of answers (I recommend not bothering with this, and just refer to #1 above). But searching will give you LOTS of responses to this oft-asked question. http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=1849582;search_string=wash%20rig;#1849582 -- Jeff My Skydiving History
  16. darkwing
    I find it extraordinarily hard to believe that a good track can have a glide ratio greater than about 0.5. The aerodynamics of a body sucks. I'd probably believe wind tunnel data from a well-funded wind tunnel study of ski jumpers, but I'd want to look the experimental details over very carefully. -- Jeff My Skydiving History
  17. darkwing
    How much longer will your microwave oven work? There is no useful answer to this question. With LOTS of test units you could build a failure model that would give you some statistical predictions, and those aren't very useful other than saying things such as, "you have a 50% chance of having the unit die in the next X years when stored/used under the following conditions..." -- Jeff My Skydiving History
  18. darkwing
    I figure they either send you a filled out card, or they pay for the repack there. -- Jeff My Skydiving History
  19. darkwing
    Please don't do this. Skydiving is too serious to zone out to music while you are doing it. Go ahead and listen on the plane ride up if you must (although going over the dive would be a much better pursuit). People run into other people enough, even without music to provide distraction. I beg you. -- Jeff My Skydiving History
  20. darkwing
    Of course the only way for a rigger to really address this is by inspection, but in general I wouldn't worry unnecessarily, as there are innocent reasons this can be the case. As mentioned by Icarus, they could have changed bolts, and that is indeed a likely answer. Sometimes the finish can look different if the fabric is flipped over too. The real answer is with a rigger who can look at it though. -- Jeff My Skydiving History
  21. darkwing
    ahhhh, to be young again. The low freefly video reminds me of the good old days when I would walk out to the landing area and tell people they were grounded. Not enough of that happens these days. -- Jeff My Skydiving History
  22. darkwing
    There have been some seriously uncool Mr. Bill attempts. My first advice is to not do it. My second advice is to review the horror stories and videos, and listen to people with success stories. -- Jeff My Skydiving History
  23. darkwing
    worked fine for me using both Safari and BonEcho (Intel optimized Firefox) -- Jeff My Skydiving History
  24. darkwing
    Do lots of 2, 3 and 4-way. -- Jeff My Skydiving History
  25. darkwing
    That is seriously excellent. The flight parameters are probably the easiest thing to alter, and the hard part for you is knowing who to listen to for advice, I'd say about one out of five people who post know what they are talking about. I'm not saying which group I am in. You will get a million suggestions. This is your baby, and you get to choose which ones to pursue. -- Jeff My Skydiving History