Spizzzarko

Collegiates has been run by Bill Wenger in the past. He is a full time employee of the Airforce Academy, and the only time the cadets from the military academy's can get the time off is durring the scheduled holiday breaks. I don't know if Bill Wenger still runs collegiates, but I do not think that they will ever change the dates and times of the competition, because if they did then the military academy cadets would not be able to compete. If you look at the attendance of collegiates then you will see that the USAF and USA competitors make up the bulk. If those two pulled out then I do not think the collegiates would continue to happen. This is not what the military leaders of these academy's want, because of their continued wins in this arena. Think about it. The Commander of the parachuting squadron at USAFA presents to his boss and peers that under his command his cadets won first place in 4-way, style, and accuracy, at the collegiate nationals. The other commanders such as the chess team commander cannot match that. The parachute squadrons commanders boss then goes to his or her boss and says the flying team did a competition, and did ok, but MY jump cadets won first place in 3 different events and swept the collegiate skydiving nationals. This is major kudos for the military teams. Now let's compare the military cadet who competes at collegiate skydiving nationals to the average college skydiving person. I will use an Air Force cadet as I have worked with them and have an intimate familiarity of their program, as an example. The Air Force Academy first jump program is a class that they sign up to take like philosophy, or math. It usually last about a month long and they only come down to the airfield a few hours every other day. Eventually they get their 5 jumps and their basic parachutist badge. If they are lucky enough to be selected to the team then they will do one year of up grade training. Once they are Juniors then they will become parachute team members. The team (50 cadets) is divided into two elements. One being demonstration (jumping into football games and stadiums and what not) and the competition team. The competition team will compete in 4-way, classic Style, and Classic accuracy. At their disposal is a fleet of three twin otters. Not all three of them are used all the time, but they have those rescourses available to them. By the time they finish with their Junior year these cadets should have about 300-500 jumps. There are a few cadets that gradute with a 1000 jumps but that is the exception and not the norm. The airforce cadets do not pay for any of this with money (their hard work and dedication to the USAF is payment enough). Now let's talk about collegiate competitor Snuffy from the Lambda Lambda Lambda frat at Adams College. Competitor snuffy probably may have 150-300 jumps when he os she goes to collegiates. Chances are he has not jumped with the team mates that they are competing with for much more than 100 of those jumps. The AF cadets usually go into competition with much more jumps together as a team. In addition to the jumps, gear, and travel to collegiate nationals competitor Snuffy must also worry about Books, booze, and tuition. So you can see that there is not much of a financial incentive to the collegiate athlete of Lambda Lambda Lamda from Adams College. So if you really want to get down to it, I feel that Collegiate Nationals is biased towards the military participants. It is biased in the manner of support that the military competitors recieve, it is biased in the dates that it is held, and it is biased in the types of competition that are held (how many people do you know that are collegiate skydivers and are pouring them selves into a style suite and strapping on a classic acc canopy? How many DZ's are out there that maintain a classic acc tuffet?). There should at least be two classifications of competitors in Collegiate nationals in my opinion. Sure collegiates is a good thing, but it needs to be changed to meet the changes in the sport.

Check your PM's dude.

Let me know how that works out for you dude...

"I honestly dont know what the best solution would be." Get a JVX all sail and it will pack up really fat. Then you can get a bigger container with a bigger reserve. Then get a speed cypres, and raise your decision altitude. That will help prevent two out. It fixes all of your situations. Bigger reserve, Small fast main, less chance of two out.

I do not have all the technical specifics memorized on the cypres, but I do have a good idea of it's firing parameters. I feel that the 450 turn will place me in or near the firing parameters of the regular cypres. I also feel that people are losing focus on what the cypres's real job is. It is supposed to save you if you are unconscious or lose altitude awareness. The regular cypres has a firing speed around 78mph, and some people who cut away and went back into free fall exceeded that speed and got a cypres fire. Some wraps can exceed 78 mph so I'm sure there have been cypres fires in that situation. Now people believe that the cypres will save them if they cut away low or are in a nasty wrap. Not quite the case. You just need to realize what your equipment is designed for and it's operating envelopes. If you exceed those design parameters or operate in the firing envelopes then you may have a nasty surprise from your equipment doing what it was supposed to do. Canopies technology has changed since the inception of the cypres and it's programming. People are alos now taking their canopies into ranges of flight that were unfathomable even three years ago. This is a wonderfull time for canopy flight as people are flying these things 600+ feet. Airtech is just catching up to the present by offering th espeed cypres.

Sure it fixes the problem (for now). When people start popping off speed cypresses in turns then I'm sure the problem will be addressed again at that time. A company can spend a lot of time and money trying to engineer a solution to a problem that may not exist, but I'm sure the executive of that company will feel that money and time can be spent better on other things. I'm sure this is why airtech set their limit on the cypres at 78 mph 12-15 years ago. As data logging technology increases in the future I'm sure we will get a much clearer picture of what speeds people are actually reaching, and then airtech can adjust their products accordingly. Untill then don't impact the earth at a high rate of speed.

That would be one FUGLY spastic chick! bwaaahahahahahaaaaa

I have not heard of any restrictions on keeping the material packed. The dudes that I have seen jump this material do not leave their canopies laying out and about. When it inflates all the folds go away anyways. This is probably a non issue.

Well I'm looking at it from a different perspective... Getting a bigger container will do two things for me: 1. Make it easier to resell the container. A container sized for a 143 over a 150 will be easier to sell than the small jav for the 113 over the 96 with a fat boy harness (yea I'm fat, so what, wanna fight about it? if you watch family guy then you will get that one). 2. Allow me to get a bigger reserve. The 113 is a fine reserve and it has treated me well, but a 143 reserve would never hurt. I know the dual out report wants you to have similarly sized canopies, but here is my thoughts on that... A two out situation can be caused by only a few things: A. Going low and having a cypres fire: Currently I am not jumping with a cypres. This all together eliminates this as being a cause for dual out. I will probably purchase a speed cypres in the near future, but I feel that it will provide enough of a buffer in the speed range to prevent firing in the middle of a turn. I also feel that the 94 MPH firing speed of the speed cypres is low enough to save me if I were unconscious. This is really what a cypres is intended for correct? If I were to lose altitude awareness and go much below 2,000' I will probably just fire my reserve because I feel that deploying a small highly loaded main that low is asking for trouble. Could the main open in time and allow me to land in a good area? Possibly, but why fuck around with that and try to put a canopy like that in the situation and try it out? You can do that if you wish or if you feel that current on your main, but I have raised my personal emergency procedure altitudes quite a bit. Having a little more altitude below you is not always a bad thing. B. Inadvertantly pulling the reserve handle: I'm just not forseeing this being to much of a possibility with properly maintained modern gear (to include the pillow type of reserve handle). C. Having a reserve closing loop break: This is a good reason to repack your reserve every 120 days. Sure we all know that the reserve canopy doesn't turn into sand after 120 days, but knowing where your gear has been stored and how well it is maintained is a good thing. Also if you are competing then repacking your reserve a little more often may be a good thing too. Usually competition jumps (swooping) is a little more hard on gear than just 4-way (the best competition) or free fly (the gayest of all competitions and competitors yes that was a dig at Ian Drennon and his gay red shirt). So to adress the changing of rigs comment, I feel confident that it would not be an entirely bad thing to get a biiger rig. I'm looking at the infinity as a possible purchase, and I know that their main bags pack up fairly tight compared to a jav container sized for the same canopy (I currently have a jav RSK-1). I figure if I got an infinity sized for a 150 then I can still have options if I decide to change back to a non sail material main. I like the 96-103 range velocity with the RDS slider and I'm sure they would pack up easily in the infinity sized for a 150 with a slightly shorter closing loop.

Your heading in the right direction son! Chuck, I couldn't help myself when I remembered the picture of you "resetting" on a hard night of drinking. Peej, Most people do want to be like me, but they just don't realize it yet. As far as the JVX goes... I sat down and had a beer or two one afternoon and ordered an all sail 89. I'm really looking forward to getting it and wringing it out. I have to buy a new container though.

I still stand by my earlier assertation that Puma's are the best. A close second are the old kangaroo's with the little pocket in the tongue. I ususally keep a condom in there (you never know when you need protection), or a rubber band, a pull up cord of some other assortment of doodads... Another cool thing about the kangaroos is the velcro instead of the laces. It makes it soooo much easier to get your shoes on and off when you are changing jump suits, or when you feel the urge to spontaniously strip at the DZ (I can't tell you how many times that being naked has proven my point over some heated discussion at the DZ, and impairment to my getting naked quickly ddoes nothing to drive my point home). So what is the point of this post, you may be asking? Well I think this thread is mooth, and we should return to discussing things such as Team Extreme and trying to sell each other JVX's...

Hell NO son! a full sail 89 is what I'm all about. Any time your here you can jump my canopy dude. Take it easy and be carefull brother.

Sue the fuck out of him Steve!!!! just kidding. I'm glad you two are kissing and making up. BTW Steve, I'm looking forward to getting my JVX! Take it easy brotha!

If you are not sporting PUMA's then you are mooth...

Do you honestly think that his sponsorship status has any bearing on his duties as a moderator in the forum? I don't really know the dude, but it seems to me that he probably has more integrity than to start a brand war here on DZ.com. This thread was getting to be a little bull shit any ways if you ask me.

I think I'm going to have 1000lbs dacron non- cascaded lines installed on the canopy too... It's a joke Nick. I have no desire what so ever to jump the neos (gayos).

Congrats to all those dudes who were picked up for major gear sponsorship. I think I'm going to get a neos and compete on it this upcoming season...

I have to agree with Ian, Joe, and Mel on this one here folks. There's always going to be someone who spouts off at the keyboard and complaining just because they like to hear them self talk. I guess you can call them the 1%er's. 99% of the people here have had positive things to say about Mel and Joe to include their products. Well with Chachi's attitude here on line I would say Mel is doing just fine by ignoring him (if that is the case). Grant

I remember having to duck down because someone else was coming in. The biggest thing I learned is that theh factory diver helmet holds water pretty well. I was above the water line and the water slowly drained out of my helmet. It was like something out of a cartoon.... Dyters don't like that water that much and CB canoppies get really heavy when they fill up with water. It was like dragging a sea anchor out of the damn pond.

BWWWWAAAAAAAA hahahahahahahaaaaaa You suck! just kidding. I seem to remember a nameless swooper at rantoul doing the same thing a couple of years back.

I know that, but they don't I guess. Take it easy brotha!

I guess the moderators are not, because I am being censored.

The only way you would be 100' further down the course from me is if you verted by 50'. I have head that is not uncommon with you!

Personally I think that having it trail back behind you is not a really good idea and here is why. The added drag of the bag and pilot chute will cause the slider to increase the wear on the lines where your slider sits. Also this setup has the potential of entanglement with your body or your crw partner. If it were entangle with you then your main may be trailing (still attached to you) when you cut away from a wrap or canopy colision or collapse. When deploying your reserve you want a clear shot for the launch. People have gone in because of little things entangling with the reserve deployment. I do use an RSL because I would like to be somewhat belly to earth when I fire my reserve (how ever the new RWS RSL doohickey seems to be a cool idea as long as it were installed correctly). Another thought about why it would be bad to have that stuff trailing behind you would be an entanlgement on landing. I can see it happening where you would fly close to the wind sock and that stuff would get entangled and you would pull the windsock down. Now the DZO is pissed at you and throws you off the dz, and you go speeding off in your car. The local cop that stakes out the DZ looking for pothead freflyers sees you speeding and pulls you over. Now you are pissed off because the cop pulled you over and you have been thrown off the dz so you mouth off to him like an idiot. The cop drags you out of the car through the window by your trachea (throat) and beats you to deat with his bag light. Now do you see how your home made RDS can kill you?!

Welcome to the dark side... By the way, the rainbow colored canopy that you were jumping in the pond swoop pics from the Ranch looks fairly gay. I hope your slider isn't rainbowed... Just kidding JP, I hope NY is treating you well.