Watcher

Control opening, check traffic, stow slider behind head, take off booties, Lossen chest strap to its max, check brake line to make sure its clear of toggle, unstow toggles. You would be better off NOT unstowing the toggles then doing the booties cause its easier to let the canopy fly and have two hands getting the booties off then trying to hold both toggles in one hand. My whole sequence takes about 6 seconds, so you cannot use time as an excuse. Plus the canopy is alittle less sensitive in brakes with harness shifts as you are taking off your booties than with the brakes undone. -- Jonathan Bartlett D-24876 AFF-I

Yes I was, and I do remember you making faces at me, it made me smile. You have a very good memory to remember I shirt I was wearing 5 1/2 months ago, you must have been taken by my handsomely good looks j/k. It was probably the act of my running after my gloves after they flew out of my helmet as the DC3 was loading then me holding up the line while I started to go after them then gave up and got on the plane, only to have a really nice guy bring me the gloves. -- Jonathan Bartlett D-24876 AFF-I

Found 2: UNC http://www.unc.edu/depts/armyrotc/skydive.htm Community College http://home.carolina.rr.com/cpskydivers/ Or enroll at Georgia Institute of Technology get a real education as a hobby while skydiving. http://www.cyberbuzz.gatech.edu/skydive (edited for formating) -- Jonathan Bartlett D-24876 AFF-I

Clemson (yeah I knoew its in South Carolina) is the only one I know of in that region. But you might try looking around for schools that are close to Louisberg (Carolina Sky Sports). (edited for spelling) -- Jonathan Bartlett D-24876 AFF-I

Thats a shame cause they are amazing lines, that offer amazing performance and longevity trim benefits. I would perfer to have all my canopies (I have a Jedei 105 thats Spectra) lined in Vectran or HMA. All you worry about is replaceing the break lines ever 300 jumps or so which is pretty easy to do. -- Jonathan Bartlett D-24876 AFF-I

$600 -- Jonathan Bartlett D-24876 AFF-I

Not exactly true (and I have no problems getting my PD stainless steel gromets over my toggles on my Odyssey). Brass does not hold up well agianst Vectran lines. The vectran eats into the Brass. Thats a reason to get SS. If you get brass because they are lighter they recommend you get a slightly smaller slider. I perfer the SS cause they'll take the abuse in the long run. -- Jonathan Bartlett D-24876 AFF-I

Mod is not the same thing as lengthing the brake lines (which seems to be all this guy did before you). Maybe he had longer arms than you, or longer risers. That gave him the ability to use the extra 6 inches of length. -- Jonathan Bartlett D-24876 AFF-I

There is not a Knot? If there is a knot you do not have to worry about finger trapping. -- Jonathan Bartlett D-24876 AFF-I

No, (as stated in an above post) mirage made his with the laterals cut in, not the normal G4 with the laterals in the corners and elastic, but with true cut ins, Obviously Mirage has not perfected the system very well yet. -- Jonathan Bartlett D-24876 AFF-I

When you order the line set they would send you the lines with both ends fingertrapped for you already. So all you have to do is slip them on the canopy then put them on links and your done. -- Jonathan Bartlett D-24876 AFF-I

Team Challenge 1. PD Factory Team 2. Icarus 3. Precision Team Speed 1. Jay & Heath 2. Jim & Clint 3. Shannon and Ian Individual Combined ( Zone Accuracy, Distance, Carving Speed ) 1. Andy Farrington 2. Jay 3. JC 4. Heath 5. Cisco 6. Ian ... 11. Shannon ( one bad round in accuracy, but otherwise smoking! ) -- Jonathan Bartlett D-24876 AFF-I

Short answer yes you can be both and proud of it. Long answer, the more proficient you are in FS/RW you will be able to transition and apply skills much faster in freeflying. Many of the top freeflyers will tell you that a firm base in bady awareness and flying skills in RW will make your transition to Freeflying much easier, safer, and more fun. Now I like freeflying, but not that often, spending 45 seconds on my head trying to get close enough to someone to touch their hand twice is just not as enjoyable as turning blocks going vertical over someone and doing other complex moves. -- Jonathan Bartlett D-24876 AFF-I

Mirage upon request has made a few with cutin, I looked at it last week and instead of going into the container as part of the MLW that is internal of the rig, Mirage's solution was to sew on the later going around the back to the backpad and put another piece of backpad over it. Does not look as sturdy or strong as a Javelin. -- Jonathan Bartlett D-24876 AFF-I

I did that for 500 jumps, it works just fine, I only expirenced problems with Higher speed approaches where it got to a point where I did want to further restrain it. The act of simply collapsing and putting it behind your head is perfectly fine (and recommend) you dont have to do High speed approaches. If you let the chest strap out to it most loose then it spreads the risers out and keeps the slider down. -- Jonathan Bartlett D-24876 AFF-I

That term really does have a derogatory meaning to it, and many find it quite insulting. RW or FS, with Formation Skydivers/ing being the best. -- Jonathan Bartlett D-24876 AFF-I

Thats not quite accurate. The bumper that PD provides lets the slider gromments come down past the bottom end of the Softlink but keeps the slider above the Toggles. Which if you are not going to stow the slider behind your head is a good thing, because it keeps the slider below the links and off the lines, which is good to keep wear off both the links and the lines. !!!

It makes me wonder why people want to use velcro so much. An easy to design setup that has a very low breaking force but keeps the slider stowed very well. Take a bunge with the plastic ball on the end (can be purchased from Home Depot in the general materials aisle I think) Cut the bunge down to the right length so it fits on the reserve flap of contanier (been used on both a vector and a Javelin without problem). On the tail edge of the slider in the middle a piece of type 3 webbing (I just used one of the small pull up cords from Square 2 cause they are small in width cause they are not good for anything else) cut about a 2.5 inche length, double it over and sew it on. Take one of the small rubber bands and cut it length wise into 3 sections (cutting the width down by 1/3), this can be done with a simple pair of house scissors. Attach the now 1/3 width rubber band to the webbing on the slider (like attaching to a D bag), be careful not to break the rubber band. Pack it up. When under canopy loop the trailing edge around the slider once or twice to get it synched down then loop the rubber band over the head of the ball on the bungee. Wollah (or however you spell it) Stowed slider, no velcro, will not kill you in a cut away, I broke the rubber band by pulling on it with one hand ~6 lbs best guestimate. I dont have a scale so I don't know, it wasn't much. -- Jonathan Bartlett D-24876 AFF-I

Rear risers. Rear Riser, Rear Risers. You can easily make it back from longer spots by poping the brakes and going into deeper rear risers. Will you make it farther back than a Velocity? No, but you can hang in there with any stiletto. And I load mine at 1.8 So its not a light load thing. I wouldn't. I jump a Velocity 103 and think while they are more similar to each other than the velocity is to a stiletto after that they are very very different. The Velocity can be hooked much much higher. A Jedei just does not seem to want to come down. Jedei is also hooked much lower, and I get probably 10-15 turns before its time to land because its trim is not steep enough. Granted we could possibly have 2 totally different canopies with the same name But I equate its performance to that of a Crossfire/Stiletto with a steeper trim. Riser pressure is also very light, and the toggle pressure is light also. Good canopy for transitions to Xbraced or as a cheap backup for you. -- Jonathan Bartlett D-24876 AFF-I

I don't notice much difference in .1 on the same model. I would notice more on different canopies. Course a 135 is not always a 135 so the wing loading could easily be different by .1-.2. I flucuate weight by about +- 7 lbs off my base weight of 162 So I see that .1 change in either direction on a given weekend. -- Jonathan Bartlett D-24876 AFF-I

I wouldn't. If someone gave me a Wings I would not jump it, nor a dolphin or a number of other containers. These teams get to choose who they wish to go to as far as asking for sponsorship so there is a descision there. Airspeed used to wear Vectors, but they decided they wanted javelins instead. If Majik or Airspeed or Alchemey or any other of top teams wanted a Mirage or a Wings or an Infinity etx do you think the manufacturers would not sponser them? I doubt it. There is more choice in there than you think. The Knights they pay for their rigs.... -- Jonathan Bartlett D-24876 AFF-I

I love my Jedei 105. There are a few different models floating around based on when it was made. Me personally I would only buy one that was made around 1996 or before while it was still under Air Time. Make sure the canopy has the bottom skin stabilizers they make the canopy solid and surf like a banshee. I saw one (a 95) made about the same time without them and my teammate told me it was shaky and not solid. Now my teammates looks like hers is the sweptwing and she likes it, but mine is an original, both are 105. Its a great canopy for its time and still is great for a non cross braced canopy. Just love my Velocity. I would say buy it, it will only go up in value Jedei's the only canopy that appreciates in value over time. --- Jonathan Bartlett D-24876 AFF-I

Voted to other. Sunpath's Javelin. They last and hold up really well. Many of the best Freefliers wear Javelin (Alchemy (current US Champions) and Airzona Freeflight). Comfortable and really secure. High resell value. Oh did I mention comfortable? And as someone that packs reserves, a hellavu lot more rigger friendly. -- Jonathan Bartlett D-24876 AFF-I

I whole heartidly agree!! Very nice video, although many of those sport acc would have done better (and been safer) setting up 30 feet farther back and letting themselves surf it a little into the scoring zone instead of pounding in or stabing and some I even cringed on. What did they give as the rules this last year? The first year they said no turns more than 90 under 500 feet which kinda sucked then, next year back at Wales it'll be fun cause I can do my 270 at 600 feet and be able to let it dive all the way. I thought about competing with my Velocity 103 but decided that I did not want to wait around doing hop n pops, we went to Mullins for the afternoon then got to take advantage of the $13 dollar jumps. See you all at Lake Wales in Decemeber. Jonathan PS: Encourage everyone to participate in 4way if they are Civilian, last year it was 2 Civ team and 8 military. -- Jonathan Bartlett D-24876 AFF-I

I had 2 cutaways on my 103 before I figured out what I was doing. Watching the canopy instead of the horizon was the first thing that was hosing me. I also realize I was weighting the left side (if your right handed balance tends to come from the left side, go figure) so I was spinning it to the left. I got a smaller slider that I really like but I do roll the nose 3 and 3 next to the center cell, 8|_|8 (8 are rolls, |_| center cell) and that gives it alittle more snivel, very soft, but the smaller slider allows it to open up alittle faster. I also keep the tail cacoon pretty tight. Pretty neat packer too. Most of the stuff I learned from talking to the various PD Blue members who did a lot of R&D with the canopy. Then I talked with Gypsy in Deland (The woman is the most amazing packer on the entire earth without a doubt) because when she packed for me I would have beautiful openings, she told me what I have mentioned above and have had great success. Now if only all the other packers would pack the same. I would not be surprised about the lighter loading being a problem also, When I jumped the 120 while demoing down (loaded 1.5) I would have sometimese interesting extreme snivel openings cause you are simply not heavy enough to help keep the airspeed up to pressurize all the cells. A 103 puts you at a 1.8ish wingloading which is on the low side of the optimum range but gives you a NICE canopy to fly with. Jonathan -- Jonathan Bartlett D-24876 AFF-I