Treejumps

What a great read. I was unaware of the events surrounding Carl's death. I guess we'll never know why he chose to jump that site. Or..... he was the 1st jumper to die for not wanting to hike all the way to a better exit point. RIP

If you have ever been popped at NRGB, the second one will cost you $1200.00,. not including a lawyer. It is far less expensive to do it this way, and in the long run, we'll get lots more jumps. Ahhh, beautiful summer afternoons spent hucking to our heart's content.....

Hey all. A loan is not much of an option as property like this can usually be financed for only 5 years. If we can get 100 people to put up $1000, we have it made. I will be one of the $1000.00 people, assuming we can get the other 99. Way to keep up the good fight Jason.

No, not a base jump. A good idea, but he never evenm stood at the exit point. If he died in an elevator crash on the way up, that would not qualify either. Still, a cool idea. RIP

*** "If you still have a Cordura pouch (instead of spandex), replace it. You can't imagine the hard pull this can cause." I disagree. I've never had anything but cordura, and in 2000+ jumps have never had a hard pull. Proper packing is always the key to good operation.

Major props for the way you have handled yourself. THere is not enough of this kind of integrity left in the sport.

What really bothers me are 2 jump wonders who even think about "1st timers" as if they are somehow different. Based on your numerous posts I'd say you should spend a lot more time thinking about yourself and your deep interpersonal issues. Just what this sport needs, an ego tripped DEA agent. Take up bowling.

I for one am a big advocate of sloppy packing coupled with a good pull up cord to close.

I think that is a good way to simplify it for teaching, but I'm certain that if you watched a double front approach you would a path of flight that resembles and arc, but rather straight angular flight that is steeper with double fronts. WHen you let up on double fronts there may be a very tiny short arc back to standard glide path, but it would look, and more importantly feel like you just go from one glide to another. This is how I started to learn swooping and I rememeber it well. sometimes these landings just don't go well and there seems to be no reason why. I was explaining what I had encountered when I went through this 8 years ago because it sounded like what he was dealing with. Scott who?

Was the pin always seated that shallow, or was that after tugging on it for a while?

Something I have not heard addressed is that doing a double front does not really put you into an arc from which you must recover. It is and feels very different from say a front riser 90, and will land differently. This is becasue with double fronts you are merely incresaing the angle of attack and with it, your approach speed. What you are not doing is creating a turn whereby you end up slightly behind your canopy in a shallow dive, from which you must recover from, and ulitmately end up slightly out in front of (due to either the natural recovery, or from applying brakes) and finally a flare. With double fronts you may find an inconsistancy where somtimes you do great, and often you will feel like there is nothing there to flare with. This is because when you let off of your double fronts you could be putting yourself out in front thereby flattening your glide and ultimately eating up your flare power very quickly. To correct for that you have to let up gently and gradually, and start your flare the same way. With the canopy you are flying you just won't get that much usable speed to land with, and the timing is quite tricky. Even a front riser 45, timed properly will give you more to work with and put you on the track to learning more about canopy flight and landing. As always, YMMV. Cya.

Thanks for the advice. I really like W2K, and I really don't like the XP. I just can't figure out how to get them to share printers and files, primarily because the netork disk that XP creates is not supported by W2k. It says it will work with Win95 & 98, but that W2k does not. If you have any ideas on how to make them talk (I use a Linksys Broadband Router) I would appreciate it. Thanks again for all of your suggestions.

Hey all you techies, I just bought my wife her own computer and it has XP. I can't say I like XP compared to 2000, but to get them to network wirelessly, it appears I need to upgrade to XP on my system. ANy thoughts on this? AM I pretty much going to go through hell to do the upgrade? Will anything still work after this? Any help appreciated. I already have the XP disc, but I am very hesitant. Thanks.

Just have a tailagate loop inserted and atached. Takes about ten minutes and 10 cents of line. I'd do it for a beer if you were close by. Cya. BTW- Masking tape works great.

Hi Hucklberry, You can bring mine to TF May 12 - 17th. With all your witty banter it will be a pleasure to see you at the bridge.

Well this is truly a treat.

Typo. Just referring to the canopy material.

Not sure on the age and number of jumps, but the PC is/was otherwise in great shape. It was a used on that cames with my wife's used Fox. I had already done a cursory inspection and everything looked great. As pointed out by Tom, the design is the weak link. It would need to have a lot more fabric left on the vent side, or ideally, have the edge folded over. Definitely not a PCA induced issus. You can tell that it is from regular wear as the fabric that has not failed has stretch marks around the stiches. Check your gear. Cya.

Hey everyone jumping vented PCs. I just had on blow out at the union between the vent mesh aqnd the PC canopy (F-111). It appears that the hole for the vent is cut out with a hot knife, and the edge is not turned over to sew. This leaves a cut edge for the stiches to "work" there way towards. On mine the stiching was not that great with anywhere from 3/16" of meterial between the stiching and the edge to as little as a 1/16". Keep a close eye on any PC construced in this fashion as it is clearly a weak point. This was a 42" Vented CR, and the failure took place on a 3 second delay. The PC is now useless.

Point taken.

No, it would not be cool. It would make you as dumb as the only other guy trying to listen to music in freefall. Actually, I think you guys are already WAY too cool for skydiving. I mean shouldn't you guys should be at a rave or something? Quit wasting your time with something as boring as slydiving. Where do you people come up with this shit?

Hi Nick, I think that you are giving out very poor advice to a new jumper. The things you are describing have been sworn off for almost 10 years by the general base jumping community. Yes, you can get by with what you described, but it is a poor substitute for real base gear which is the only thing that is reccomended. What you as an experienced jumper jumps is your business, but please don't suggest that it is considered acceptable gear in the modern base era. It is junk, it has hurt and killed people, and it is HIGHLY unadvisable. To ansewr Leroy, yes, it would be a good water canopy, but I wouild not suggest huming it down on something like that. Very inconsistant openings.

*** It was PD seven cell trimmed differently, like a Lightning. Even worse, it was just a PD 7 cell trimmed diferently, like a lightning. Any way you slice it, it was never a good performer, and the base community as a whole does not reccomend them.

Your best bet is to sell that canopy (or use as a back up) and get a new one. The Dragon was a notoriously lame base canopy. It was nothing more than a reserve (I beleive it was a PD, but it could have been somehting else) with a different name sewn on it. You will find that almost nobody jumps them anymore. They performed very poorly, and what you are considering doing is the equivelent of someone in the eighties trying to port a Unit or Pegasus to get it to funciton in an enviroment it was not designed for. In short, buy a new base canopy. Your bones will thank you later. Cya.

Travis learned to skydive in MD several years ago. Real nice guy who came out ever so often to keep current. I'm pretty sure he has done several low altitude jumps from a motorcycle, but who knows. Compared to the shit they do on motocross bikes, base seems pretty safe.