FrogNog

> ... and the fact that its puke yellow and old school red Dude, I think that rig looks great! I'm not trying to say I'm colorblind, but there's no chance you'll confuse that with someone's all-black-with-black or blue trim rig with the spinetto 105. And the rig looks like it has decent form - if I was going 120mph straight down at 3,500 feet, I'd LOVE to have that thing on my back! > and it doesnt have a cypress... OK, that's a problem, simple solution. ($, of course.) > and its got a bunch of velcro... I hear they have people who can make this problem get better. Factory types or master riggers. And it costs a lot less than a different used rig. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

Well, what about the famous people? If you know their names in skydiving, there's a reason for it that might be bling-related. Rob Harris - did he do well? How about Joe Jennings - how many copies of "Good Stuff" did he sell and what is his royalty per copy? Who owns the Pink skyvan? How much does Mike Mullins clear on his special jump flights? I don't know the answers to any of these, but I hear about these people a lot so it's a guess. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

Since my bedframe crumbled under the ardor of one of my former girlfriends, I've had a king-size mattress on the floor and I found this good for practicing barrel rolls. I arch on the mattress, then just rotate my arm at the shoulder so it swings right in front of my face - no other change to arm or body necessary. As I do this, I roll over onto that shoulder and keep rolling over. Then I just finish rolling all the way over and back to a belly-down arch; rolling over naturally brings in my other arm and then they pop back out at a natural time and in the air it feels just about like that, only no mattress. The second component that was key to my barrel rolls was not finishing as a big "X", but finishing in an arch. I was finishing in a big flat "X" and bobbling up and down and this would blow my heading at the last instant of my barrel roll. Finishing with an arch made it like buttah and passed my solo checkout dive. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

Warm gloves you can still pull the ripcord/hacky with and get in the toggles? Or is Virginia toasty at altitude this time of year? -=-=-=-=- Pull.

Two of my riggers say they strongly dislike doing reserve repacks on Racers. They don't say they can't do them, just that they don't like doing them. At the same time, one of those riggers said Racers are really comfortable. Personally (38 jumps, all on Infinity), I like the position of the reserve PIN because it seems like it would be very well protected from dislodging (as it's in a cavity formed between the rig and your spine). The reserve ripcord, however, I'm not so sure about. The sole Racer rig I have looked at closely has a two-part housing with a connector sleeve and it showed a tendency to want to "open up" and allow the cable to contact the housing ends, decreasing the bend radius in a couple places which I would be afraid would increase pull force. If newer / different Racers had a single length reserve ripcord conduit, I would stop worrying about that. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

I was told (by a source I can't remember, so chances are it wasn't all that good) that ejection exits feel like being hit in the ass with an almightily large baseball bat. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

> I can't seem to get your link to work Miranda... I'd like to see something like what I was talking about... seems cool. It's video of someone disconnecting from a veritable cloud of (what appears to be) regular size birthday balloons. He falls for a bit looking up, then looks down (last few frames) and it looks like a skydive to me. I wonder what his climb rate was on the way up? :) -=-=-=-=- Pull.

> Theres a small advantage for students of skydiving in a small club or DZ just with C182/206. Theres no ZOO in the air. True, true; students at such DZs need only have their heads vigilantly on swivels for 3 to 7 other canopies trying to kill them / each other. (I mean that in the motorcyclist / defensive driving way. I don't actually mean that the guys at my DZ scare me at pattern time.) -=-=-=-=- Pull.

I think the concern about the cost of a repack, or someone being upset about the need for a repack (or even possible loss of handle(s), main, and freebag) should be categorized as "ground worries" and not taken with you into freefall. In freefall, the higher priority is staying alive (and where possible, in one piece). Personally, with

> After about 1000k ft I opened ... Damn, what DZ do you go to that goes to a million feet (plus safe pull buffer)? And how do they get up that far? They must have one of those really special square Super Otters... -=-=-=-=- Pull.

A subtle point of order missed by the other posts: did you pack it 5 weeks ago? Or did a packer pack it for you? And does he still work there? Personally, I would jump it for the cheap thrill. You could even bet someone a dollar that it will / won't mal, if you wanted to increase that delicious tension in the plane a little more. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

> Can anyone out there tell me as to the noise level in > freefall in decibles ... Do you have a motorcycle? Does it go fast? I have gotten so used to wind noise commuting at 75 mph on the freeway on a no-windshield motorcycle that freefall seems silent to me. Something about the russling noise makes my brain tune it out. Under canopy the flapping slider is loud, though - go figure. No, that's no direct use to you in deciding what audible you want, but it's a hint: freefall is about as loud as 120mph wind noise on a motorcycle. Maybe a little quieter because there's no engine or sirens. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

> I've also heard that the S/L program is out of date. So are gasoline engines and paper. I think one of the biggest benefits of S/L is it's good for people who are scared of heights, like I was/am. (Technically, I'm not scared of being up high; I'm scared of _falling_ from up high.) Static Line keeps you closer to the ground for a while so you can get accustomed to stepping out an open door into 80 mph wind way higher off the ground than makes sense, then letting go. And for the first half of each of the first few jumps, you have a lot less to worry about than AFF. Can't leave the plane early without your JMs, can't freefall unstable, can't get tripped out by terminal airspeed or the slide on the hill, don't have to worry as much about pulling (much less stress on a practice ripcord), spot is IMO easier because everything looks bigger, etc.. Just subterminal mals and flying and landing, and that's it. Piece of cake. (Well, OK, and avoiding the special S/L potential airplane emergencies, but that's what IAD is for. ) -=-=-=-=- Pull.

I am still a student and weigh less than 230 out the door (good thing, too, for my height and build!) so I'm under .8lb/sf on the standard student gear. I am about .95lb/sf on the "small" student canopy. I would be just over 1.1 if (when) I jump the throw-out rental rig to wean myself off the (buttcheek) ripcord. Unless I bought my own stuff by then, whereupon I would be between 1.0 and 1.15 lb/sf. Note: my numbers are not "scale out the door" numbers, they are "bathroom scale plus gear estimate" numbers, and assume 35 lbs of clothes and gear, which I hope is not an underestimation. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

> almost 250 jumps and I still suffer from gear fear every now and then. I get paranoid my leg straps are gonna give away I get this too (note I have less than 40 jumps), specifically about the legstraps. I have wondered if it's just me. Anyway, when I get worried about it, I just rationalize that there's nothing I can do about it. So just enjoy the ride and fly smart, and let go the fact that if the B-12s (~2500 lb happy each side) or the webbing (~4000 lb happy each side) let go, you're toast.

A hop-and-pop is like a static line jump without the static line. :) -=-=-=-=- Pull.

Dude, use the mute button. A lot of TV gets way better without the voice-overs. I admit, car racing doesn't have the same qualities without the engine sound. That's sad. But it's worth it to me to stop having to hear about how slippery the white line is, or whose wife is suffering the trials of a sick housecat, so I can concentrate on the important stuff. Plus if it gets too quiet you can just make the engine noises yourself, and then it's pretty much back to normal. Skydiving, luckily, doesn't have important noises in the first place. Not that I've noticed in 37 jumps anyway. It's all "BRRRR" in the 182 and that wind noise that switches my ears off in freefall. That's about it. Hit mute and throw in the occasional "DOOR!". -=-=-=-=- Pull.

> Damn, I couldn't jump there... True, true. But is that a big deal? I'm not knocking that DZ, I'm just trying to do comparative perspective here: the DZ wants their own wingloading rule, so it's clearly important to them. Is it that important to you that you can't jump there? Right now, I don't see any conflict; this is just one DZ and they're a long way away from a lost of us. In the future there could be a lot more DZs that do this, to the point lots of us begin to care. But by then we can just have more jumps and/or higher licenses. To me, that chart looked at once not unreasonable but not guaranteed to ensure "sufficient safety". The only data point that jumps out at me is the way they say "if you are a sub-100 jump wonder, we do not want you at 1.6lb/sf!". Above that it gets muddy. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

I try not to take the doom and gloom in big chunks. I like to think that once I get to altitude and the door is open, half the risk is gone. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

Should this be posted in the CReW forum? At one point 6% of my jumps ended in reserve rides. My reserve ride was my fault - the spring-loaded PC fell over the tail and came back in under the lines and a combination of factors (especially including allowing my controllability check procedure/rules get fuzzy in memory) led me to chop it even though I didn't really need to. A dozen jumps later my PC came under the nose and reinflated, giving me a right turn. I didn't chop that one, I just gave my left arm a toggle workout. Flaring was fun. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

I hope the interests of diseminating SB information outweighs the copyright issues... -=-=-=-=- Pull.

I have been told this can be related to lines out of trim, and if this is a possibility on your canopy, you should have a rigger look at it. Although, having a rigger look at your canopy whenever anything is wrong with it seems like an easy answer. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

> did ya adjust your "man"? I believe he said "the leg straps hurt like hell". A "ballunder malfunction" would not warrant such a tame description. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

Maybe for the last 50 or 100 feet, don't look in any single place. Look down, down and forward, up at the horizon, and off to the sides, and keep doing that with yer head on a swivel. The idea is to get a more accurate feel for where the earth is than staring at it and trying to figure out where X feet is. Of course, I recommend any jump you use my advice on, you PLF. (Even if my advice had to do with your freefall or seatbelt. You can't be too careful if you listen to someone else with even fewer jumps than 51.) -=-=-=-=- Pull.

> So... if you were given the chance to drive a 1962 Stingray Corvette, you'd turn it down because it doesn't have airbags and ABS? Some of the performance characteristics of a '62 Corvette Stingray are admirable by today's standards. I don't know of all that many characteristics of rounds that are admirable today. I've heard "quiet" and "easy to steer, as long as you don't try too hard" and that's about it. I'm sure there are others that are about as sexy. Now, I plan to jump rounds in my future. I think I'm good at spotting and can get very good with continued practice; rounds would be a way to test that while also giving me some "vintage-style equipment" rides. But I look at it more like the chance to drive an AMC Pacer than an old Corvette. -=-=-=-=- Pull.