FrogNog

A usability tip: link text should look different from non-link text. I had to read the text telling me to click "Archives" to find the archives. I had of course scanned the page for links / navigation devices that would lead me in that direction, but all I saw was "blah blah blah text". Sure, now I know all I have to do is wave my pointer over every piece of text to see if it's a link or not, but... -=-=-=-=- Pull.

I know your pain. I think as you get older, it gets easier to handle if you try. And I think most skydivers can get behind this advice: you should get out and jump more. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

"You hear a distant, sharp rustling sound above you." -=-=-=-=- Pull.

I'm looking at jumping today, early evening. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

Either way... I'm not picky What about s-folding? Is s-folding OK? -=-=-=-=- Pull.

If there are pros and cons of using a safety device, quantification of the issues would seem appropriate for making a rational choice. (Making an irrational choice can be accomplished without this.) I liken this to the airbag issue of a decade or two ago: they saved lives, but then people noticed they were killing people who would otherwise have lived, too! The result was to address some of the new dangers from the safety device (like baby seats and undersized people sitting in the front seat), then to basically force people to use them anyway because they killed fewer people than they saved. Now, that's cold comfort for a specific person who dies one way or the other, but if we're still alive and thinking about overall likelihood of dying from using (or not using) a safety device, identifying numeric likelihoods and taking steps to address the new, different dangers of the device are appropriate. I bring up as a quick example the broken risers: if you use an RSL, you don't want your RSL-side riser to break or release if the other side does not. So RSL users should do something about that. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

Even though you say you survived it, my rule of thumb is: if you have to ask, you shouldn't eat it. Or, to look at it another way: when was the last time you had food poisoning? Do you remember what it was like? If you can't remember, sure, go ahead and eat it. Personally, when I want my stomach to ache for two days, I'll just do 100 situps. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

Today is my skydiving anniversary. I did my first jump, a static line from 3,500 feet, one year ago today. Now I have 145 jumps, a B license, my own rig, and I have funneled 2, 3, and 4-way RW dives and 2-way freefly dives of various configurations. (I was slow out the door on the 5-way, but I can't take the primary blame for the rest of that jump - I docked.) Also, I can backslide faster than some people can track. (I have video.) I have crashed on landing fairly well a few times but I keep it rare and I PLF or slide when appropriate. I have to say my Raven II makes a pretty comfy pillow. I have not yet opened to a step-through or busted a cloud. (I exited over one and tracked around it, though. ) To the best of my knowledge, I have not bounced off any part of a plane I didn't mean to. (In the air, anyway.) I have been gaining practical experience in brake malfunctions due to maintenance issues, packing error, and bad luck but I haven't gone spinning or had to chop or go near my hard deck yet. I have flailed in a stand, sit, head-down, spiraling head-down flip/barrel-roll thingie, and on my back, belly, and side. I have accidentally rodeoed someone on an RW dive. She almost got her revenge last jump but decided to keep it at lurking for now. I have escaped pieing for 45 jumps. With any luck, I will be dropping at the airport instead of the student field before they finally get me. (Of course, once that happens, the entire DZ can be waiting in the hangar with the whipped cream.) I still haven't jumped a tailgate. Just C-182s, a C-208, and a super-twin-otter. (I like the 208 the best.) I believe some of my exits are crowd-pleasers. Keep looking for them in skydiving videos. (I'll be wearing the lame sky blue suit and the gorgeous purple/yellow/black rig.) I always pack my own, and I pack for other people when I have some time and they want me to. I have packed two slammers but I only jumped one of them. I have not yet gassed the plane. (No need - I jump with Tom. ) Oh. And I am a jump- and camera- whore. Rain, snow, -20 C at altitude, I will go if I don't think it's too dangerous. And jumps just feel better if there's a camera in sight - even if it isn't turned on or I'm the only other jumper but I'm not in frame. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

I am 220 OtD with a Hornet 190 on micro lines on mini risers (using french links). I only have something like 70 jumps on it and the only problem I have noticed is my lines (especially my brake lines) are really interested in the velcro on my suit wrists when I chain up the lines after landing. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

The excess brake line went into a knot and that caught on the guide ring on the riser correct? Sounds like you need to make sure that not only do you finger trap the line, but that you also tack it. I had this exact problem a week ago. Since I discovered it up high during my controllability check ("turn right, turn left, practice flare - what the hell?"), I had plenty of time to reign my panic and fix the problem. And, yes, I need to not only finger trap the excess, but also tack it. Bad me. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

I hate it when that happens. I just do what I can to reduce the likelihood of brake line ickiness when packing and when unstowing. And I try to unstow relatively soon after opening so I have more time to analyze, fix, and/or chop. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

The quote you have says that they were getting 200 yards accuracy automously and 50 yards manually. These autonomous 'hutes [sic] are going better than that on their own. I want to see these bad-boys fly cross country. Ooh, or CReW! -=-=-=-=- Pull.

I think the FAA's major power is with the pilots, who have licenses ("certificates?") that allow them to fly, and require them to obey the FAA rules. The FAA can revoke or suspend the licenses, and the pilots don't like that. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

I'm having a slow morning - how could this be bad? -=-=-=-=- Pull.

Technically, you will be able to see the slack in the kill line using this method, you'll just have to look inside the D-bag for it. I personally cock the PC with the hackey and look at the tapes. If the tapes are taught, I'm happy - I could have zero slack in the kill line for all I know, but since I do this check almost every jump, that doesn't scare me. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

You can very easily wrap a tail ten plus times. First off, you pull the tail around so that the entire centre cell is around. You can achieve this safely by using your legs and knees to control the pack job so that you do not disturb the lines or folds. Second, the folds are best when they are very tight, ~1 inch, folded onto it’s self and are done away from the front of the canopy. Also, since the nose is placed deep into the pack job, the tail (when being folded) should be nowhere near the nose. Even when rolling the nose, placing the rolls deep into the pack (not into the center cell) is fine and will result in a softer opening. I have never had the tail get rolled into the nose, I’ve seen it done and solved many a skydivers spiny opening by observing their pack job. This is also one of those many aspects of the sport that is almost impossible to describe with out showing how it’s done. So if you’re not comfortable with it find a method that works for you that you know is safe. All I know is 16,000 + pack jobs can’t be wrong (zero mals). Sean Right, I didn't say it couldn't be done, I said not to do it. I wrapped the nose up into the tail by not pushing the nose in, and not holding the tail out away from the nose. As a result I experienced that lovely feeling of my collapsible pilot chute collapsing as the canopy comes out of the bag, then nothing happening for uncomfortably long as the rolled-up wad tries to unfurl and get some air. After it finally got some air, the rest of the opening tried to make up for the lost time. So we are in agreement that if you wrap the tail like 10 times, don't grab the nose while doing it. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

In an emergency, I'll get out at whatever altitude the pilot tells me to. So to me the 1,000 foot seat belt thing is half for us jumpers, half for the pilot. (If he wouldn't dare tell us to get out at 1,000 feet, he/she would have us keep our seat belts on higher up.) I should add that I wouldn't be particularly relaxed getting out at e.g. 800 feet AGL. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

Fossil fuels are a subset of hydrocarbon fuels. Fat and oil contain medium-short hydrocarbons that can be extracted and used. That's what biodiesel is - vegetable oil with part of it removed. (Hi, Spencer.

After a certain point (I think after the 15 second delays), the jumpmasters on static line will jump out with the student; at least that's what I remember from my studenthood. I remember on some of my ~45 second jumps my instructor had video for me that we watched as I thought "I was turning slowly, and I thought my feet were even -- what could cause that?"

To be more specific about that quote, it's about cutting away and deploying their reserves in the air at re-pack time. Cutting away and deploying the reserve on the ground isn't as dangerous, and I would think it's recommended for various benefits.

We just need to get energy into the plane, then get it into the prop. If the world runs out of energy, we will have a lot worse problems than not being able to skydive. Someone mentioned space elevators. Well, one of the technologies to be used for space elevators is beaming (presumably as microwave) energy from the ground to the elevator climber. Jump airplanes fly nowhere near as high as a space elevator (several kilometers, vs. hundreds of thousand of kilometers), so this technology should work for that. My suggestion is jump planes with energy reception cells (like solar cells) on the bottom, and only enough battery power to taxi around. This would be sweet because every load could be a hotload. (But I assume they would switch the prop off while we loaded - electric planes can do that.) -=-=-=-=- Pull.

Meh, I got a manual, looked it over, decided I didn't want to hang the canopy from one hand that long while I fiddled it with the other, and just pro-packed it. I'm a software tester, so naturally I have to change my pack jobs all the time to try and see what inputs have what effects. So far nothing worse than bruises. Tip: don't wrap the tail like 10 times so it grabs the nose in there too, lay the cocoon down, wolmari-fold the sides on top, then roll it up like a right-side-up psychopack. Hoowhee, that was an interesting opening. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

Am I the only one who looked at the description of the "mean girl" and thought "cocaine?" My recommendation different from the personal defense classes is the buddy system. When someone needs a whoopin', it's good to have help. It also feels good when you decline to administer the whoopin' to know you had friends, on hand, keeping you on top. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

Did you jump a Sabre2 190, or Tom's Hornet 190? (which we all know is similar to a Sabre2.) Part of why I'm asking is I'm searching these forums for help about how to stop the deployment end-cell closure on my Hornet 190. For anyone who has not had this lovely experience, I describe it as "the opening is fine, and about the time the opening feels complete and the slider comes down, the canopy makes a hard turn to one side or the other, for ~90, 180, or even 360 degrees." I have decided the way I know that a toggle didn't just fire during deployment is that a fired toggle would start the turn more gently*. (*based on full-flight simulation; may not accurately simulate this problem at opening.) Pulling both rear risers or waiting both seem to fix the closure after it has happened. I've been experimenting with different pack jobs to try and fix it (understanding that what I may be fixing is subtle details in my pack job, not the canopy), but it's beginning to look like I either need to learn to fly the opening or I need to pucker up and live with it. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

My Hornet seems to me to plane out at 1/3 brakes, then I steadily finish the flare all the way to the stall point while I'm as close to the ground as possible. Finishing the flare in no wind makes a very big difference in how hard I have to run. With a little wind, I do pretty much the same thing, except I don't end up running or walking if I did it right. With more than a little wind, I don't finish the flare because I don't want to be going backwards. (I fly it until I'm sure I'm on the ground, then I crash it.) You can try and practice different flare techniques up high and "guess" what is really happening based on what you see and feel. When I did this I found I got more useful information when I looked down at 45 degrees (as I would for landing) or out at the horizon, vs straight down. (Looking straight down, I didn't learn nuthin'.) Without the ground or something approximating it nearby, you won't really know exactly what's happening, but you might get a rough feel for planing, hopping up, slowing down, and stalling without ground-related risks. -=-=-=-=- Pull.