ccowden

Awesome job on the dvd, David! Thanks for doing all the work! My favorite scene is definitely the makeout with blueskyserenity and Amanduh! Wowsa! Oh, and I didn't mind watching a bunch of sexy girls do body shots off me either!

I am not a pro swooper, and consider myself to be just an average type jumper, but I love high performance canopy flight. I actually get more enjoyment out of canopy flight than freefall. I would rather swoop from 3,000ft than freefall from 16,000ft. I guess I consider myself to be pretty aggresive, but on the less aggressive side of high performance canopy pilots. If that makes any sense. Also, I once swore up and down that I would NEVER get into swooping.

Yeah, it sucked. I think the entire northeast had those winds. I had no idea how violent it could be if you lose 3 cells on a tandem canopy. It actually ripped the toggle out of my hand when they reinflated, and my shoulder is pretty sore today. Needless to say, we didn't do anymore tandems. Good call on riding the plane down!

I learned that a 100lb. girl tandem passenger is not always a good thing. With the winds we had, I had to back all the way up to my landing area and lost 3 cells in the turbulance at about 100ft. No fun at all!

Because risers are made of webbing and are not solid, they will give. So, as you push out on the risers in the middle, they actually bow. Two inches of outward input may only move the tops of the risers one inch. If you can grip them at the very top, and apply one inch of outward input, you get that same inch of distance you got with two inches of input down low. Up top, and inch of input is an inch of movement.

I am not talking about pulling down on the rears, I am talking about pushing/pulling them apart to plane the canopy out. The higher up on the risers you grip, the less distance you need to push them to get the same effect. Plus you can add input range because you are able to push them farther apart higher up than down lower. If you grip your rears in the middle and start pushing out, you will have to apply much more input to plane the canopy out than if you were gripped as high as possible. Pulling down on the rears has more of the same effect as toggle input by deflecting the tail, which will work but will not yield the same results as pushing the risers apart.

The rear risers are furthest apart at their highest point, therefore, you will get the desired effect with the least amount of actual input the closer to that point that you grip. This allows for smoother, more consistant inputs because you need not apply as much actual input to get the effect you want. The lower you grip your rears, the more input you will need to apply to get the desired effect.

Congrats!!! Way to go!!

ebay

You gonna go get divorced and help me out PimpDaddy?? Well, that wouldn't do either of us much good, cuz it's my wife who has the benefits. So, if I got divorced, you would have to marry my wife!

Marry into it.

I use a Suunto Altimax digital for swooping. I use it for reference on my canopy decent and set up. I know where I want to be altitude-wise when I am entering the patern, downwind leg, turning to base, and preparing for my 270. However, once I am lined up and both my visual and digital references are in line, I use strictly visual for initiating my 270. Not only do you not want to be relying on an altimeter for your turn, but you also need to be watching in front of you, around you, and visually initiating your turn so you can be reading what is going on and that everything looks and feels right. Blindly starting a turn to landing just because your altimeter tells you it is time would be a bad habit to develop, in my opinion. But using my digital for set up points and references to set up is just one more tool I like to use to assist in doing so. I think in this manner, a digital can be very helpful and educational for developing those skills. You just should not become dependent on it, as stated above, and make sure YOU are flying your pattern and NOT your altimeter. Also, you need to be very aware of traffic and what is going on in your airspace, and fixating on an altimeter can be dangerous. This is just my opinion and a brief idea of what I do. I am not saying that you or anyone else is doing the wrong things, I am just offering an insight to what I like to do and what has worked for me.

Lemme do some checkin. If I can swing it, I am in!

Good girl.

Not Carmen Electra, but Fergie.........

Batteries are optional.

I love you, Ro!

BOB

Definitely smokin! Very nice body! Or atleast what I can see of it!

I wish I could see you before that too! I miss ya and want to jump with ya!

Your first one is my new favorite picture!

Happy Birthday, sweetie!!!!! Hope you have a wonderful day!! Love ya!

I don't disagree with your concept, or anyone elses concept of "in the corner." I guess disagree isn't the right word. MY definition just differs. The idea of the slingshot effect, to me, isn't being in the corner. It is just taking the recovery deeper and using more aggressive inputs to pull it out. Yes, it is almost exactly the same thing as what I describe, but the major difference is that a mistake was or was not made. My definition of in the corner implies that the pilot has made a mistake, gotten deeper in the recovery than he/she intended, and must abort the inputs they had originally planned to use in order to "dig" themselves out. This can be subtle or even "life saving." The area in the recovery we are all describing is the same. It is just my personal opinion that "in the corner" means further than was intended and alternate inputs need to be applied. I could quite possibly be the only person who views it as such, and like I said, this is just my interpretation. I am in no way arguing with yours, just pointing out how mine differs. I don't think there is one be all, end all definition and many interpretations of "in the corner" can exsist.

I think Ian's definition of "in the corner" may be something like being deep into the recovery arc where greater inputs are needed to plane the canopy out.

I originally thought that you really didn't understand what was meant by "in the corner." I just tried to describe what I would consider it to be. Although I understand what Ian is saying, I actually don't agree with his statement of being fractionally in the corner. But that is just because my definition and his may be slightly different. "In the corner" to me, means there was a mistake made. In Ian's definition, the position they are putting themselves in is intentional, thus not fitting my definition. The way I view it is, if you are in the corner, then you have made a mistake and need to recover from something that was not originally intended. In Ian's description, the technique was intentional and planned, thus not a mistake or a correction. I wouldn't consider this being in the corner. But like I said, I am sure people's definitions vary, so this is just my interpretation.