mr2mk1g

Yeah that's the bit I was referring to... of course I may also be talking complete bollocks as I'm stabbing in the dark with a blunt spoon.

do you have a “sacrificial lamb” pc hanging round you can open it on? seriously...

Yes. This is why our new PM, Gordon Brown, keeps banging on about the "Pensions Time Bomb" and how he wants to try and deal with the problem. Of course it's only a matter of time before Georgy announces that he has intel. showing either the PRK, Iran or Syria have developed a Pensions Time Bomb of their own and starts an invasion in order to save the free world.

Please feel free to eat my ass.

I'm guessing pretty much zip. Whatever forces acted on your body wouldn't be able to accelerate you up fast enough to come into contact with the car before the car is gone. It's going to be doing over 200mph. As for there being much of a force... I don't buy it. Car's have down force... not up force. The air hitting the front of the F1 car is forced up and over thus creating a high pressure above the car. The bottom of the car has a smooth flat wooden board on it which allows the air under the car free passage. Result is the air under the car is as close to normal pressure as possible.

oh... well I wouldn't want to feel a whuffo's nut

The one selling a grope of his bollocks looks like he's a skydiver! (http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=1469&item=5579524679&rd=1) Look in the collage of pictures - there's one of him in a rig.

Your pre declaired landings count towards CH1/2 not the new JM rating. If you've done things as part of your IC1 like the old JM brief, practical and theoretical spotting and the flightline brief these things could count towards the new JM rating. ie JM = the ground bits of the old IC1 system (plus a bit) while CH1/2 = the canopy bits of the old IC1 system (plus a bit). Quite logical really.

CP1 is not all about swooping. It's about learning to control your canopy. That knowledge can be applied to swooping but it can also be applied to making sure you don't kill yourself on your canopy. Ie the things you learn or must know to obtain CP1 could just as easily be applied to not killing yourself during a panic turn for example. Besides, as you said the CP1 for over 1.4 is not a national thing, just that DZ.

Not mine, but I have jumped it. She didn't spank me. Casper – don't worry about the club sabre, it’s a great introduction to sport canopies. We can run you through some “defensive packing” methods if you like too. After jumping that horrible EXE I've collected a few people's ideas on how to prevent slammers (btw EXE's are normally fine... I think I had an odd one). My guess is though you ought not have opening problems with the sabre so long as you follow a couple of key packing principals. When you have a few more jumps we'll talk to an instructor about getting you onto the club spectre and maybe a few jumps on some of the other canopies people in the club have. There’s quite an assortment of canopies you can try out if you buy the owner a pint... it's about as good as a demo program as you can get over here. Once you jump a few other canopies the whole riser/toggle pressure thing will start to make sense as you'll have a frame of reference. If you end up going out to Perris later in the year you’ll find they have an awesome demo program.

Regarding my "will have to upgrade" comment - yes I agree that is far from necessary. I merely stressed things that way to draw the original poster away from wanting to buy now what he would like to be jumping in 6 months. I wrote it as a direct counter to his wish not to have to "upgrade" in 6 moths. Just wanted to instill in him the concept of buying what you are ready for now, not what you're ready for in 6 months. What he's ready for now is something like a manta 288. Who wants to buy one of those as a first rig? What he'd be ready for after AFF is still not really what he ought to be buying as a first canopy. If he's jumping in the UK (I'm guessing from the VAT comment) he's much better off waiting till he has a few post student jumps under his belt and is actually ready for his first canopy before going ahead and buying it. Over here that takes time.

I find it acts as a third leg and speeds me up considerably.

I know him. Top lad - went to school with him. Named Kevin.

I do as you do but hook the loop of excess over the top horn first. Ie I hook loop over upper horn before pushing horn into keeper. Then stuff now doubled loop up lower keeper and push lower horn into lower keeper. This leads to no excess flapping round, is very secure, does not hang up and all the excess line is tight against the side of the break/riser. It works... but I would have liked to see a method of stowing the xs come out of the factory rather than having to invent one. If it's not clear say so and I'll see if I can post a pic. If anyone thinks I'm going to kill myself please feel free to say so.

When I look at x-rays like that I just get that commentary: "We have the technology. We CAN rebuild him". Keep it up man. Great site by the way - went through it murdering your bandwidth the other week when NickDG posted about your jump.

A "chute" is made up of a "main canopy", a "reserve canopy", and a "harness and container system" (the backpack and leg straps etc) at the minimum. Its more than likely you will also want an "AAD" (Automatic Activation Device – opens reserve in case of unconsciousness/stupidity). Some of this you can buy off the peg. The main and reserve should be of an appropriate size (dependant on you weight initially) and design (ie a Ferrari is going to kill a learner driver... don't buy a Ferrari ). These can be bought off the peg but are more commonly built to order. You WILL have to upgrade 6 months down the line. Using what you'll be jumping 6 months down the line right from the get go will guarantee death or injury. I am not joking. Just take that fact on board and go with it... its a fact of the sport. The AAD is an electrical box of tricks and can be bought straight out of the box. The harness and container system is almost always built to order when new. It is built to your exact measurements. They are also often bought second hand and generally fit well enough... but it can be difficult to find the container you're looking for straight away as the second hand market is much quieter than you might be used to. You might also not like pink. Second hand gear is often from the 90's. Pink was popular in the 90's. I would recommend getting licensed first before you even think about kit. You kit requirements will change very quickly as you start up. You don't want to have to be buying new every few jumps. It's much better to start looking at what you need once you’re qualified... you'll also find that 75% of your questions have been answered by then. Budget for as much as £4,000 for brand new everything. You don't need brand new everything. Seriously, you don't. You can increase the amount of new and custom stuff as you gain experience and know exactly what you want. You can get perfectly jumpable second hand everything for as little as £1000. A nice middle ground is probably the best. Have fun on your AFF course - you'll love it.

I doubt the bunkhouse is finished yet as I was told I "may" be able to stay there in mid june while I'm there but might not depedning on if they're finished... so I'm guessing this weekend would be a no... but that's a guess.

Me and my freefly partner. Plus we're meeting another friend out there on the 10th who's staying till early/mid july... so 3.

Get with the program peeps. It's 10am and I'm on my third cup of tea.

send that photograph to bill.gates@microsoft.com

Yes you certainly will see me there. I'll be there 10-21st and again Andrew is aranging hotel accomodation for us.

I agree to a good degree. I don't think slinks improved things markedly. I do feel they are an improvement over the rapide link though... just they are a very small improvement which is only likely to really mean the difference between life and death in very rare and specific circumstances. Technically they are also stronger but I personally doubt that is going to make much of a difference in the scale of things... for whatever my opinion is worth. Both are strong enough Consider the recent Mirage SB. It was triggered by an event which was caused by human error and resulted in no fatalities. It addressed what would be quite a rare cause of a fatality. Still however Mirage felt they could increase jumpers safety by issuing an SB. I feel this is somewhat analogous to the difference between Slinks and Rapide links. There's nothing inherently wrong with a Rapide link which ought to cause someone to conclude they are dangerous. Equally there's nothing wrong with a pre-SB Mirage. But in both instances human error can cause a sticky situation which can easily result in a fatality... although in all previous occasions the jumpers involved were lucky. Why should our choice of links be any different? Improperly installed slinks can fail catastrophically on opening. Improperly installed rapide links can fail at any time between opening and landing. The former is less likely to result in your death, ergo slinks are safer... at least in this one respect. Me too. I think this sort of conversation is one of the best ways to do come to that understanding. I didn't think you were. I certainly hope you don't feel I was. As I said I think this kind of conversation is precisely what is required for us to be able to fully explore the reasons why such changes take place.

Yup - neither rapide or slink should fail unless you put human error into the equation. Are you suggesting no one dies from human error? Remove human error and tests show slinks survive openings that break risers. As far as I'm concerned that's strong enough. On the flip side I'm sure rapide links are strong enough in cases where no human error is present. The failure mode I'm highlighting is one cause by human error - one where human error on a rapide link can kill and human error on a slink is far less likely to kill. I'd rather people put themselves in a situation where human error is less likely to kill them. You might have looked at the same picture several times - there was only one in my links. The majority of those I posted were links to individual posts in several different threads, each one being an individual account of a bent rapide link. That is afterall what you asked for.

No - one of the reasons many people like slinks is because when they fail they do so on opening - ie at a point where you can use your reserve. When rapide links fail they may well hold on until you're half way through your dive before letting go at 50ft. Then you're dead. Besides... according to the tests carried out on them, the riser will fail before the correctly installed s-link will... just as it will with a rapide link. Neither are likely to fail unless you do something wrong with them... like over tighten them/under tighten them or simply misinstall them. But should you misinstall your links when would you prefer them to fail? 2000ft or 200ft? Rapide links are fine I'm sure. Hell I have them on my reserve and certainly wouldn't bat an eyelid at using them on anyone elses kit. But that doesn't mean they are better.

hey it's gotta be possible man. I'm aiming for at least 100 jumps in 10 days during the middle of next month.