Watcher

Whats the problem with Dacron? -- Jonathan Bartlett D-24876 AFF-I

Mirage: 800 (would be more, but the G3 has such lowered price now with the G4 out it hurts on resale value). PD143R ~10-12 repacks (1/4 of life before sending back) 650 (New 800) Cypres: 550 (new 800) Spectre 150: 900 (new 1300) Total: 2900 -- Jonathan Bartlett D-24876 AFF-I

Gold medal, unfortuantly your team can Silver in Open, then next year come back and compete in Intermediate for a medal. -- Jonathan Bartlett D-24876 AFF-I

OK now a lot of people have been commenting on this but I think everyone misread the original post. Ok it does NOT say "out in the sun" it says: Out of the sun, the meaning here would then mean hang for 24-36 hours in a location that is not getting sunlight. Just encouraging everyone to activily read what is written not what they think they read -- Jonathan Bartlett D-24876 AFF-I

I'm going to have to say that your location really hoses you unfortuantly. That fact alone might keep you from ever getting a competitive team off the ground. Its doable if you had lots of money, but being poor makes it near impossible. Does the school have a flying club that would like to fly your team to another DZ, or can you create your own DZ as a joint venture with the flying club? -- Jonathan Bartlett D-24876 AFF-I

So I guess we should say, if you want to get something like this, big fluffy 7 cell, contact manufacturer to see if taking the canopy to terminal is OK with them. What about a Strato Cloud? -- Jonathan Bartlett D-24876 AFF-I

The Airforce Cadets take their classics to terminal, they dont seem to have a problem with it. -- Jonathan Bartlett D-24876 AFF-I

Well other than the good advice everyone has already given you, I will start by saying its damn hard. Very very few teams are fully sponsored in this sport, some of the really good teams get gear support but that is ussually the extent. Dropzone's will tend to offer you deals if you happen to be big fish in small pond and your team really helps turn loads. In the industry: Skysystems has been one of our better sponsors, good products, good deals, and good support. Skydive Atlanta our current dropzone is really helping us out this year. Shannon Pilcher has helped us get coaching support and some gear support. He is Tech Alumni along with the rest of the Genesis guys. I sent them emails talking about what the team could offer them as far as exposure, both in competition and in our referal status for new students that we bring in. That is what we found with talking to within the industy. Outside of the industry, well that proved to be very difficult. We approached companies that supported the school to see if they would help support our team. Risk management though in every case has shot us down, companies to not want thier name associated with a group that has the potential to die while training on thier dime so to speak. We have a few options we are going to pursue this year to see what happens. Now if the team wants to fund raise, the local pizza place (we have All-star pizza) and Krispy Kreme donuts would help, unfortuantly the amount gained versus the time it takes was deemed not advantageous to us. We instead just got jobs we make money to cover 90% of our costs. The other 10% comes from SGA funding for a competition team with the skydiving club. If you want to be seriously competitive expect to spend roughly 6-8 thousand dollars a year, thats packing for yourself, add packers the cost goes up. Now as for the tax deduction idea, that has feasiblity only if the school is working closely with you because the school has to provide reciepts to the business donating money, and if its much like my college don't expect them to help much or at all, its more workload for them and the school gets nothing out of it. Alumni of the college might be the best option, going to your alumni association and putting in your situation into their news letter (if they have one). Alumni always tend to want to give back some ways (if they enjoyed thier time and profited from thier schooling) an alumni that made some money and has always had that intrest in skydiving might be willing to send you 10 grand. Which would greatly help in your training finances. Thats about the best I can offer you, good luck and if you do find success let me know so I can repeat. Jonathan GTInviscid GTSkydiving -- Jonathan Bartlett D-24876 AFF-I

Just buy a parafoil, or classic or something else that is used for Accuracy. Very big, very soft, very straight down. -- Jonathan Bartlett D-24876 AFF-I

If you look closely you'll notice off to the right he still has the standard reserve handle on it, its pull out of the pocket goes under the webbing and is sitting off the the right. The low profile has then been inserted into the pocket with the cable going straight up (not in the reserve cable housing because there is already a Reserve cable in there) which is why the ball is at the top because the cable is loose and is not the cable/pin holding his current reserve in the container. -- Jonathan Bartlett D-24876 AFF-I

I see them a lot when I have visited Deland. I have one of my Odyssey and my teammate has one of both her rigs. If I ever get money I will replace the handle on my backup rig with a low profile one. I like them better than reserve pads and much better than the really big D rings. -- Jonathan Bartlett D-24876 AFF-I

Spray Silicon is a bit better than WD-40 and its what many of the manufacturers recommend. -- Jonathan Bartlett D-24876 AFF-I

But PD is not the maker of the Fabric. They choose which materials are going to last the longest and give the most superior performance. If they did testing with Gelvanor material to see how it holds up versus what performance textiles produces and they came to the conclusion that Gelvanor was an inferior product I would believe them. The times I have been in there I have seen them running tests on fabric in their little rotating machine. Something to think about. -- Jonathan Bartlett D-24876 AFF-I

Went to a touch of majik tunnel camp, got an hours worth of flying time with them. Would never ever want to do RW without booties. -- Jonathan Bartlett D-24876 AFF-I

I am surprised Eloy did not have that at 500 jumps. That was the darkest jump I have ever been on. You could not see much farther than 4-5 ft away except for the glow stick which is hard to judge distance by. The landing area was sparsely lit and the DC3 is not the best aircraft for getting a great spot (I was happy I opened at 5,000 ft.) I even borrowed a rig so I was jumping a nice conservative Stiletto 120 instead of my normal main. Damn dark is all I can say, although I did put it dead center in the peas As for 200 and 2 night jumps and 125 and 6 night jumps I would say the 200 might be just a bit better off. Having a lot of night jumps does not really change anything, especially if they were all with full moons instead of the no moon we had that night. The 200 has an extra 75 canopy descents, which is an extra 60% of the 125's current total jumps. Thats just my opinion, but I would still lean toward having significantly more canopy descents than having a couple more night jumps. -- Jonathan Bartlett D-24876 AFF-I

You might try getting a suit with a slower fall rate front. Our teammate wore supplex (or Polycotton), and the other 3 wore nylon. You might also try working out and toning your muscles while loosing fat. Healthy diets that trim the fat and replace with muscle mass. Our Heaviest teammate has really trimmed down and gotten a lot stronger. He is more on top of his game now, quicker, and his endurance has gone up significantly. He now wears a nylon front. Last year allison wore 17 lbs at one point, now she wears 8. There are things you can do that will help you stay up on fall rate, and make you a stronger flyer. -- Jonathan Bartlett D-24876 AFF-I

I sent a check to the guy from Kansas but I don't have his email to get his status on the Collegiate Video from Nationals this year. Does anyone still have that email address for the guy so I can find out how its going? Thanks -- Jonathan Bartlett D-24876 AFF-I

Oxygn, best helmet hands down. -- Jonathan Bartlett D-24876 AFF-I

The wingloading exceeds 1.2:1 at 50 jumps, then that would be too much. The range at which that 100 exist makes a large difference too. Starting at a 288, 100 ft is not very significant. Starting at 170, that same 100 ft is extremely signifanct. Sorry I did not better answer the question the first time, was that a bit better? (and that had no scorn or sarcasm, sincere reply, hard to do that elegantly through text) -- Jonathan Bartlett D-24876 AFF-I

1.2:1 and below at 50 jumps, I would have recommended he put 1-2 jumps every 20 ft coming down to the 170 He can do that renting gear at a DZ one day, 2 jumps on a 250, 2 on a 230, two on a 210, 2 on a 190, then he is back to his canopy. But he's there now, he did 2 good landings. Evaluate whats going on and go from there. The Synergy has amazing bottom end flare some of the best for any canopy I have seen of that size. Totally, absolutely agree. Depending on how well everything is going a 288 to a 170 for 140 jumps, to a Elliptical 120 for 230 jump, to a Crossbraced 103 for 700 jumps, to a crossbraced 79-84. Very doable, recommended? Not for most, for most double all of those numbers and add in a few canopies between a 120 and the 170 maybe a 150 elliptical. -- Jonathan Bartlett D-24876 AFF-I

That might have been true in the past, but you might want to contact PA about that. I have found that a 120 actually was closer to a 126-130. The 169 Synergy is closer to a 180. As far as canopy stuff for the original poster. You do not need a bigger canopy, you just need to get some coaching from qualified people (does not neseccarily mean your DZO or Some guy with a coach rating) Someone that lands well consistently and has good safe techniques. I have been to some DZs that the owner is wiping 180 degree toggle turns at 150 feet. Have confidence in your landing ability, its all mental, once people get confidence in their landings they ussually go from landing good 1 out of 10 times, to landing good 9 out of 10 times (you'll always have those off days when you slip on landing or something). -- Jonathan Bartlett D-24876 AFF-I

teams tend to not look at their altimeters period. My team wears all hip mounts, I only use mine on initial opening to guage about where I am, then around a 1000 to cross check with what my eyes are telling me for my set up on landing. The reason we wear the hip mount though is to simply have the altimeter, but we do not want to wear a wrist mount because it can get in the way while you are jumping, too much gripping to have something distracting like that on your hand. PS: Its mounted right side up, on an analog altimeter you should be able to read it from any orientation pretty easily. -- Jonathan Bartlett D-24876 AFF-I

Either Danny Page (a National Director) or Richard Schachner (My regional Director). I know them both personally and think they will do what is best for the organization. -- Jonathan Bartlett D-24876 AFF-I

Where can you get Scotch Gard? I've been having trouble finding it at local Kroger (and maybe looking in the wrong place at Kmart). Jonathan Bartlett D-24876 AFF-I

Ok I think this is a wrong conclusion. You need to consider parasitic drag, and a Uncollapsed PC is the biggest source of parasitic drag that can be reduced. That being said, a 99 has a hell of a lot less physical fabric and line bulk to create drag while a 170 has a lot more drag with ussually significantly bigger openings on the nose, larger cells etc. Because of this even a lightly loaded 99 is going to be more affected by a 32 in noncollapsible PC. Now in reply to the whole thread. A non collapsed PC pulls significantly on the center cell of the canopy which in turns pulls it back letting the 2 sides push forward drastically changing the shape of the canopy. The perforamance of the canopy is greatly decreased with said drogue deployed behind you. Last year I had the kill line break away from the attachement point on the PC, so i had a fully deployed PC behind me, the performance degregation on the canopy was extremely drastic. Anything below a 260 be a good canidate for a Kill-line. And cocking a PC is really not difficult even if you have packers, when you lay down the canopy with brakes SET, walk and cock your pilot chute then leave, 5 seconds then can ussually remedy any problems. Jonathan Bartlett D-24876 AFF-I