ZigZagMarquis

A snowflake of a fluffy piece of frozen water that makes unique shapes - or - The cat on the Simpsons... ... in skydiving... for 2 people, it would be what most would call a "2-Way"... what lots of folks call a "Round" of any number of folks also is called a snowflake sometimes.

Yes, you owe BEER! ... and a lot of folks just use a hard-side suitcase or I suppose you could get a hard side "road case", but they're kinda expensive, but would be great to put your rig in and lock if you ever had to ship it.

Usually what I'll do with low timers is something like this: Launch a R/H Compressed, you outside, newbie inside. L/H Compressed R/H Open L/H Open Snowflake Have the low timer do a 360 Snowflake Repeat The TLOs are: - Don't noodle arm the exit, arch. A 2-way compressed out the door is fairly bullet proof as long as both parties block it out and arch and depending on how low time the newbie is, they've probably never launched anything like that and will be stoaked by it. - On the R/H to L/H compressed transition its a fall rate and proximity thing... Eye Contact! - Same goes for the R/H & L/H Opens & flying with your legs and not reaching! - On the 360, just have the newbie turn the 360 and you just lay base for them so they can see if they're sliding around and make them come back if they do. - Usually, I'll help them with the fall rate and make them correct most if not all of the horizontal seperation if / as it happens during the jump. ----- Okay, Livendive... you think even a couple of high time jumpers can't have fun on a 2-way dive?? Try this one... do ALL the 2-way points: R/H compressed L/H compressed Side body Side body R/H Open L/H Open Stair Step Stair Step Cat Cat Snowflake 360 Snowflake You should be able to get through it 2 to 3 times.

Yeah, A-Chick, take your Jav on over to SunPath if you live there in Fld and check see what it would take for them to mod it for you and then write us a little "book report" about your field trip to the factory... But seriously, a though I just had was, since your rig is a Javelin, and you want to add some "pink & purple" to it, a way of doing that with out taking any flaps off and replacing them would be to change out the cap on the reserve pilot cute for a pink one w/ purple tape; if you call ahead, they may have one on hand at the factory and do it while you wait.

Its okay... if PxLpr wants to think his reserve couldn't blow-up if overloaded, let him... ... can I get $20 on PxLpr on the Bounce Bingo Board?

Maybe... I'd like to do the Iron Crank, but can never find 3 other folks that want to too, they always say they do, but when you try to get them to actaully commit, they've got a million and one excuses. Anyway, the reason I'd like to get gouged up on how they handicap the Iron Crank is they're actually starting to do a boogie or two a year at Cal City, but they always do them as "scarmbles" where you draw the team names out of a hat at the begining or someone goes into the back room and puts together the teams trying to split of the experience. Pick-up teams are fine, but I'd like to do a fun boogie / competion where we can put together our own teams if we want... problem is, all the low timers and freefliers then say, "all you high time RW folks will all get get on the same team and blow us away so we don't even want to bother"... soooo I figured if we could handicap it somehow, maybe we could level the playing field a bit... that my understanding of what they do at the Crank. Anyway, guess I need to pick-up the phone and call Perris or shoot someone there at the DZ an email and see if they reply.

CloudTongue... this is true, kinda pricey and usually best done by the manufacturer themselves...

...bump

Ah! That's nothing... reportedly... years ago... there was a female instructor at a certain high-desert SoCal DZ that used to like to go out to the student target in the summer and do ground topless... now that distraction... err... distractions...

OMG... NO!!! Its not just a saying!!!! It starts when you get off status... you owe a case of beer... after that, when ever you do anything for the "first" time... first pack-job, for example... pretty soon you'll refer to the word "first" as the F-word and not FUCK... and you'll instinctively say "CASE OF BEER" when ever you hear someone else say "first"... even when around WHUFFOS... The Drop Zone & the Beer Gods. YES!!! GREEN BOTTLES!!!! No... one case of beer to the DZ anytime you admit to doing something for the firat time or get caught doing something for the first time. YES! GREEN BOTTLES!!!! Could be... as long as they're done packing for others for the day... Could be... just remember, 12-inches from Bottle to Throttle! YES!!! ... if she's cute... ... if she doesn't think you're cute... get her to drink beers until you're cute... YES! YES! YES!!... just kidding... Once you owe beer, buy it and bring it onto the DZ... it becomes "fair game"... no longer your beer... free to anyone for the taking without reproach.

... and there you have it... we need more people in the sport for the BEER then in it for the MONEY!

"Like a deer in the headlights"... eh? No wonder you don't like night jumps!

Size does not matter. Even tandems are pro-packed regular bases. I understand that. I'm just saying that I personally prefered to flat-pack big F111 when packing it up as a main, but it doesn't really matter because most reserves, even big ones, are Propacked when put up as such.

I think it just down-right sucks that some folks out there in the skydiving verse are getting money out of newbies to teach them to pack. If a student is willing to hangout until late in the day or come around during a time when its slow, someone on the DZ should be nice enough to show them how to pack. Its not like 99.9% of us had to pay someone to teach us to pack, we ought to pass it on.

mostwanted... read what RiggerRob and MJO said up-post, they pretty much beat me to the 2 cents I was going to add... I'll pile on with the comment that the older Raven's really DO NOT like to be overloaded, but if you're only 0.7:1, you should be good to go... my only additional comment was that personally I always prefered to flat-pack big-F111, but ProPacking it shouldn't be a problem either because that's pretty much what we do when packing a reserve, although what you do with the tail and nose is different with a reserve pack then with a main ProPack. Anyway, I'm guessing you're doing this as practice for BASE??? So you'd probably rather ProPack it.

Night jumps suck. They are a stunt and I get paid for that.

TonySuit

Ah, grasshopper, you'll never then be truely one with your gear... successfully mastering the packing of new ZP is a right of passage in this sport... embrace it, be the nylon... ---- Anyway, I too am amazed at folks who don't ever pack for themselves... ya know that ones, the ones who packed a few times to get their A-License and then couldn't be bothered... we've got one at my DZ that won't pack for himself and gets "put-off" when the packers are too busy to get him on every load because they've got Tandem Rigs and Student Rigs to do first... he'll never get the spiritual side of the sport...

Welcome to the club! I've got maybe 15 to 20 night jumps... would have to dig through my log books to total them up. Its not like jumping during the day time. I'm glad that the USPA hasn't "caved" and taken night jumps out of the requirements for a D-License.

Bill, fair enough.

AMEN! What happened to the good ol' days of the up-jumpers taking a newbie or two along on a jump and learnin' them something along the way to "give something back to the sport"... and then the newbies bought the beer at the end of the day...

nah, it mostly comes out on the next jump...

I've got a Sabre170. Back when I first demo'ed a Sabre-2 170 I thought it packed up smaller then my "legacy" Sabre of the same size. I asked PD and, at that time, they said the Saber-2's were the same volume size for size as the original Sabre. I've since bought a Sabre-2 170 and that's what I've got in my new rig, while still have my old Sabre170 in my old rig. I still think the Sabre-2s pack up smaller... However... you're experience may differ given your level of packing proficiency and technique. The VooDoo V4 is spec'ed out to take a 450 cu in main... the pack volume for a Sabre190 in the ParaGear chart Sparky posted is listed at 500 cu in... might be do'able, might not be, might be fun to watch you trying to pack it...

Bill, please... I didn't say I couldn't land my canopy downwind in 0-5... did it earlier today in fact when the wind shifted short final, planed it out, held it off and ran it out. QED I didn't say it was a bad idea to know how to land one downwind. I said that I don't see the point of going out and doing intentional downwinds and that I opt not to. If you want to, fine. IMO, its not the wisest thing for low-time jumpers to go do on purpose... or be advised to go do... you can coach them on how to deal with it, without actually putting them in that situation; isn't that what we do teaching students how to deal with a Mal during FJC... we never actually make them go jump a canopy that that will have a function? You've got a lot of good things to say, but remember, we've got 1000s of jumps and even like Sparky says, we're not so good as to never die doing this, we're probably less apt to mis-handle any given situation, its called experience. ... I'm gonna go get a beer.

Tell them... "If riding in an airplane is flying, is then riding in a boat swimming?" SHUT-UP AND JUMP!!! Give it a few years, you're still a low time jumper, if you keep going at it hardcore, you'll soon have no whuffo friends... all your friends will be jumpers... ... yes, be afraid, be very afraid!