DrewEckhardt

I skipped about 3 months after herniating L5-S1 because it kept hurting and I wanted it to heal. Jumped two weeks ago. Wearing a rigs wasn't too comfortable but the opening was OK.

We bought our time from a coach who included his services in the block rental rate. The coaching and instruction were excellent - he did a good job adapting to the different learning styles for the four of us who split the time and had fun ideas for things to do in the body orientations we were competant in.

After spending 90 minutes in there I'd say it wasn't worth the money. Belly flying I didn't notice any significant differences compared to being in the air. No problem. Fun to spend a few minutes getting better at sliding sideways. I like to belly fly socially since it's the greatest common denominator but have little interest in progressing beyond that. Sit flying I didn't do because back flying was a pre-requisite, although head-up and head-down are my primary interest. Getting control on my back was a lot of work and not quite sufficient to get me doing what I wanted.

It seems to take a few minutes to get a patch and less than a week to replace a blown-up arm.

Simple economics dictate that you sell products at a price where total profit (margin per unit * quantity) is maximized. Where resources (people, material, etc) limit quantity you increase the price until that's not a factor. Javelin, Mirage, Tony Suits, etc. all seem to be doing this. The cost of production is only indirectly connected to the sticker price. You change what you're doing when profit available in that market becomes less than your opportunity cost of not doing something else (like selling to the military market instead of sport skydivers). Some riggers sew suits as a way to do more business and keep themselves occupied. They need to differentiate between the "big companies" and can do so based on price because they don't need to make enough to offset the time they aren't generating business, pay for ads in skydiving/parachutist or boogie give-aways, sponsor teams, share profits with company owners, etc.

With a reasonably large local skydiving community you should be able to find some one local who sews well, knows how to make jumpsuits, knows how to measure people, will sell you a suit for a reasonable price, and can repair damage before the next weekend. I paid $200-$250 each for my last three jumpsuits (with reinforced knees+butt, racing stripes, and a pocket), waited more than about 3 weeks, or had any QC/fit problems. OTOH it really sucks when people spend more, wait months, and get a suit that doesn't fit.

Skydiving is a fun social sport to do with your friends. You get to fly arround in three dimensions. The scenery is great. It's not a rush. Your first few wingsuit jumps, skysurfs, etc. are exciting and then it's just like the rest of skydiving. Wingsuit formations and docks are fun. Without any one to play with I found skysurfing boring. High performance landings stay exciting, but you need hundreds of jumps and training to develop the judgement and experience to stand a good chance of survival.

Training. There's always some one who knows more than you do and is a good teacher. You need video to get a unbiased perspective on what you're really doing. Experience. It takes 200-300 jumps under one canopy to get a feel for that canopy model in that size and 1000+ high performance landings to have those somewhat dialed in. Judgement. You don't swoop when you're not current, the winds/turbulence are off, or you have a bad setup. You plan your approach so that there are plenty of opportunities to correct problems along the way and so that you aren't too steep too close to the ground. You jump a larger canopy if currency or field elevation make that a good idea. Conservatism. You need to ease into things at new locations where the visual references and density altitude are different and on the first jumps of a day. You don't need an agressive turn to get a lot of speed. Dialing it back a notch in more stressful situations with spectators is a better idea than caving into Kodak courage. It's better to squeeze more performance out of a large canopy when everything is right than to be stuck with the speed and responsiveness of a small when when things aren't optimal. It's easier to recover from the ineveitable mistakes under a larger canopy and you're less likely to get hurt when you don't do a good job of that. You learn more if you stick with a canopy for longer.

You land when you fail to sustain level flight regardless of whether the wing has stalled or not. That happens when the wing no longer has enough lift to offset the suspended weight. Stalling while landing a parachute is rare. By changing wing shape (brake application magnitude), angle of attack (brake magnitude and rate), and wing loading (the canopy only has to support the suspended weight) you can have this happen at a pleasant walking speed under most canopies. A lot of people try to run when their feet get close to the ground even though the canopy has plenty of speed to convert to lift. When you have lift you don't need to land even though your feet are touching the ground. If you're running try picking up your feet when you feel you should run. You'll probably be surprised at how much slower you can fly before setting down. A lot of people settle for the slowest speed they can get with slow steady control inputs. Finishing the flare more aggressively allows a greater angle of attack change, more lift, and slower landing without stalling. Sinking before doing this so that you're essentially in a sitting position and then standing up to land means you finish at ground level and don't drop because you were high. The low altitude is also more forgiving of an over-exuberance induced stall. And a lot of people insist on landing with all of their weight hanging from the canopy. On level grass you can take up some weight on your feet, fly the canopy to a slower landing speed, and run less. It doesn't count for swoop distance but does make things more pleasant especially on hot summer days with no wind. On all but the largest canopies a stall-free landing means you have some forward movement but this can be far from running. Less wind, higher density altitude, and higher wingloading don't change how a canopy lands. They just require more optimal pilot input to get acceptable landings.

Parachute rigging is a bargain at $25/hour; I'd jump all over it if I didn't want to I&R my own reserves because I trust myself more and could use the experience. I'd rather pay my accountant $70/hour than do my own taxes. My last real estate agent made about $1200/hour to mostly drive arround; 10X what I paid to rent a 10 passenger stretch limo. I could even throw in a few bottles of Cristal for the price difference. For the important work that's still 6X the $200/hour I pay to my lawyer. Realtors(TM) are a lousy value.

The seller pays the entire comission to his agent. That agent then splits it with the buyer's agent. The split is listed in the MLS. Presumably when it's not big enough your agent doesn't show you the property. If you go into a FSBO situation without an agent the owner can give you the commision which they would have paid to a buyer's agent. You can take that as a price reduction, to offset the down payment, to roll upgrades into your mortgage, etc. We'll definately buy our next property without an agent.

My wife sold a home at the appraised value. In a couple of months. She hired a real-estate lawyer for a few hundred dollars to handle the legal end of things . While dealing with looney toons is a bit aggravating avoidng them isn't worth $5-$15K+ (like getting a $7K - $25K bonus at work which you had to pay taxes on). A $100 listing service provided the lock box combination to agents who let themselves in. She had to be there for the few un-represented buyers. All of that wasn't worth a Realtor(TM)'s markup either. She had an MLS listing but got little traffic and no offers off it. Lots of people came through with their agents that were in the neighborhood for other properties.

loose 40% of it to taxes. With up to $5M or so before taxes I'd stick it in index funds, work for fun (you can do pre-money startups if you don't need a salary), and live off the proceeds (you can spend about 4% a year without depleting the principal). For another $2M before taxes I could have a nice house in downtown Boulder. We like to spend weekends in San Francisco; so a condo there would be good. It's much cheaper and not inconvienant to rent aircraft. For example turbine helicopters can be had in the Americas for under $1K per Hobbs hour plus ferry fees.

When it last ran my bike ran under $200 a year for full coverage since I bought it new in 1998. Before that I paid under $100 for for collision only. Presumably you can't do as much damage with a motorcycle and most people don't ride during the winter, although that doesn't explain the low comprehensive rate. I pay $250 a year for my Toyota from Farmer's. No collision, no comprehensive, and no medical coverage really keeps it cheap. Then there's my Audi at $1100 and change. Dropped $100/year when I lost the redundant medical coverage. Protecting you against theft and from your mistakes is not cheap. People I know in downtown Denver pay a lot more. So you might drive a less expensive car that doesn't need full coverage and avoid living/working in urban areas.

I got by on little money in college by living within my means. That meant Totino's Party Pizzas (6 for $5), renting a room ($300/month) with shared utilities instead of having my own apartment, no cable TV, no stereo, and no credit card debt. I had no car payment (you can get a functional car for $500) or the comprehensive+collision insurance coverage that is required for a car loan. I bicycled everywhere within a few mile radius so I pretty much only paid for gas when I went snowboarding ($200-$400 season passes) and split the bill with someone. Was homeless for a month one year to pay for my ski pass. I didn't skydive then either. I got by on some money by doing everything the same except starting skydiving with a used rig (no AAD), eating better, and buying a stereo. Then I worked for a decade and increased my income 10X from what I had as a student.

No ram air parachutes require induced speed to get acceptable landings with the possible exception of some old ragged out F111 canopies that aren't relevant to this discussion. A carving 90 at moderate wingloadings and beyond is sufficient for 50 MPH on RADAR. The first one down can fly a nice pattern with a 90 degree turn from base to final. At 1.6 - 1.7 pounds / square foot under an elliptical you can float with people loaded arround 1 pound/square foot. The situation is probably similar at higher loadings versus what other people typically fly. A fast canopy doesn't mean some one has to be first down. The rest can integrate with traffic and land into the wind.

Minimal forces are generated when you open a modern canopy after a one second delay out of a slow flying otter. Modern skydiving canopies open plenty slowly regardless of size. I would (did) do a Mr Bill under a Stiletto 120 (exit weight might have been 350 pounds) before I'd do one under one of my 245 square foot F111 seven cells (won't).

And just as irrelevant. Nearly all skydiving fatalities result from the deceased doing (usually several) stupid things. People don't learn how to fly their parachutes, buy one that's too agressive for them, open at a normal altitude far from their dropzone, continue trying to make it back thousands of feet below where they should have known that was impossible, decide at the last second on an alternate landing area, decide to land into the wind which they don't need to do, make an unecessarily steep turn, don't pull out of it early when they should, and then die (that's a series of eight mistakes). A few come from some one else doing something stupid. Mid-air collisions do occur between jumpers. Very rarely we learn the hard way about ways equipment can fail. Dropzone policies and staff are almost never involved.

Because we get better information from the internet than our physicians. While the last two doctors I saw had no problems prescribing opiods neither suggested combining acetaminophen with an NSAID although this is common practice. Neither said anything about analgesic effect plateaus. Doctors can write prescriptions for drugs and physical therapy. They can order xrays and other diagnostic tests. After taking advantage of that smart people are often better off treating themselves. Buying from snake-oil salesmen is a separate problem.

Two don't. One does because I haven't gotten arround to repacking it and removing the RSL.

You pull on both toggles until you have zero vertical speed or can't pull farther without stalling. PLF when you fail to reach full brakes before crashing, pull too fast/far and pop back up, or are on the verge of stalling before you reach the ground. You'll land slower with a cross-wind than you will down-wind. It's a nice compromise. Under a large canopy you'll pound in at full flight. With enough brakes and a soft landing area you can stand up without flaring. Under skydiving canopies at our contemporary sizes you will not be happy with less than a full flare. It would have done you more good although it's still possible to turn too low to get the canopy back over your head or to pull out without a dynamic stall.

My home owners policy covers $50K contents loss at home, 10% of that while traveling which is $5K. An extra cost rider boosts firearms coverage to $5K from the default $1K. My renters policy was the same before I bought. I take one skydiving rig or two-base rigs with me as cary-on luggage (that's what fits in the maximum sized bag allowed) when flying so my chances of using the insurance are lower. My renter's policy worked the same before that.

I usually set my canopies down sideways so they fold-up spanwise like a flat pack. While my Samurai 105 doesn't loose as much air as my other parachutes it still wads up into a helmet sized bundle. If I let it land in land behind me with a head wind or in front with a tail-wind it takes some shaking and probably doesn't get back to that size until I pack it .

Homeland Security isn't about security. It's about getting (re) elected. Congress critters piss off fewer voters when they focus on wealthy peoples' hobbies and chartered transportation than everyman's grocery delivery and trucking jobs. They spend less money doing it. Commercial air travel "security" (suicide bombers that will give their lives aren't going to have a problem spending time working menial jobs that give them access to the aircraft) is probably more visible and therefore does a better job at providing the perception of security. It's also a lot more practical - there are many fewer airports than interstate interchanges.

IMHO it's both more fun and safer to squeeze more performance out of a larger canopy when conditions are perfect than to accept the higher airspeed and control sensitivity when conditions are not good (low currency, small out landing, uneven landing surface, high density altitude). It's also not a good idea to change more than one canopy size at a time. The perceptual differences in canopy performance between sizes can be substantial at even moderate wing loadings. With the same suspended weight, technique, and density altitude my Samurai 105 sets down the same speed or slower than my Stiletto 120. But technique makes a bigger difference than canopy type. My Samurai 105 seems to pack up just a little smaller than my Stiletto 120. It's easier and safer to learn under a larger canopy.