darkwing

One of my former DZs had an observer fall out of a C-182 on descent when the pilot was goofing around, floated her up against the door handle, door opened, and out she went. She lived, with about 1 second canopy ride after a few thousand feet of freefall. I'm in favor of seatbelts, and pilots who don't screw around. -- Jeff My Skydiving History

ask your instructor who you should pay attention to, and ignore everyone else. Jump numbers and experience level as told to you are not sufficient qualifiers for sound advice. There are people with thousands of jumps that you would not want to take advice from. This has been true my entire 30+ years in the sport at many dropzones. -- Jeff My Skydiving History

Bad juju. I caught one worse than that on jumprun, just before the door opened on a Porter. The end of the pin was not even on the grommet. Scared the poop outta me, and the owner, and the pilot, and everyone else on the plane. -- Jeff My Skydiving History

not me. I'm NBP -- Jeff My Skydiving History

Don't buy them beer. They get paid to do their jobs. -- Jeff My Skydiving History

Great, more stupid people tricks for the unskilled to try because it looked easy on the video. I can hardly wait. Of course that is not to say that they weren't fun to watch, and maybe even do. -- Jeff My Skydiving History

I don't consider cut-in lats an improvement, but rather a de-provement. -- Jeff My Skydiving History

hit apple-A -- Jeff My Skydiving History

I think you (Steve) are essentially correct. I believe it was Rozzo's Beech, piloted by Joe Taylor. All of my info is at least second hand, but I seem to recall a buzz job gone bad. While it may sound unkind, having flown with, and been around Joe Taylor for a few years, I wasn't entirely surprised when I heard it. Still, I liked the guy, and enjoyed his company. -- Jeff My Skydiving History

This is great news. I am going to central China for about 6 months, beginning in July, and I'll have several weeks off to find some adventure. -- Jeff My Skydiving History

There is some fascinating footage there. The downloads took forever though. Recommended for anyone wanting an education about early jumping. Thanks for the link! elniabatorsagoromet.mpg Want to see how it was done in the old days.? It has some freefall footage, and they use free sleeves on the canopies, with blank gore modifications. A woman making a jump is the focus, but others jump too. I am very curious when it was filmed. And where. ejeokt.mpg will give you packing lessons for round parachutes. Then some jumps from a big biplane (AN-2?) using the free sleeve rounds (that actually look square when viewed from below) they spent 20 minutes of the film packing. Women in this too. Even had several stand-up landings. Later some jumps included a two-way RW jump, and round canopies with sleeves and retainer lines. RS4esB8.mpg is a brief clip of a two-out landing with two round canopies. ejenbgodolla.mpg has some accuracy competition with squares, I'm guessing circa mid-1970's. One canopy has a slider. Aug20.mpg has several jumps into the river in Budapest. Including some CRW, smoke, and a mass jump. -- Jeff My Skydiving History

Snobby bitches..... For me it was just an issue of I'm too old, fat, and tired to cram myself into a Cessna. I have a thousand jumps out of them, and I down't owe it to anyone to do any more. Perhaps I should think of it as a courtesy to others, not inflicting my old, fat, tired self on them in the Cessna. Perhaps "whiney bitches" would be a better descriptor. -- Jeff My Skydiving History

where is SSM? -- Jeff My Skydiving History

I'm sure it varies greatly from canopy to canopy, even for the same manufacturer. Depending how tricky you are getting with the design, and what your hopes and expectations are, it can take a little, or a long time to dial it in. Maybe even never. -- Jeff My Skydiving History

Hey, put a new line set on one of those and you are ready to go! I wonder if they would tell you what the label on it says? Sometimes the military gets rid of gear that normal people would still call airworthy. Then there is the possibility it has some very serious subtle damage... -- Jeff My Skydiving History

cordura butt, knees, and booties. I didn't get any zippers in my booties, and they are fine that way. It kind of depends on your shoe size (I wear a 10). I got big grippers, an inside grippers too. I also got the special coolmax lining, but it isn't what I thought it would be, so I don't really recommend it. It is like a thin fleece. Overall a great jumpsuit. -- Jeff My Skydiving History

Note: He is in the UK apparently, so responses need to consider that. Of course I'd generally be astonished that such info is not part of the instructions he got as a student. -- Jeff My Skydiving History

Wow, I'm lost in space, because I though Sentinels were made by SSE, and long ago were moved to the "no longer supported" category. I have to admit though that It has been a couple of decades since I've seen one, and things of which I am unaware can and often do happen. -- Jeff My Skydiving History

That performance standard haas been around for decades I think, and I believe it is a good one. You need a little more faith in yourself, and the will to do it. Now, more than ever, it is necessary to foster good spot landing skills. In the old days, under a Para-Commander it was in some ways easier to land in a very tight spot. Coming in vertically made it easier. I cringe now when I am on a load and we land out (yes, if you keep jumping you WILL land out) and there are people in the air that have never had to land other than in a big open field. Sooner or later you will end up in the back yard of some trailer in the middle of a forest, or in some heavily built up suburb, and you'll be glad you knew how to handle it. -- Jeff My Skydiving History

I don't recall every seeing any instructions, and I dealt with some Super Pros. I know a lot of rigs back then came with little or nothing, but Pioneer was a big outfit and I think it likely they published some instructions. -- Jeff My Skydiving History

I can't say who, but I can say when. It has to be verry close to 1977. Not the Northwest, since that was my turf, and I don't recognize anyone. Blast handles (yes, I still think they are good). Three rings, some capewells, some "wrap-wells", big jumpsuits. The guy in the white t-shirt, kneeling in the door looks vaguely familiar. -- Jeff My Skydiving History

There were a couple of them around me in the late 1970's. One of my teammates had one, and they regularly did CRW with it. I've seen stacks involving the Paradactyl and a Piglet main for example. I never jumped it, but the ones we had performed acceptably, and weren't especially scary. -- Jeff My Skydiving History

If you worry about hard opening, get dacron. Otherwise get 825 spectra. Use slinks too. -- Jeff My Skydiving History

It is called "springtime." It happens. Climate is what you expect. Weather is what you get. -- Jeff My Skydiving History

I don't have any data, but I still second your question. IF a tailgate helps prevent lineovers (which do happen on sport mains, and with lesser frequency on reserves), then perhaps consider them. At least we could get some hard data. From observing MANY main pack jobs, I think it is largely (but not completely) an illusion that the lines stay in the middle of the pack job. The real question I have is how important is that to the development of line overs. Some version of a tailgate is well worth trying. -- Jeff My Skydiving History