sudo242

Groupon (GRPN) has one of the highest short percent of float positions in the NASDAQ. It went public in ~2011 at about $26, has gone essentially straight down for 6 years. All the while the overall market has been on fire. That's all you need to know right there.

These are all great advice, thank you. I will implement all of them including having my rigger go over everything. I hesitate to say who assembled the rig, but it was a rigger at a "highly reputable" and "large volume" well known retail gear vendor.

I will. I'll be having my reserve I&R done before I jump again. I'll have the rigger fix it then. I feel like I should be able to do this myself. I think I can, but there is a single stitch holding the softlink in place and I don't want to mess with that.

Cool, thanks. I feel better hearing that from you, a rigger. I guess since the forces are so widely distributed, it is probably okay. The biggest thing is that I did not notice it for an entire season. That freaks me out a little.

I am shocked I did not notice this before. Should this freak me out? I will get it fixed, but how freaked out should I be? See attached image.

Thanks, but I don't care where the video is from. It will only occupy a few seconds of the overall video. I just want some generic free fall video. If I can't find any online I'll ask around the drop zone. Or just wear my camera this weekend.

One thing that happened to me that was really sad that I did not capture on video was this... I was in freefall over the DZ. I was doing a solo skydive. As I looked straight down, there were some clouds. Not enough clouds to disqualify a skydive, but just enough to make you wonder. The clouds were 'thinish.' But as I looked down, I saw a circular rainbow, the kind that builds from the clouds below you. The circle rainbow that was below me was amazing. I dreamed and wished I had jumped with a camera, since I had seen rainbows hundreds of times but never a circular one from above. The boogie was the Barefoot Boogie at Skydive Pepperell in Massachusetts. Thank you, have a nice day.

Dear all - I have read with great interest the threads about not flying with a camera until sufficiently experienced and trained. I tend to be of the conservative bent, so have heeded the advice I have received and not flown camera yet. So I am in this particular situation... I am making a video to celebrate a boogie that I attended this year. I want to have the video include some freefall footage, since without it it seems to be missing a huge part of the experience. I did live through the boogie, so would like to thank the kind people that advised us all to not fly camera until we are ready. But that places me in a situation where I need to ask others for some freefall video footage to be able to finish my video. Ideally, the video would include some brief footage inside the aircraft (preferably a twin otter and/or skyvan to match the rest of the video), the climb out, freefall, deployment and some footage under canopy. The boogie was a great success, so I want to have some footage that does it justice. So, since I followed the rules, and did the right thing, I was hoping someone might help me out with some video footage I could use to round out my video. Please let me know if you are willing to donate some footage. I thank you in advance for any help you can give me. And I also thank you for your wise advice for me to not fly with my own camera. sudo242

Just as a follow up to me last comment (I have a Pilot 188 loaded about 1.2). I had my steering lines shortened by 3.5 inches and it made a huge difference. There is still some slack so it is not flying in brakes at all. The flare is way better now. I am surprised by how much of a difference it made.

I have a Pilot 188 loaded at about 1.2. I also found the flare to be very lacking. I had my rigger shorten the steering lines by 3.5 inches. I had little hope that it would help because the flare was so poor. But lo and behold, it seems to have made a huge difference. It flares fine now. By fine I mean it planes out at half brakes and finishes normally at full brakes.

I have a brand new (2016) Pilot 188 ZPX loaded at about 1.15:1. I have the same problem, it is the worst flaring canopy I have ever flown. I will try to shorten the lines, but they do not seem too short to me. In my experience, having 1 or 2 more inches should not make or break the flare. I am wondering if they made some changes to the line trim design or something recently because when I bought the rig I chose the Pilot based on so many good reviews. I initially thought I was just rusty because I was coming back from a long break from the sport, but now I know otherwise.

I had a line over malfunction at about jump 85. I remember being too focused on what I was doing to really have any "feelings" about it in the moment other than maybe an "oh shit" for a second or two. But later on after everything was over, I felt drained like from being stressed. The best part was just as the others said, I learned that the emergency procedures work as advertised, so keep practicing them. Oh, and don't release your brakes if you have a line over with the delusion that it might somehow magically fix it, because it wont. It will just make you start spinning faster.

What you are experiencing is biology just as much as psychology. In mammals, the autonomic nervous system, the sympathetic nervous system and the parasympathetic nervous system are part of our brains, brain stem and spinal cord. They act largely unconsciously. Over the course of evolution, this functionality came to be because some threats are so great that an organism simply does not have time to sit and ponder what to do in a dangerous situation. So what is happening is your autonomic, sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems, along with your logic and reasoning systems are perceiving the reality of what you are about to do. This triggers the classic "fight or flight" response that happens automatically and unconsciously without you being able to do anything about it. All of what you are describing about how you feel are classic responses. It basically just means your brain and spinal cord are working exactly how they are supposed to. You might also be experiencing other responses like increased heart rate, dilated pupils, sweaty palms, ringing in the ears, etc. One of the biggest challenges in skydiving is being able to function in the face of this normal stress response. The brain doesn't need to use logic and reason to recognize that jumping out of an airplane at 13,500 feet is a major threat.

In a recent email statement, the USPA stated it is testing the waters regarding the use of digital credentials. So the invitation you got was your chance to sign up to use the new digital credentials. You should reconsider and possibly embrace the idea. Why? Because depending on how the test period goes, the USPA may switch over to digital credentials and stop using the card altogether. If/when this comes to pass, the sigma digital credential will be the way that you prove you have a license. It may or may not come to pass, but IMHO the chances are high that it will in the next few years.

I just thought I would share my experience that I just had regarding this matter, sorry for posting to an old thread. But I think it is relevant to the discussion. I just ordered a new rig. I asked the vendor to make sure the Cypres2 that I get is manufactured after January 1st so that I have the option on the maintenance. Here is the response that I got from them: I'll still do the maintenance, but can have the option of waiting until the winter when I won't be using the rig.