pullhigh

I hadn't even considered taking the hook knife out and putting it in my checked bags, good idea. I'm flying out of ATL going to SLC Memeorial Day weekend, and I'm hoping that the three of us going through the inspection stations together willnot run into any trobules. Ganja

Johnny, Thanks for the posting. I'll pass the info along to the guys going up with me. We'll try to be on our best behavior. Ganja

Get the 21x17 stuff to me, and I'll handle the copies. A shmae you were a puss last night, I could have gotten them then. It was wild seeing Tony scared to death like that on top of "the" B. Ganja

How many pages are we talking? There is a local copy shop that handles large format stuff, but they are not cheap... Ganja

Being a rather large guy for the sport, and having a whopping 7 jumps now, I am curious to know what the elders have to say about the effect a higher wing loading has on canopy openings... In particular, I am jumping a FLiK 322 with vents and covers. My exit weight is about 290. (I haven't weighed with gear, but I'm 265 without.) Ganja

I'm self employed, but I keep trying to talk myslef out of doing it anyway.... All these darn voices in my head... Ganja

I fly straight in and get as much swoop as alot of the guys doing their 180 hooks and such... Ganja "The need for speed" Rodriguez

I'm 265 + gear, have been as much as 305 + gear... My last canopy was a Vengeance 150, and I'm currently jumping a Stilleto 150. I am also on a 4 way team that competes in the Carolina Skydiving league, we're all larger boys, but I am the largest. Our team name is Critical Mass. We tried to practice one weekend last year, and had to use 2 182's to get us to 10,000, thank god we have a twin otter now! Ganja

Yo Coolo, it looks like there will be 3 St. George borthers there to join you afterall. Jalisco, Vulva and myself are flying up the 28th through the 1st, and planning on making some cool jumps and meeting lotsa new friends. Ganja

Jason, Being a newbie myself, I take some minor offense to blaming the guys in general. On a local level, more objects have been burnt by experienced jumpers that just don;t give a shit than any newbies. I for one feel like I have always taken, and always will take the right paths when it comes to base. I have a whopping 6 jumps at this point, and the closest jumps to my house so far have been 2 hours or more away due to the local scene, or lack of a local scene. Anywhere I go, I ask a million questions, and expect a million answers from the local jumpers. I ask where to enter, where to exti, where to park, every last detail. Anytime any of us goes anywhere, we take the risks of burning a site, all we can is try to minimalize those risks. Sorry to rant, just don't blame the "newbies" as a sterotype. Some of us are doing the right thing, and trying to be as cautious as possible. Take a moment and think back, you were a newbie once too... Ganja

Yo Coolo, A couple of us SC boys are talking about getting up there, still working out the logistics though... I look forward to jumping with you soon, Ganja

All I need is my "E", and they don't come easily in this neck of the woods.... Ganja

I was just thinking the same thing... If I was coming in quicker than I wanted, I'd consider heading for the edge of a pong, or even some low trees to break the impact. Ganja

Yo Elvisio, If you're scared, say you're scared! Just kidding. I tend to lean more towards the 3 in 3 months rule than the 1 in every 30 days rule personally, but you bring up an excellent issue. Let's say that this is the one tandem that goes bad, no tandems in your log book in the last 30 days... Lawyers love that stuff. Ganja

Both will be mandatory? And exceptions to that rule? ie. D license holders, or 1000 jump exclusion... Just curious. What DZ is this? My DZ has a Cypres rule, C license and under, AAD required. Ganja

I'm a younger BASe jumper, so this my sound like a foolish question, but are there any big events in BASE other than Bridge Day? A bud and I are looking to head out to the Potatoe bridge, and the hills on the other side of SL city this summer sometime. Is there a certain time we should consider? Are certain times of the year worse than others weather wise out that way? Where else do events happen? PM me any details if it shouldn't be posted here. Thanks, Ganja

I own my own medium sized HVAC business. We do repairs, replacements, and new installations of heatung and cooling systems. I am also a very techy kind of person, I like knowing how stuff works, and typically try to gain all the knowledge I can about something before I do it. I remember as a kid, every time I got a new toy, I'd go into my room, lock the door and quiety disassemble it to find out what made it work. I could usually even get it back together! Others in my area have every sort of job imaginable, very diversified. I guess in my area, the base jumpers are fairly "normal" people. You would never suspect any of us round here to be the outlaw type... lol Ganja

A buddy of mine landed his Stiletto 120 with a step through. First things first, is it landable? If it is, just land it! Ganja

I have had 3 tandem reserve rides in my 450ish tandem jumps. All were on Strong Dual Hawk systems with a drouge. 1st. An old Master 425 with flat lines. Tension knot at the slider, not letting the slider come all the way down. I pumped the brakes a few times trying to clear it and got rid of it. This was tandem jump number 13 for me. 2nd, An older set 400 with normal lines. Tension knot at the slider, not letting the slider come all the way down. I pumped breaks, pulled on risers, even pulled on individual lines, and could not get it to come down. I thought long and hard, and decided that it was probably landable, but we would be coming in fast, and my student would take the brunt of the impact. On that note, I decided to cut it away. This was tandem jump #14 for me, and it was the same afternoon as my first tandem cutaway. (When your lucky, your lucky). 3rd, I had a drogue in tow. Pulled the instructor's handle, still in drogue fall. Pulled the student's handle, still in drogues fall, and honestly a bit confused by then. What happens next is up for debate, and not the purpose of this thread, it can be seen in an old thread... I chose to pull the reserve first, and video clearly shows the drouge and reserve deployment dnacing together, but the reserve deployed cleanly. Next thing I felt was the main deployment bag bouncing at the back of my knees (you want to talk about being scared!) I pulled the cutaway handle and it was still there. I wiggled and kicked a littl, and the bag fell away. I founf out later that the canopy was coming out of the bag just before it released. I was very lucky on this one, but I feel I did the right thing for the situation that was dealt to me. That's all folks, 3 cutaways in 450ish tandems. I really enjoy cutting away, what a sensation, but I'd just as well not have to do it with passengers strapped to me quite honestly. But for the record, none of them ever had a clue that anything went wrong. The 2nd one, I'll never forget that guy's reaction. He had no idea what we had done. All he knew was that in his eyes, we had an open canopy, and then something "different" happened. When I decided it was time to chop, I told him to cross his arms again, like we did for exit. I pulled the cutaway handle, we went back into freefall. I immediately pulled the reserve handle, and we had a nice reserve opening. The next thing I got was "W'ere not going to do that again are we?" My reply was simply "We couldn't that again if we wanted to brother..." Ganja "Did I type that much?" Rodriguez

Cuck, You are on of the exceptions to the rule. Even though you are not THE AFF insturctor on that jump, you are still an AFF insturctor, and have the skills and knowledge to dock on a spinning student. Back away from yourself for a minute and think about the AVERAGE video guy at most smller DZ's. Please don;t encourage some 100 jump wonder with a camera on his head to be a hero. I think there are exceptions to very rule, but for the most part, a video guy has no business near a student unless he is qualified to handle the situation at hand. I look at it like this: If I were my wife or kid as the student, how would I want the video guy to react? It would very much depend on who the video guy was. Assuming it was one of a few people at my DZ, I would expect them to save my loved ones life. If it wa anyone other than a select few, I'd just assume them stay away rather than become something else to become out of control. I thnk the odds are better in trusting the equipment than trusting a fairly young in the sport video guy to dock and save them. Most likely he or she would just make things worse for the student and themself. Ganja

The only base rig I know of with a reserve, is a Sorcerer. Other than that, most jumpers only use one parachute in base. Most jumps would not allow time for even a canopy transfer. Ganja

I use jumpsuits for my students 99% of the time. I prefer them in tighter suits, as it gives me more control. I want to have all the wings, not give them to my student. On occasion, in the heat of summer, I'll let em go in shirts and a T-shirt if they wish, but they know upfront that thay may get ripped, torn, muddied, grass stain, and their legs may get scratched up. I prefer the suit, it's safer in case of an off landing. Ganja

At my DZ, there's so many of us that are doing the low-carb thing, that Michelob Ultra seems to have become the beer of choice. Ganja

Congratulations! I'm sure we'll meet soon, we're not that far apart. BTW, you might want to keep names out of your posts. Ganja

I think this is one of those "until you're there" situations. I'm sire propr protocol and all the rules say stay away from the out of control student. They've already injured their JM, don't be next. 1 fatality is bad. 2 is worse. 3 is not making it any better. At some point in time, you have to trust the AAD will do it's job and save the student if they don't save themself. You trying to help the situation may make it worse. That being said, it'd be hard not to try and help... Ganja