Spizzzarko

The thought about taking the badges off the vehicle had occured to me, but it seemed like a lot of work, so I havn't gotten around to it yet. As for the Data panel on the canopy, I don't want to really hurt the resale value of it so I really don't mess with that to much. Besides I like to read how I'm overloading the canopy every now and then, it gives me a chuckle. Yall have a nice day now ya hear...

I just cut mine off. If a company is not going to sponsor me, then I'm not going to advertise for them.

I'm already here at work, and I'm pretty hung over... The worst part about it is the beer gas that I have. This confined office is getting pretty bad. I feel sorry for the next schmuck who comes in here.

Oh you know it baby... I think you have personally seen a fat man fly. Just keep that image of me flying past those alcey bastards sleeping one off in their tent at rantoul!!! It was good to see you this weekend. Grant

Contact a Mr. Marty Jones. marty.jones@usafa.af.mil

Dudes, I saw some golf show on TV awhile back, and they had Mark McGuire (former St. Louis slugger) on it. I was surprised at how small he has become. That guy used to be HUGE.

That thing between her ears called a brain. Intelligence is the key.

Any drag you induce by dragging appendages witt significantly decrease your swizzzzooop

I go to college straight from work. I dopn't get home untill 8:30 at night. It sucks but it's a means to an end. Grant

9cell at that loading.

So why does my Ipod work at 18000 MSL?

You know it baby!!!! I use the $.25 words to fool the $.05 people!!! hahahaha I got your PM. Be carefull out there brotha! Grant

A lot of people don't really realize how a little bit of drag will adversly affect your swoops. Jumpsuit type, body position, chest strap, and slider collapsing are all HUGE things when it comes to going to distance. When you start to drag toes or feet, it really kills a lot of airspeed. When doing freestyley, there is a lot of twisting in the harnes, that causes the canopy to turn, and you have to correct with a toggle or riser input. This causes drag, and shortens your distance. As far as the happy medium, I believe that swooping at sea level is your best bet for the longest swoops. It comes down to loading the canopy and how your distribute your power gained in the turn into your swoop, not a Mean Sea Level MSL or Density Altitude DA figure. The loading along with canopy design ( let's not forget technique, jumpsuit, body position) regulates what speed you can achieve with your canopy. Every canopy actually has a Terminal Velocity. This TV is not achieved by constantly muscling your fronts down. With fronts you are going to go fast, but if you continued to hold the same input you would actually slow down. This is because you are introducing drag with the distortion of the canopy. The fastest a canopy is going to go (TV) is actually in the full flight configuation. This happens after you do your front riser input and you put the canopy into full flight. Try this up high... Do your usual front riser input, and then put the canopy back into full flight, and listen to the wind then entire time. You will find out that your canopy is going to speed up quite a bit after the front riser input. With this in mind bump up your turn to approach altitude. The ammount of speed you carry into your swoop roughly determines how much distance you are going to get in that swoop ( body position, jumpsuit and being smooth helps out quite a bit too, but not as much as the amount of speed you put into it). As far as the DA and MSL thing goes, these items will only adversly effect your swoop distance. I my opinion, if you loaded up a slightly bigger canopy (111-120) up to it's optimal wingloading, and did an optimal turn, on a cold, calm, and dry day down at sea level, this would give you optimal conditions for some optimal swoops.

When you start doing freestyley, your distance suffers as you are distorting the wing greatly.

Behold young paduwon learners... The swoop is longer not... So after that cheesey Yoda Annecdote, The swoops up here are really not that much longer than down at sealevel. It's just easier to build up speed for your entry. Conversly your canopy will quit flying at a slightly higher airspeed, so shutting them down can be a little tricky.

Why don't you let the moderators sort that out. That's their job.

Do you want to know why this forum sucks? People like you being so critical over everything that someone sits down and types for the education of other users.

That will land much better up here. Trust me I KNOW!!!!!

Base jumping in my opinion is a lot like masturbation but with out the rewards. First of all you have to climb up the object you are going to jump off of. Then you have to jump off of it. It's usually a short jump and a short canopy ride. Next you have to land in some hole about the size of a small pick up bed. After that you have to climb back out of what you jumped into, sometimes evading the police. Then you have to repack the rig and do it all again. Sure sounds like fun to me.... NOT... But it looks good on you though. I got nothing against those who do it (except when they do stupid shit and die in the process), but it just doesn't really interest me.

There are a lot of people out there who use dacron. Look at most tandem canopy's out there. They are lined with Dacron. Look at the crew canopys. They are lined with DAcron. Just because it is older and a lot of the manufacturers are not using it any more, doesn't mean it is a bad product.. Do you even know why manufacturers are using Vectran and HMA now? These materails don't shrink or stretch like dacron or spectra. With high performance wings, line length and trim is very important. The best opening canopy that I have ever seen and have ever jumped is a spectre 170 with dacron lines.

Even though it doesn't have the cool guy appeal of todays swooping, I think traditional accuracy is and can be very addictive. Yes you are coming down much slower, but your target in traditional accuracy is about the size of a quarter. How many of you out there can honestly say you can consistantly land on something that small? I would venture to guess very few of you could. A traditional accuracy approach is really not all to different than that of a swoop approach. You fly a pattern, but instead of doing a turn when you get over your intended entry point, you get into deep brakes and arrest your forward movement. Now the trick is to not let the wind blow you away from your target. So you have to put the canopy back into flight to over come the wind effect. You have to constantly be making corrections with your toggles to keep your position over your target. Now your approach is somewhat straight down. You think that's easy? Now try it in no winds. Now your are on the borderline of flying in the stall and being completely stalled. Even though you have quite a bit of material over your head, landing a stalled canopy is not a wise choice. That is why you see the accuracy folks landing on the "Tuffet". It is inflated with air (similar to the bouncy houses that you loved when you were a kid), and it helps with the shock of landing hard. Still think it's easy, then you havn't though about how you get your score. Usually the accuracy folks will strike the target with their heel. Now I want all of you to take a close look at the heel of your tennis shoe... Looks pretty big doesn't it. To hone down their heel area an accuracy competitor will sometimes glue a small door stop to the bottom of their shoe and sharpen the tip of it. It looks like something out of a nija movie!!! Some other things to think about, most people cannot see the botom of their heel unless they have it way out in front of them. Well, this is not a very good technique, because, the first part of your body that strikes is where you are scored. So if you are short on your approach, and you are reaching out with your legs, and your butt hits first, then you get scored at that point. Competitive accuracy is measured in Centimeters, and a centimeter is about half an inch, so there is a lot of centimeters between your heel and your ass. Enough centimeters to take you right out of a competition. Now us swoopers look back and laugh at the old farts who do this, but give them respect, as they were the swoopers of their age and time. If you want a good challenge, then ask your local classic accuracy competitor to give it a try. I belive that once you do it, you will then have a newfound respect for the atmoshpere, and all of it's little facets (lift, sink, turbulance, sheers, and winds), that you may not notice while flying the smaller canopy's.

Oh, I would say he's pretty High...

Dude, Just beacuse you paid a grip of money, doesn't mean you bought the best product on the market. I have always thought Mirage was way overpriced for the product they offer. I feel with mirage you are paying for a name, and really that's all you are doing in the first place with any rig out there. Essentially all the rigs nowadays are the same, there are just a few design changes, but for the most part they all work the same.

Now it's going to suck to try to sell a small reserve. If I have a container made for a 113R and I can now pack a 160R into it, why would I still want the 113R. I forsee a flood of small reserves on the market, that will be worth car covers.... It's hard enough to sell small gear as is, much less small gear that no one will want to buy. It's going to be like trying to sell a raven when precision announced their BS service bulletine about the bartacks.