FrogNog

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Everything posted by FrogNog

  1. FrogNog
    First, in my circle of gun friends, guns should only ever be bought, not sold. But ignoring that... Nobody I know will sell a gun to someone they don't trust. And when they do trust someone they're selling a gun to, their statement to anyone who asks about the sale later is "I checked that he had a concealed pistol license, and that was good enough for me. I forget who it was exactly, though." Now, we wouldn't sell a rig to a whuffo without a second thought. The rigs even say things on them like "don't lend this to a whuffo or he'll go get hisself hurt or kilt!" We at least check that they have an "A" license in most cases. But there's no license for arbitrary canopies. So, what do we do? -=-=-=-=- Pull.
  2. FrogNog
    It takes two jumpers for a jumper on the ground to get hit by a jumper landing. Everything else I could say, various people already have. -=-=-=-=- Pull.
  3. FrogNog
    Working backwards, I don't think accuracy comes without work. I think I got as good (or less-bad) as I am by wanting it and trying hard on many jumps. For my A and B license accuracies, nobody besides me really measured anything. (I gained notoriety for pacing off my landings early on.
  4. FrogNog
    This is true and part of why I have a 190 sf canopy (W/L 1.15). If I weren't able to make the accuracy requirements of the next license I'm working on, maybe my canopy is too advanced for my skills. -=-=-=-=- Pull.
  5. FrogNog
    The thing that I noticed while packing about the possibility of a PC cocking itself is where the extra kill line goes: looped in the bag, with the canopy shoved in on top. If the canopy's wrinkles "grab" the kill line, that would make it harder for the PC to cock itself. I haven't ground tested this, but I know my canopy will form a virtual knot with the kill line if I ever forget to cock my PC and then go to jump. -=-=-=-=- Pull.
  6. FrogNog
    Very, very cool. So, uh, what size canopy, what was his approximate wingloading, and what type of canopy was it? Seriously, though, I have for some time considered this story an inspiration so for safety I could use the less sexy details. -=-=-=-=- Pull.
  7. FrogNog
    How about (first) looking at the weight and balance info from the mfgr and computing a ballpark based on fuel conditions and jumper weights and locations? That won't tell you how badly the incipient stall/spin will be or what it will feel like, but it would give you some insight into where the CG is going to be vs. the specifications, and the pilot and jumpers can all use that data. If I were an insurance company, DZO, pilot, or "relay guy" I would probably think the groundwork is a good plan... -=-=-=-=- Pull.
  8. FrogNog
    He can't give you a sure answer, but maybe he can stand behind a guess I have: baby steps make for less risk. That puts it in your court (and with the people you can talk to who know and watch you): how much risk do you want to take? -=-=-=-=- Pull.
  9. FrogNog
    I disagree. Try a stupid move w/ a Sabre 230, then try the exact same stupid move with my old VX-60. Let me know how it turns out. I think you'll find a significant difference. Derek I think high-performance canopies only make it easier to do stupid moves. Anyony can take three wraps on a Sabre 230 and wad it into a pile of crap at 100 feet. -=-=-=-=- Pull.
  10. FrogNog
    Who I jump with is based on personality and perceived risk to my own hide, not punishment or enforcement. (I'm not judging, I'm just saying how I do it.) There is some relationship here - people who are too cool to think about whether something is dangerous probably aren't going to make me feel comfortable so's I will jump with them, and people who aren't "aware" are scary and I wouldn't want to go out the door with them. (Or even ride the plane with them, if it's really bad. ) But if someone was undersizing and overamping their canopy ride I might still jump with them, insist on my minimum break and opening altitudes, and keep well clear from breakoff to landing. -=-=-=-=- Pull.
  11. FrogNog
    I've heard anecdotes that Jim-Bob got his PRO rating on a Napkin-98 while wearing lead after eating big meals, or Jane landed every one of hers connected up backwards, but I don't see any body of data suggesting what people are reasonably doing. So that's what this poll is for - to show what people used on their first PRO rating. I figure we'd also be interested to hear in posts whether it was easy or hard, how many jumps you had when you started, and what you wish you had done differently if anything. -=-=-=-=- Pull.
  12. FrogNog
    My risers are contrasting colors and I like it that way. Makes it easier to see which way the twists go. I can't explain why the MLWs and pads are contrasting colors, though. -=-=-=-=- Pull.
  13. FrogNog
    ... but the difference between a pain-in-the-back packed reserve and a comfortable packed reserve is HUGE.
  14. FrogNog
    This is ambiguous. Do you mean you would deploy your main up high immediately on discovering the problem, even if you were at e.g. 8k? I think that would be good because you would have more time to deal with any mal you might have. But then you'd have to worry about being a hazard to other people. But it could also mean that you would deploy your main, even if you were at (or below!) your normal main deployment altitude. That's not so good. -=-=-=-=- Pull.
  15. FrogNog
    Yeah, I had hoped to see a high tail when I first read it was the first plane to roll out of the factory ready for skydiving. Turns out they mean it's the first plane to have a skydiving package factory installed and FAA approved - it's still a converted Ag plane. -=-=-=-=- Pull.
  16. FrogNog
    Crap. Did this move from 5 meters in the 2003 SIM to 2 meters in the 2004 SIM? Grrr, now I have to do more precision landings because half of my 25 are 3 and 4 meters! (And once I had enough inside of 4 meters, I changed up and decided to have more fun and not worry about landing 7 meters away. ) Anyway, what I meant to post about was the ambiguity on the landing accuracy: I think someone could touch down on the target (or within two meters of it) and slide or run it out (standing, of course). The SIM doesn't say that the accuracy landings for A, B, and C have to start and end within a certain circle. But for the PRO rating, SIM 2004 section 7-2 B.1.d(2) says "make the first contact and stop within the ten-meter circle and make all landings standing up". The increased specificity for the PRO rating makes me think they'll let you count swoops that first contact the ground within the accuracy requirement.
  17. FrogNog
    Yeah, there's lots of ways to kill yourself skydiving when things don't go as planned. -=-=-=-=- Pull.
  18. FrogNog
    I think that's an excerpt that leaves out the special case of flying / parachuting over hills in excess of 8,800 feet.
  19. FrogNog
    The thing I find scariest about this is they already figured it out once, and they wrote it down and called it an FAR. If people ignore these regulations, and as a result or in combination with ignoring them cause an accident, what could the FAA do that would have any chance of working better? Perhaps relegate jumping to areas that have no controlled airspace. -=-=-=-=- Pull.
  20. FrogNog
    [URL http://tinyurl.com/2k22d]Zoomed in map[/URL] [URL http://tinyurl.com/2fgkz]Zoomed out map[/URL] Note I have no idea if that's where VSE really is; that's just what the address maps to. Hopefully I'll find out for myself soon when I get more money and decide I need a second rig that fits well, looks great, and kicks ass. -=-=-=-=- Pull.
  21. FrogNog
    Seems like a waste of gross weight to me... -=-=-=-=- Pull.
  22. FrogNog
    Some peoples' posts remind me of skydivers who won't jump if the turbine isn't running or the clouds are below 6k. I also fall into the "she gotta have enough meat on dem bones" category, however I still voted "both" because I'm sure I could turn the lighter one's weight into an asset and just toss her around more. Sunny and Ivan, I'm sorry to hear your dearest desirables aren't on that list. But... you would jump a 182 at 3k, right? -=-=-=-=- Pull.
  23. FrogNog
    The experiments would have to be very short-term; Scaled Composites isn't orbiting, they're just popping up and falling back. To orbit, they have to get going very fast horizontally. I'm not saying they couldn't, but that's not what they're doing. So any "satellites" they deposit would be very short-lived, unless they can handle (straight-in) reentry and landing. Which brings up something Scaled Composites (and probably all the X-prize competitors) have in their favor: since they don't get going fast enough to orbit, they don't have to lose all that energy to return to Earth. I think this has something to do with the ease of SpaceShip One's reentry. (That and being way smaller, lighter, and more modern than the U.S. Shuttle.) -=-=-=-=- Pull.
  24. FrogNog
    You have got to be kidding. - Dan G I agree - fiddling with riser covers is not on my short list of things I want to do in freefall at 5,000 feet after noticing something funky is going on with my rig. -=-=-=-=- Pull.
  25. FrogNog
    Step 2 is the one that makes me think it would be better to risk an entanglement, hoping to get to a two-out (which may or may not be manageable), than to try and cut the reserve and end up with something spinning so violently you can't cut it away but with too little airspeed to deploy your main. -=-=-=-=- Pull.