Geoff

Thanks for that - I was guessing 'lots of love' or 'Lord oh Lord', but they didn't seem to fit sometimes. So now I know and I can sleep soundly at night. bktm Geoff

The 'count to 5 and exit' rule really isn't safe on a windy day, especially for solos with no 'climb-out' time. If you actually time the gap before a 4-way, it's often more than 20 seconds including climb-out, getting setup, exit count, etc. Of course the 'right' gap also depends on the speed of the plane. I would regard 5 seconds as an absolute minimum, and only on a no-wind day, with a quick run-in, and a jumper who's skilled enough not to slide around (i.e. not someone's first head-down!). Geoff

I think Chicken Run was a kind of follow-up to Wallace and Gromit. not sure they're planning to make any more W+G stuff. BTW here's my 'question I was always afraid to ask' - what's 'lol' ? Geoff

2 points: (1) I'm sure you can improve the odds - maybe from 500:1 to perhaps 1000:1 by careful inspection, maintenance and packing. It's not just luck. (2) You can improve them again by not being too chop-happy i.e. assessing problems carefully before deciding to chop. I know a guy who has had 2 cutaways on Sabres due to a brake releasing on deployment and the canopy starting to spin-up. You really should be able to recover that with a Sabre. Students are taught: if in doubt - cutaway, and that's OK up to a point, but remember the reserve is your last chance and reserve mals happen. If you can make the main landable before your hard deck, you should. Geoff

Any riggers or parachute designers out there? Icarus are re-designing the brake configuration on the Safire to give a more powerful flare. So- what can they change? How about the length from the tail edge of the canopy to the cascade? How would that affect the flare? What about the spacing of the points where the 4 brake lines on each side are attached - could that make a difference, or are they always attached at the ribs? Any experts out there? Thanks Geoff

Why would anyone want to waste time having sex in a wind tunnel when you can practice skydiving?

OK, here we go.... Actually, I agree with Frank. Belly flyers first. Always. If there really is no wind, it makes no difference, so why make an exception. Reversing the rule in no wind reinforces the dangerous and widely held misconception that vertical separation adds useful safety margin. In fact, any margin it adds is unreliable and shouldn't be trusted. In the case of a snivel, cutaway or minor loss of altitude awareness, vertical separation vanishes instantly. US DZs I've visited seem quite switched on to this, but in the UK there's less freeflying, and it's still quite common to put freeflyers out first 'because they fall faster'. I have heard quite a good argument that exit order should be based purely on wing loading (heaviest first) to reduce the chance of canopy collisions, but I don't really buy it, except for hop-n-pop lifts. You have to survive the freefall and deployment first, then worry about the canopy flight. Anyway, that's M not very HO. Geoff

A biggish way - about 10 way I think. This guys comes in way too fast, docks hard and flips over forwards into the formation. As he goes, his hacky catches on someone's arm, and his PC pops out. Flaps around on the back of one guy's head for a second, and then deploys. The jumper is on his back, almost head-down, watching his main deploying above him, past his feet. Main deploys perfectly, and lifts him past the other jumpers. Miraculously, nobody is hurt. Got it on video - I'll try to digitize it and post it somewhere eventually. It's scary shit. Makes your pulse race just watching it. And on a lighter note - Skydiving is better than sex because.... A premature deployment gives you a longer ride. Oh well. the old ones are the best. Geoff

We could start a long discussion on exit order (and I might if I get bored) but irrespective of exit order, a good, and often forgotten rule is to fly your canopy across the line of flight until groups before and after you have opened. Geoff

"um do u just have to get a certian number of jumps and thatas all over there" No, to get a C or D license, you need the 200 or 1000 jumps, plus IC1 - that's Individual Canopy Grade 1 and involves 5 landings within 10m of a target, packing, spotting and some other basic canopy control stuff. You also need one further 'Grade 1'. The options are: FS1 - Formation Skydiving - basically a 4 point 4 way. Most people do this one. It used to be called 'Category 10', and lots of people still call it that. FF1 - Freeflying - a controlled relative sit-fly IS1 - Individual Style or CF1 - Canopy Formations. There's also an SS1 (Sky Surfing) but you need the C license before starting that. Lots more detail in the BPA operations manual at http://www.keme.co.uk/~tboughen/sections.html if anyone's interested. Interestingly, there are no requirements for water jumps or night jumps for any of the licenses. Cheers Geoff

The change to BPA licenses occured a while ago - in early 1998 I think, so we're pretty much used to them now. It's only a problem at non-UK drop zones that require a D license for some reason (wind conditions, night jumps, or whatever). Normally you can convince them that a BPA C license is roughly equivalent, but not always. Geoff

Quite a few of the contributors to this forum are from the UK, where the weather is often crap (certainly was this weekend), so we just hang out out on dropzone.com and the newsgroups. British skydivers are some of the best verbal skydivers in the world! Geoff

You might be interested in the following which was just posted to rec.skydiving There are definitely serious additional dangers in jumping camera. Geoff -------------------------------------------------- March 24, 2001 Fatality at Carolina Sky Sports, Louisburg, NC Richard Lancaster USPA membership 143136 B21593 Total number of jumps 323 A four-way and videographer exited a twin otter from 13000 feet. The videographer filmed the 4 way and everything about the skydive was normal at break-off. The pre-arranged pull altitude for the videographer was 4000 feet. Members of the 4 way observed the videographer at 2500 feet with the main bag-locked. At the scene it was observed that the main suspension lines were wrapped around the eye piece of his camera helmet. The reserve pilot chute was entangled in the main and the last stow of the reserve was out. The reserve ripcord was pulled and not found at the scene. The cutaway release was found near the hand of the deceased. The deceased had repacked the main prior to the jump and the reserve had been repacked on February 21, 2001. While he was visiting from New Hampshire, he had made 55 jumps in the last month -- most of them had been camera jumps. He was very current and during the month he jumped at Carolina Sky Sports was observed to always follow very safe skydiving practices. Morten Berger Pedersen Manager Carolina Sky Sports

Do you thiink the chest rings add much rather than just the hip rings? Mirages only have hip rings (or did when I got mine last year). Cheers Geoff

I don't have a strong opinion on this, but just for information, in the UK, the BPA demands a minimum of 200 jumps before jumping camera. Geoff

I strongly recommend you don't buy a new Sabre, not so much for the way it opens or flies, but simply because it's now perceived as old technology, and re-sale values are poor. This will only get worse when the new PD lightly elliptical becomes available. For a new canopy, a Spectre, Sillhouette, or Safire is a much better long-term investment. (Sorry - don't know anything about the Hornet). The flip side of this, of course, is that used Sabres can be a real bargain. If you get one, I would suggest you get a large or pocket slider, as the slammers do happen. Some put the slammers down to poor packing technique, and there may be some truth in this, but to my mind a canopy shouldn't be that fussy. Hope this helps, Geoff

Sabres have a reputation for opening hard on occasions, and in my experience (250 jumps on Sabres), this is definitely deserved, especially if you're jumping at higher altitudes - even 1500ft can make a difference. A larger slider or pocket slider can slow the openings - talk to PD, they're very helpful. As for the canopy collapsing - well it never happened to me. If your canopy has a few hundred jumps, it's possible that the lines are out of trim - you'd need to get a rigger to check that. Hope this helps Geoff

I dream about waiting around at drop zones - buying tickets, dirtdiving, planning the jump, but virtually never about actually jumping. I think it's just an expression of the frustration of being a skydiver in the British weather, at slow British drop zones. Geoff

For me, level 3 was definitely the hardest (apart from just beating the fear to do level 1). As both instructors released me, I started turning due to asymmetry. Took me a few attempts to pass level 3, but then the rest seemed easy! Geoff

Very personal opinion, but I consider any rig with a down-pointing main flap that tucks back up under the other flaps to be insecure and non-ideal for freeflying. It's too easy to dislodge it either before exit or in freefall. That means the Javelin, Reflex, Racer, Atom, Dolphin and others. Rigs with an upward-pointing main flap that tucks back inside itself are a lot more secure. e.g. Mirage, Voodoo, Vector 3, Wings, etc.. Like I say, just a personal preference, but I'd be genuinely interested to hear if anyone thinks that the downward-pointing main flap has any advantages. I can't think of any. Geoff

Thanks for the clarification Alan- I didn't mean to imply that PD reserves are 'better'. At the other end of the size/weight range, the PD253R is only placarded to 254 pounds, whereas the Raven 249-M is placarded to 277 pounds, or 297 pounds for the Raven 282-M. Not sure how the manufacturers decided these placarded weights, but my point was that they sure do vary a lot, even for similar sizes. Geoff

Warning - this is a controversial subject! (Please, please, don't let this be a troll!) But - to answer some of your questions in a reasonably factual manner: "(1) At what point does a jumper overload a reserve canopy?" When you exceed the declared maximum weight or deployment speed for the canopy. The information is on the warning label on the canopy, or look at the manufacturer's web sites. There are surprisingly large differences between manufacturers of apparently similar reserves. For instance, the PD 126 reserve is rated to 254 pounds, but the Raven 135-M is only rated to 182 pounds. Remember that these ratings only mean that the canopy and lines should remain intact through the opening. It's no guarantee that you'll be able to land the canopy without hurting yourself, especially if you're unconscious. "2) I weigh 170 without gear on, putting my exit weight probably around 185 or so. Is a 150 reserve getting too dangerous?" It's really a personal choice. Lots of people load reserves that heavily and land them OK. At that loading, you'll need to accept that if you land unconscious, you'll probably break something. "3) Does the experience level on a reserve really matter? ..... It seems as if exit weight, not number of jumps would constitute what reserve you have." Experience does improve the ability to land highly loaded canopies, even reserves, but probably not as much as most jumpers believe. It obviously has no effect on the probability of something failing on deployment. "4) What about Zero-P reserves, is a PD a ZP reserve, or just the Dash-M from raven? How does this affect one's reserve canopy choice?" PD reserve is not ZP. Dunno about the rest of the question. Very few jumpers are using ZP reserves yet. I wouldn't, but that's just me being conservative. "5) Many, many, many jumpers at my local DZ are 220 plus without gear, yet have reserves that are 170 or less. Is that complacency, or just the fact that they don't think the worst will happen to them." I would say they are making a choice about their risks, and reaching a similar decision to many jumpers. But yes, they would be safer with larger reserves. Hope this helps. Geoff

I strongly recommend you don't buy a new Sabre. They are old technology, and are becoming difficult to sell. It'll be even worse when the rumoured new PD lightly elliptical canopy arrives. Plus they open hard sometimes, even if you pack carefully, though a larger slider helps (ask PD). If you get a Spectre or Safire, you'll have consistent soft openings. Personally, I didn't like the Spectre because of the poor glide angle when driving into the wind, but loads of people love them. Safire is great, but definitely a little more difficult to land, and it's more 'elliptical' in the way it responds - glides better but dives more and picks up more speed in turns. As someone else said, demoing is the best way to choose, because we all have different preferences. Just my 2 cents. Geoff

I must agree with the good customer service from L and B. My Jump-track PC interface cable was giving me problems - I sent them an email and received a new one in a few days. Don't touch a Time-Out - they're unreliable, and I'm not even sure if Cool n Groovy are still trading. I've certainly heard lots of stories about unanswered letters, phone calls, emails, etc. Don't know amnything about Skytronic. You won't go wrong with a Pro-Dytter. Geoff

If you're planning to freefly in the UK, then you should at least be aware of the rules. Here's my understanding: (1) You mustn't freefly at all, even on your own, unless you have either FS1 (Formation Skydiving grade 1) or IS1 (Individual Style grade 1). (2) Until you get FF1 (Freeflying Grade 1), you're not allowed to freefly with anyone else, unless it's a coach approved by you club chief instructor. These rules are widely ignored, but some drop zones are quite strict. It's up to you if you want to break them. Geoff