FrogNog

I landed out because my partner on the jump did. So it was the nice thing to do. And the ground looked safe there (which it turned out to be). Also, he had the video camera, ergo he had my video. I could hardly watch him land out 1,500 feet below me, then wait for him to walk back by himself so I could ask him for a copy! The quote: "The thing about skydiving is you can't drink before doing it, but you can do flips." (For everyone who wasn't there, this goes on the tail end of the conversation about frontflips in freefall making me dizzy.) -=-=-=-=- Pull.

Are you saying I am going to learn that the pilot doesn't have a need to know what the jumpers on the plane are planning on doing, or that I am going to learn that wingsuit deployments at 500 ft can, in some cases, be called "safe" without abusing the word? (I had two posts and I can't be sure which one you are replying to.) Otherwise I agree with you in general: I am new to this sport and I do have a lot to learn. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

My current rig with the following changes: * stainless hardware * custom-died cordura so the purple cordura perfectly matches the purple webbing / binding tape * D-bag stow points down the side, not on top (OK, I could afford that now ) * top-of-the-line new reserve instead of used, get-the-job-done reserve, in a different color than blue. Maybe a red reserve with good high-speed deployment survivability characteristcs. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

I just think the pilot might like to know if he's being asked to drop someone he considers risky. While no laws may get broken, it may still reflect poorly on the pilot, or the pilot might feel some responsibility, if the jumper went in. It's obviously not my place to say "dude, doing a wingsuit jump down to 500 feet is going to kill you!", but maybe I can say "just let the pilot know what you're attempting so he can have a say." The way I see it, it's the pilot's plane, and if a jumper doesn't get along with the pilot he can find another pilot or go jump off a rock. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

Just asking: will you be telling the pilot that you plan to pull at 500 ft using a BASE main in a legal, TSOed rig? -=-=-=-=- Pull.

Did I just read you say that pulling on a BM jump below 1k AGL will be safe under some set of circumstances? -=-=-=-=- Pull.

On almost all my few jumps at Kapowsin, the landing direction was chanted from one end of the plane to the other so we all got a reminder before exit. ("Landing up/down the hill.") I liked not having to "figure it out" in the air by watching someone else all the way to touchdown. (I prefer the student field because it's so large and walking an extra 200 yards doesn't bother me.) One thing about Kapowsin is they don't usually have people landing continuously all day[1]. So different plans might work for different DZs, e.g.: * 182s: follow the first one down, unless the entire, huge, 4-person load agrees on something else. * larger loads, one at a time: determine landing direction on a per-load basis and stick with it. Determination time could be before takeoff, or the pilot could get info from the ground and relay it to the jumpers just before exit. * continuous multi-large-load bedlam: good luck. A single direction "ever" or "all day" might be called for. [1] I am not a Kapowsin regular; I'm only saying what I've seen when I was there a few times. [2] My home DZ is a mostly-182 DZ, and I land at the huge student field anyway right now, so these suggestions are just talk - I don't really have to worry about this issue day to day. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

Then I guess you already know the USPA BSR in regards to minimum opening altitudes listed: 2-1.G. Your 'hard deck' minimum should be 3,000', not 2500. ltdiver It sounds like you're confusing hard deck with container opening altitude. Section 2-1.G of the SIM says student and A-license jumpers are to open their containers at or above 3,000' AGL. I can't readily find it in the SIM, but I thought I read that students are recommended to complete any necessary emergency procedures by 2,000' AGL, and that's what I would call a 'hard deck'. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

I think it's a size thing. Big helmets are less cool. Protecs have quite a bit of foam inside, which makes them pretty big. So far I have gotten by with my black Protec fine. Maybe when I get better at freeflying I'll realize how bad it is aerodynamically. BTW, if I'm wrong about it being a size thing, then in theory someone should be able to make external "helmet liners" to make a pro-tec look more like a mindwarp. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

I guess now I have to jump with you, huh? -=-=-=-=- Pull.

What I may do for my next set of handles (if I go to a pillow reserve): Cutaway: YEE! Reserve: HAW! 'Cuz if you look up from the ground and you hear "YEE-HAAAAAAW!" then something exciting just happened to me. (My first reserve ride was true to this form.) -=-=-=-=- Pull.

"We're the government, and we're here to help." -=-=-=-=- Pull.

Any idea if he has to pay for his lift tickets, or if those can still be part of his "remuneration"? -=-=-=-=- Pull.

Sport vs. Game / Activity / Whatever is really arbitrary. I like the definition that if there isn't a realistic risk of killing yourself doing it, it isn's a sport. Basketball and baseball are not really sports. Scuba diving and Skydiving are - even without competition, betting, or statistics. Football, hockey, and rugby are sports, and fencing and boxing would have to be as well because although deaths are rare, they follow logically from the performance of the activity, should safety devices fail or be ignored in the interests of historical authenticity. Most firearm sports would be hard to define - they use deadly implements in safe ways. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

True, but the instructor has a lot of experience, and whatever happens to you happens to him immediately afterward, so it's in his interest to take care of you. That said, I'm neither for nor against "making" people do Tandems. You can always go anywhere you like. My suggestion is to go wherever you feel most comfortable with the people and the level of safety. (And if that means not doing tandems because you don't feel comfortable with it, there you go.) -=-=-=-=- Pull.

What about Funky and Brass? -=-=-=-=- Pull.

Inifinity gets props from me on my awesome rig too. Also, I believe it is one of their "Steves" who measured me up proper and helped me choose colors and fabrics. And I guess I have to thank KellyF for not telling them not to do that mixed-up color pattern. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

About once every half-dozen James Bond movies, I reckon. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

Well, I plan to die anyway. Not soon, and not by any particular method, but I reckon most of us don't skydive to not die, we skydive to live. (Or to put it less zealously, "we skydive to have fun"). Although, if it were possible to live forever by skydiving, I would sign up for that. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

I personally think an appropriately-sized main and an appropriately-sized reserve are both very important. I plan to land my main a lot under normal circumstances (frequent exposure to risk from landing characteristics of that canopy) and my reserve a little, but when I may already be having a very bad day (infrequent exposure to risk from having to land with other factors). And I have no opinion on what is an appropriately-sized main or reserve for you.

A terrifying slow-mo. Could you imagine getting bit by those in freefall? -=-=-=-=- Pull.

How did you like being all harnessed up to another person... and getting paid for it? -=-=-=-=- Pull.

Ah. I had heard pilot chutes have a tendency to wear out, or go out of trim, or do other bad things and stop doing their job well. Many of the failure modes made no sense to me: * topskin becomes more permeable. Well, I thought permeability didn't make much of a difference to the decelerative effect of a round parachute. Not enough to stop being able to pull the pin and lift the bag, anyway. * kill line shrinks. Yup, that's why people check the kill line length and replace the kill line when it shrinks. No need to replace the entire PC, though, is there? * PC goes out of trim, most noticeable by the 100 bridle twists when you go to pack it. This sounds like a "wait until you see it, then replace it" failure, not a "weak deployments / no pin-pulls sneak up on you" failure. And from some things I read recently, seems like a PC constructed properly with the tapes on the bias shouldn't do this unless it gets damaged by something else. But, most of this would seem to apply to non-collapsible PCs as well. So, why does anyone replace a PC? Hmm, maybe I need to go search old posts.... -=-=-=-=- Pull.

Then you would have to be a fan of Sahara Desert? -=-=-=-=- Pull.

I'm surprised people have forgotten the reason people don't use turn signals is because of a study a few decades back that found using a turn signal shrinks the testicles and causes breasts to sag. -=-=-=-=- Pull.