daffes

During a more complicated reserve deployment situation like a broken hand/arm, dislocated shoulder or not fully conscious... a d-ring can be "activated" with a single finger or anything going through it, much easier than a pillow, which needs to be grabbed, peeled, and pulled with more precision. It's a trade off between avoiding premature deployments and easy to deploy reserve. Both can kill you, but the premature deployment situation, you're mostly protecting yourself against other people's mistakes, which is a harder variable to control. A small D-Ring is a choice for some free-fliers who don't feel comfortable with the pillow.

Haha, I highly doubt that a disguised person can hang in Lodi and pass unnoticed. Bill even charges "hang out" tickets if someone is hanging there and is not jumping. If people refuse he tells them to fuck off the area.

A mother of one of the recently deceased people in Lodi has made public posts on Facebook celebrating the FBI action. You can interpret from the wording that she has influenced the investigation, but it's also possible that she read the news online and just believed that she had something to do with it. I don't blame her actions. On other "news" from Facebook... Word says that Bill fired the FBI and asked them to take the trash on their way out ;P

I see, I guess the same thinki applies to any pitch that would result on the nose being first affected causing torque

Not saying that it won't turn, but what's the source of the asymmetrical force being applied? Plane could just side slide keeping the same heading. If the 13 degree angle is evenly applied across the body of the plane, nothing would change it.

In the US, most beginner canopies after A license are: Pilot (Aerodyne) Pulse (very similar to the Pilot but by PD) Safire 2, 3 (NZ Aerosports) Sabre 2 (PD) The first 2 are flatter and more docile, most people move away from those unless they go with Wingsuiting as their primary discipline. The last 2 demands a bit more of you both on openings and landings but achieve greater results with the proper technique, they are more suitable for someone focusing on canopy skills progression. The classical canopies marketed as fully elliptical that people go to after 2-3 sizes of those listed above are the Crossfire and the Katana. You should definitely avoid them out of A license.

proof by definition haha

The device that that has been extensively tested and optimized for swooping measurements is the Flysight. It's a very powerful tool for debriefing swoops. For precise measurements, it requires a top helmet mount, high sample rate and dedicated settings different than the ones used for measuring wingsuit performance combined with some advanced piece of software like GSwoop. I highly doubt that any of those new altis will reach satisfactory accuracy by itself (without using another external sensor), my guess is that it will be seen as a data that is fun to look at but not trustworthy. If they can import or replicate GSwoop inside the alti with a powerful sensor through bluetooth that would be awesome.

With similar turn mechanics, I would start a 270 on a 75 hybrid type 1 (more sail-like material) Airwolf at roughly the same altitude as a VK 84, I started turning higher and had to bring it down. I agree with what was mentioned above. It's a bit more harness sensitive than the VK and a bit less steep than the VK on full flight. The most similar canopy that I flew was the Leia. The openings on the Airwolf have a longer snivel compared to the VK, but not super long like the Helix. The VK opens a bit too fast for my taste, the Airwolf seems to be on the right spot for me.

At least in most US tunnels, a spotter, employed by the tunnel, is the person responsible for your safety and to catch you if things go to shit and also has the final word about what you can and can't do inside the tunnel. Spotters don't have any obligation to teach you anything, but many give you some hints if you're flying without a coach. The coach might have spotting certifications but he's not acting on that role while teaching you. It's up to tunnel management if their employees can act as coach while on the clock, or if they have to clock out to act as coaches. I don't know of any tunnel that does not allow their employees to coach while not on the clock. I also don't know of any tunnel that charges coach commission without giving in retribution discounted hourly rate for those coaches. In the end, the student is paying the same amount anyway, if the tunnel gets the money straight from the student or through the coach, doesn't matter much.

The two planes are probably from the hd record attempts in the beginning of the month, their normal otter + Arizona's otter. Weather did suck.

There are several variables: 1) The way you spread out the training will impact how efficient you learn. e.g. 15 mins every week for a few months vs 3 hours in a 4 day camp. 2) Are you learning on a big 14 feet tunnel? Many of the instructors on those tunnels will want to teach you slow speed dynamic, more like the European progression. There are a lot of people carving with 20+ hours on their back and HU but that can't stay static for shit. 3) How much do you care about your HU skills? Flying Head Up well is really hard, and you can invest on it or shortcut straight to HD as soon as you are safe. 4) Tunnels like the one in Utah that are not corporate do not need to crosscheck all requirements of corporate iFly's progression, very good instructors and spotters can keep you safe being more aggressive on how they push your progression. So... your mileage may vary, but 15-20 hours is what I'd say is a good amount of time to be able to get in a tunnel and transition to head down with another non coach friend and have some safe fun if you don't work too much on dynamic but still have some decent head up skills (single docks, basic slow carving)

I relate to that, I did my first 13 jumps and then stopped for 6 months. What struck to me was how little I knew, I didn't feel like I had done my homework properly or that my instruction had been sufficient to be throwing myself out of a plane. I didn't have freefall control or landing issues but all the possible malfunction scenarios scared the shit out of me. Mostly the two out scenarios. I decided that I wasn't allowed to jump again until I read the SIM front to back and read every death report available up to date and every incident report thread at Dropzone.com. Then skiing season came (in California we jump all year round) and with combination of this fear, I just didn't have the drive to go jump again. About June next year, I was bored after skiing season had ended and even though I hadn't read all available incident reports but I had read a shit ton of them and watched a bunch of videos and I was feeling prepared again. I came back really strong and scored 500 jumps in a year window. Funny enough, I had a two out malfunction from a loose reserve pin on rental gear on jump number #34. But, I was very prepared for it, I had just re-watched the video of how to deal with them the night before. It's really fulfilling to survive a malfunction, know that you have the right mindset for it. So, that's my advice for you, bomb your head with information, we fear the unknown. Best of luck, hope to see you up in the skies again.

Hi, Learning 4 Way VFS is pretty fun, but can be very challenging, both physically and mentally on first sessions when things are not flowing very well yet, here are some of the learnings from my teams path this year. We were lucky to have a very experienced team captain guiding the process and as a reference that's what we achieved after about 10 hours of flying together https://www.facebook.com/davi/posts/1819774304706792. - The Axis tutorial videos are an excellent reference to get you some theoretical knowledge about how to engineer the points. - About how to slot people, my suggestion is that the two stronger fliers be the center fliers. It's pretty obvious what's the center on some moves like the A and the 3. For others like the 14 it doesn't make as much sense, and you'll basically have to just pick who is doing what. - For most blocks, you'll have the concept of a piece partner, having the centers as strong fliers, you'll naturally have one strong flier on each piece of the blocks. - As your team gains experience, you might want to reassign slots depending on the draw for efficiency. - Other things you might wanna take in account, is that some points can be very tricky depending on a person's weaknesses, e.g. someone that can't fly daffy well, will have major trouble doing the I and the B and the head down outfacing points. A couple other things that might help while training are: - Keep the rotations short, on the 1min - 1m30s range, and try to distribute well head up points on the draw. - Squeeze some 4's and 17's in so every gets to sit fly a bit and relax their shoulders. You also probably want to fly close to the tunnel max speeds and avoid having too much drag on the lower arms. - Avoid finger fucking, make sure everyone knows who is presenting and who is grabbing. Good luck and have fun!

Do an extra stow? Most bags will allow you to put an extra rubber band here and there. Edit: not leaving enough excess between risers and first stow can also cause line twists. Note that as the bag rolls into the container, the lines get more stretched and it's fairly common that the lines will get trapped under the reserve corners under tension, which will easily spin your bag. Make sure you leave enough excess according to the rig instructions. Since I don't have a ruler on me, I estimate mine using one and half to two full stretched hands.

1) I suggest you try to be the last out, the balloon keeps going up as people jump and the difference on altitude can be a good 2k feet of play time. 2) Try to land with other people, makes it easier for ground crew to pick you up and in case anyone is injured while landing out, help is closer. 3) Keep your phone on your pocket. 4) Remember to reset AADs when you go back to your dropzone if altitude has changed 5) Be careful not to track on top of mountains, this happened to a couple folks on my first balloon jump outside the dropzone. 6) All the default landing out stuff, wind direction might be hard to figure out, watch out for power lines and if possible, stay close to a road 7) Take a look at your alti, most folks rush pull on their first balloon jump. 8) The dead air is actually pretty fun, and unless you're training for base, I'd say, try to do some shit, getting unstable is totally ok, as soon as the air pick up you'll regain control.

Do it at home, repack it several times, no need to rush, watch the videos and watch carefully how people use their elbows, knees etc... and break it down. Remember that if you don't need to jump it, you can focus on getting into the bag without being stressed out about messing the packjob. Then unpack it, and try to do it a little better, until you feel confident, there are a few simple "a-ha" moments on how to control the canopy that should get you set. No Sweat Packing video from Brian Germain helped me a bunch, but you can find some good free content on youtube as well.

When I was going through AFF I thought I'd come twice a month to the dropzone and do 4 jumps on each day, ceiling my spendings on around $200 a month, no tunnel time planned, bought my first rig thinking that it could be the last. I finished AFF, did a handful of jumps, and took 6 months off on ski season. Then in May next year I came back, still had a similar idea on my head. As soon as I got my A license I went to the tunnel for the first time, thought about flying a couple hours to get a head start on the freeflying that I believed I could learn "organically" on the sky. Shortly, skydiving pretty much consumed my life, tunnel during the week, skydiving both days of every weekend + a couple boogies a year... logged around 500 jumps in 12 months and kept going strong after that. Now a days I have an AFF-I rating that I don't use much and mostly focus on freeflying and swooping. No regrets, has been really fun, met a lot of cool people and I think it's a good use of my time. I also feel I can balance thinks better now a days, I think a lot about how I wanna keep doing this for the rest of my life without burning out of it.

Swooping provokes an hyper-focus state on me, which I really enjoy. Swooping, for me, is a never ending search for perfection. Developing the ability to stay calm and to look smooth while swooping the ground faster than highway speeds is very challenging and, accomplishing it, is very rewarding. Also, heard from a really good both freeflier and competitive swooper that there's no short cuts like the tunnel, you have to earn it and the there's no new hot shot popping up every competition.

I agree this is a better classification. I went to a Helix from a JVX and the Helix is way more responsive on harness input and definitely requires more from the pilot.

I think it depends a lot on what you'll be doing. Are you going there to chill on your belly or to learn back layouts on high speed ;). Our tunnel is rated from 3 to 103 years old people, you're probably in better health than many people in this range. If you have enough mental discipline to go there and just chill and have some mellow flying action it should be fine on the first months.

~2.1. Thanks for describing the top part of the turn, I'll give it a shot.

That's a pretty nice curve, from zero vert monotonically increasing to 74, you just showed I don't need those extra degrees of rotation :). The only thing I could spot was a little slow down on the turn rate before the final snap. Is there a specific thing that you changed since your first post here to achieve that? EDIT: Attached one with very similar results and amount of time as yours, but I had to use ~320 degrees instead of 260.

Nice, I see your degree of turn is closer to 300. I'm starting to realize that there's a maximum amount of input of toggle surge that one can do if they want to avoid the flat plateau on the vertical speed and not speed up the time to execute the turn, since you also need time on the vertical axis to build speed. On a 270' there's not enough time to reach terminal and I'm aiming for 8.5 seconds. The reasoning is the following: the more your canopy is pointing down, the faster your angular speed needs to be to keep it on that position. If my toggle surge is strong, I need to add ~30 degrees of rotation to be able to keep building speed on the first second and not execute the turn faster than I want. Maybe that's just technique, but I haven't been able to accomplish the same with just a 270' unless I don't do a toggle surge. I would love to see a slow (~8.5 seconds) 270, with a decent toggle surge, that doesn't have a plateau on the vertical speed.

I have shot just a few tandems for friends, and more than one chose the shot when they were pulling the handle to be the "Facebook shot", I'm sure it was positive for their experience.