Westerly

GPS is garbage and should never be used other than a recorder of coordinates (for example, to show the flight line in WS BASE). All these horizontal (and even vertical, when there are thermals like in BASE) speeds and ground glide ratios are completely useless and misleading in determining the aerodynamic parameters of the wingsuits. . I dont know about accuracy, but GPS seems repeatable. I was trying to determine the opening distance of my canopy using both a FlySight and conventional digital altimeter. The altimeter varied by more than 200-300' each jump, but the GPS almost always said the same thing. Sometimes it showed a longer or shorter deployment, but in those cases I could physically feel the canopy taking longer or shorter to open. I seem to recall the GPS tells you what its accuracy is for each measurement and for most measurements it was telling me it was accurate to less than 1 MPH and less than a few feet of elevation.

It shouldn't be. That is what insurance is for. You get all your crap stolen and then you get all new crap to replace it with. Renters insurance to cover your own personal stuff is really cheap. Like $15k in coverage is about $20 a month, and it covers most forms of loss. It's really a no-brainer to get. Hopefully the OP finds his stuff. As always you are an expert in another matter you know absolutely nothing about. I am not an expert in insurance, rather I bothered to read my policy unlike most people. My policy explicitly says theft is covered. Every policy I have ever had says the same thing. Renters insurance wont cover commercial goods stored at another location, but a commercial policy will.

It shouldn't be. That is what insurance is for. You get all your crap stolen and then you get all new crap to replace it with. Renters insurance to cover your own personal stuff is really cheap. Like $15k in coverage is about $20 a month, and it covers most forms of loss. It's really a no-brainer to get. Hopefully the OP finds his stuff.

Why dont you just get another hard drive? They are so cheap they are basically free.

A bit pf both. I know someone with several thousand jumps who has never been injured. I sprained my ankle on my very first jump and coudlent jump again for three weeks. It's partly based on luck, skill and overall attitude toward safety. Chances are if you get hurt, it's going to be on landing. So jumping a light wingload and standing down when it is windy would go a long way toward not getting hurt. But eventually you will get board and start taking more risks. Not many people out there with 1000+ jumps still on a 1 to 1 wingload who stands down once the winds hit 15 knots.

If you read the reference you would see that one skydive caries the same approximate risk as driving 1840 miles. If we're including personal experiences, hows this. I have been driving for 30 years and never been injured driving. I havent even been in a car accident. However, in the first six months of jumping I got injured twice on landings... Lets look at some basic Google numbers quickly. In 2016 approximately 222 million people drove a vehicle in the USA. The average yearly mileage was around 13,474 miles yer pear. In 2016, 37,461 people died in car accidents which means one death per 79,849,123 miles driven per year. In 2014, the USPA estimated 3,200,000 jumps and 24 deaths which means one death per 133,333 jumps. Thus, the chances of you dying in a single jump is 1 in 133,333. If you drove 80 miles round trip to the DZ, the chance of you dying on that trip would be about 1 in 998,114, or roughly about 1/8th the chance of you dying in a skydive. Of course a tandem jump is safer, but I am not aware of any statistics showing only tandem jump numbers so we have to work with what we got. References: https://www.statista.com/topics/1197/car-drivers/ https://www.fool.com/investing/general/2015/01/25/the-average-american-drives-this-much-each-year-ho.aspx https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_in_U.S._by_year Go ahead and post up all these references you have that prove me wrong.

It looks interesting, but their website sucks. There is very little info on it. They dont even have the price!

I have seen about 15 people leave in an ambulance in the last year, all related to hard landings. Admittedly not all actually needed one, someone probably just called to be safe. Anyway, only 3 or 4 of those were from HP landings. Two of them were tandems. Several were people doing low turns to face into the wind or try to show off for a demo. A few were people who were jumping in conditions that were too windy for their experience level. Worldwide maybe 50 - 60 people are killed per year skydiving. This website has been tracking fatalities since 2004 worldwide and since then there have been 800 reported fatalities. The website does not track every fatality. There are some that have occurred that are not listed on here. Last year in the USA, the #1 cause of fatalities was improper EP procedures. If you want to look at the general risk of skydiving compared to other activities, this tells some info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micromort One interesting note is comparing skydiving to driving a car. One jumps carries approximately the same risk as driving 1840 miles. So no, driving to the dropzone is not more likely to get you killed than jumping at it--a common BS 'statistic' people throw out there to try to minimize the risk in skydiving. If you decide to take up skydiving and end up doing 1000 jumps over the course of your life, you have about a 1 in 125 chance of being killed from it. If you decide to work in skydiving and do 10,000 jumps, you have about a 1 in 12 chance of being killed from it. Of course this can go up or down dramatically depending on what you do in skydiving (e.g. swooping vs four way). I supposed it's not in many ways, except I probably wont go to jail for skydiving. No. One jump is equivalent in risk to riding a bike 80 - 160 miles. Look at the website I posted above. I hear it all the time "skydiving is safer than driving a car or riding a bike'. "You're more like to die getting hit by a car walking down the sidewalk." No, no you are not. Those claims are entirely false. Skydiving is far more risky than any of those activities. If we're talking about a single tandem jump, then maybe. But we are not, we're talking about continued jumping over a long period of time. Statistics and be written to prove a point. I can use math to make skydiving sound really safe or really dangerous. For example, consider the following statements, both of which are true to an extent. - You are about 3x more likely to die from any random cause of death (e.g. cancer, accident, heart attack, ect) on the day that you make your first jump than you are from the jump itself. - If you make eight jumps in a day, as many licensed jumpers do, you're more than 60 times more likely to die that day from skydiving than you are from all other forms of accidental death (excluding suicide) combined for the remainder of that day.

I tried it a few times awhile ago. I dident find it very easy to do and I gave up on it. It might be worth visiting again though now that my canopy is less slippery.

100% of the questions for the A license exam can be found in the SIM. If you look at the back portion of each category, there are 20 or so questions for each category. The A license test is a random sample of those questions from categories A - G and it covers all the stuff you're expected to know to get your A license. If you can answer all of the questions in the SIM in categories A - G, you should get 100% on the A license exam.

It seems like literally the worst possible choice for a canopy. The lines can go hugely out of trim, the material is fairly slippery (which theoretically could encourage a quick drop of the slider when you dont want it), and it's completely inelastic. If low bulk is the goal, why not use Vectran or HMA? What does Spectra do that the other two dont? Vectran and especially HMA dont go wickedly out of trim like Spectra does, but offer most of the same benefits. I think someone said that Spectra lasts longer, but it doesent last longer if the canopy goes way out of trim. Even if the lines were in perfect condition you would still need to replace them if they are too far out of trim. It seems like HMA is the most superior line choice at the moment.

Depends on the method. That might work for one hand per handle, but would be dangerous on the two hands per handle method. In this case, it would be one per handle.

Here is a video for you. Take from it what you want. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCM-eAekMCg

Going back to the original question, do you think it is a good idea to look up after grabbing your handles but before pulling them for the simple fact that it will encourage you to arch better? The Australian Parachute Federation's Cutaway EP videos show the students being taught to pull the cutaway and reserve, then immediately look up and arch. Would it make more sense to look up and arch before pulling your handles since there is a strong chance that by the time you pull the reserve handle and start to look up to arch, the reserve will already be out? Example: https://youtu.be/YD1we-F9-3c?t=58s

Sure, but the USPTO requires a certain level of detail. They will reject an application if it is too broad. This is intentional as otherwise you could simply patent 'automobiles' or 'computers' which would create its own obvious problems. Typically the patent office wants to see the patent as detailed as physically possible, the manufacturer wants it as broad as possible and they meet in the middle somewhere.

I think it's more complicated than just adding a larger slider. I am not an expert so I could be wrong, but I was speaking to a canopy manufacturer (specificaly, the guy who designs canopies), and he mentioned that there are several factors that affect opening shock, the slider only being one of them. The position of the brakes and even the length each of the individual lines can have an effect. The trim of the canopy can have a large effect. There was a post on here about someone getting slammed under a Safire 3, and they found out just one group of lines was out of trim a bit which was causing the hard openings. As it was explained to me, while a larger slider does have more surface area to keep the slider up, it also allows the canopy to expand more while snivling so it might not yield a softer opening. It depends on the types of hard openings we're talking about. Is it the type where the opening is hard because the slider is coming down way too soon and you're getting slammed, or the type where the canopy just opens hard while snivling? If slider size was the only thing that affected opening shock, then hard openings should be completely non-existent on tandem canopies and extremely common on tiny crossbrased canopies, but neither of those statements are necessarily true.

I know I'm getting into heresy here but I've always pulled my cutaway then went to my reserve. I've never done the one hand on each handle thing and I've never understood any advantage to it but plenty of disadvantages. But then I've never looked at a handle. I took Pat Works' advice and practiced until I knew where they were. On my fourth malfunction I'm convinced I'd have bounced if I hadn't broken two rules. One, never cut away a total. But I did and when the reserve launched the main released. It wrapped around the reserve but the risers were disconnected to they just sort of wound that way too and were tossed aside. It left some pretty good burns on the reserve but I was ok. The second was looking at the handles. I was going through a grand and head down terminal. If I'd had to tear my eyes off the ground to find my handles I'd have gone in. No two ways about it. As it was while my mind was being overloaded at the sight of treetops flying away from each other my hands pulled my R2s then the reserve. Always cut away a total. Always cut away a pilot-chute in tow. Reserve opening shock is highly likely to dump the main d-bag out and if it's not cut away it will unstow all the lines as it falls away and then tangle with tension and cause a problem. If it's cut away it will fall away with risers and lines together and not reach any line stretch. Even if it entangles it won't have any force and won't affect the inflated reserve. A friend of mine has only just got back in the air after having this exact scenario which had him in a wheelchair for almost a year. He pitched his reserve with a PCIT without chopping and the reserve opening shock dumped his main which inflated and tangled around his foot. The asymmetry of the pull on his body sent his reserve into twists from which there was no recovery possible. It's simple. Execute your EPs exactly as you've learned and practiced and don't try to rethink the decades of accumulated experience and knowledge when you have a mal. Any advice to the contrary is bad advice. I don’t think you should be so confident about that. I am Aware of at least one case of a PCIT to reserve deployment where the reserve did not fully inflate, but the shock did let the main out. Two partially inflated canopies saved the guy’s life. Had he chopped his PCIT he would have died. How does a reserve not fully inflate? You're saying the reserve had a mal as well?

I know I'm getting into heresy here but I've always pulled my cutaway then went to my reserve. I've never done the one hand on each handle thing and I've never understood any advantage to it but plenty of disadvantages. But then I've never looked at a handle. I took Pat Works' advice and practiced until I knew where they were. On my fourth malfunction I'm convinced I'd have bounced if I hadn't broken two rules. One, never cut away a total. But I did and when the reserve launched the main released. It wrapped around the reserve but the risers were disconnected to they just sort of wound that way too and were tossed aside. It left some pretty good burns on the reserve but I was ok. The second was looking at the handles. I was going through a grand and head down terminal. If I'd had to tear my eyes off the ground to find my handles I'd have gone in. No two ways about it. As it was while my mind was being overloaded at the sight of treetops flying away from each other my hands pulled my R2s then the reserve. Always cut away a total. Always cut away a pilot-chute in tow. Reserve opening shock is highly likely to dump the main d-bag out and if it's not cut away it will unstow all the lines as it falls away and then tangle with tension and cause a problem. If it's cut away it will fall away with risers and lines together and not reach any line stretch. Even if it entangles it won't have any force and won't affect the inflated reserve. A friend of mine has only just got back in the air after having this exact scenario which had him in a wheelchair for almost a year. He pitched his reserve with a PCIT without chopping and the reserve opening shock dumped his main which inflated and tangled around his foot. The asymmetry of the pull on his body sent his reserve into twists from which there was no recovery possible. It's simple. Execute your EPs exactly as you've learned and practiced and don't try to rethink the decades of accumulated experience and knowledge when you have a mal. Any advice to the contrary is bad advice. Well, if I recall right the SIM does state that dumping the reserve without cutting away is an approved way to handle a PCIT. Also, I am curious how easy it would be to cut away an uninflated canopy at low speed anyway. The riser covers easily can hold up an uninflated canopy. If you hang your rig off the ground, pull your cutaway handle and then pull the pin on the container, the d bag will fall out and the riser covers will support the canopy even while cut away. Do you think this would be a problem in the air?

It doesent take any money to do that. You just need any device with a camera and mic (laptop, desktop, phone, iPad, whatever), an internet connection and one of 50+ free software suits that enables teleconferencing.

You're kidding right? "inform not enforce" translates to "I can do whatever I want because I wont get in trouble for it anyway". Imagine if the police only 'informed' citizens about the laws they broke and not actually enforced any of them. The FAA needs to step in the other direction and start handing out larger fines, revoking pilot licenses, and grounding aircraft permanently. What do you think would motivate a DZO more to do maintenance, threat that the FAA will come over to them and 'inform' them about the FARs they broke, or threat that the FAA will fine them six figures and ground their entire fleet? Are you really having this much trouble, or maybe I should say lack of trust, at your DZ? Was it an incident or something else that made you feel like you aren't safe when you skydive where you do? Have you talked to anyone else at your DZ to see if there isn't a way to address it locally? I dont have any major concerns at my DZ. However, I have jumped at places which are sketch city and even more mainstream DZs still usually do at least one thing unsafe. I am not going to name names because it simply doesent matter at this point. But I once stood by a girl at a very prominent DZ, one which I am very confident you've heard of, and overheard her instructor give her a WS course. It was her first time flying a WS, she only had 200 jumps and had never jumped a WS. Her instructor gave her maybe 10 minutes of ground instruction, 5 of which was spent getting her into the suit, and then she was on the same load as me. So basically five minutes of instruction and that was her entire first flight course for her first jump... And she had the absolute bare minimal jumps required for a WS jump. You can decide whether you think that is unsafe or not, but I would say it's a pattern of negligence and I see stuff like that at many DZs all over the place. If it's not shitty instruction at one DZ, it's lack of checking rigs when a new jumper comes to visit at another, or maybe a complete disregard to exit order at some other DZ, or maybe failure to ground students when the winds are honking at 20 - 25 knots... Those are all examples I've seen, and I have plenty more. So when I see stuff like that, stuff in which I KNOW that any experienced jumper knows is wrong, I dont have much of a mentality for 'educate, not punish'. Education is for people that made an understandable mistake. Punishments are for those who do know better and chose to break the rules anyway because they dont give a shit. I am not saying all DZs break the rules. Some are fantastic, but not all are.

You're kidding right? "inform not enforce" translates to "I can do whatever I want because I wont get in trouble for it anyway". Imagine if the police only 'informed' citizens about the laws they broke and not actually enforced any of them. The FAA needs to step in the other direction and start handing out larger fines, revoking pilot licenses, and grounding aircraft permanently. What do you think would motivate a DZO more to do maintenance, threat that the FAA will come over to them and 'inform' them about the FARs they broke, or threat that the FAA will fine them six figures and ground their entire fleet?

I think there are far more important things to be concerned than some museum which costs $20k per year, or whatever it is. As has been said, that's like a dollar a year from your membership fund which you will pay regardless if the museum is funded or not. How much do you pay in taxes per year? $20k? $40k? I can think of a metric shit load of stupid ways the government wastes my money, and it adds up to a hell of a lot more than $1 per year. Anyway, as has been said before, at least we have a USPA. Even with the USPA, basically every DZ still has people that do unsafe stuff, and there are no shortages of entire DZs that are unsafe. Imagine how things would be if it was completely unregulated entirely.

Containers are mostly made out of nylon and polyester. Both products are fairly resistant to a wide variety of substances. Where they fail is strong acids and bases. As long as it was not exposed to something on the extreme ends of the ph scale, it's probably fine.

How do you obtain these badges? Do you send in a copy of your logbook showing 1,000 jumps, 12 hours, ect, ect.

1. tracking (or put tracker out last) 2. 4-way belly 3. the two belly solos, out separately 4. sitfly solo I dont know what you mean by vertical. If you mean head-down or stand flying, he would go out last in this group. Some dropzones put out angle fliers and trackers after all the tandems, so in this case they would be out last. You could put out the higher WL solo before the lower WL solo, but it's not that critical. Also, pulling altitude would be more important. If one guy is pulling at 3k doing belly and the other at 4.5k doing belly, then put the solo 3.5k out first. Typically exit order would go (from largest to smallest groups in each category): Trackers (can go out after tandems at some DZs) Belly fliers Hybrid groups Freefliers AFF students Tandems High Pull Wingsuit Some DZs out angle trackers out after tandems, before high pulls. Some DZs out high pullers out last. Some DZs put students under coach supervision out with the AFF students, others treat them as a 2-way belly.