The111

1) Neither of us claimed this thread as ours or asked you not to be here. We simply disagreed with you. If disagreement equated to a request to leave the thread, most threads here would stop after about 2 posts. 2) For the last time, your logic is ridiculously flawed. By your logic, I will only die when it is my time. Therefore I can put a gun to my own head every night before I go to bed, pull the trigger, and I won't die until it's my time. I might shoot myself in the head every night for the next 60 years if that were true. The fact that you can point out "odd situations" where death was probable but didn't occur, or improbable but did occur, is not proof that timing is the ultimate, end-all cause of death. 3) I am finished with this line of thought, not because I feel I've been asked to leave, but because it's off topic, and so illogical it's pointless trying to argue anymore. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Now that was just cruel. You underlined your link but didn't make it clicky. I clicked on it like 3 times. clicky www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Ok, by your logic: Johnny Skydiver goes in because he hooks way too low. Conclusion, it was his time (i.e. time is the cause of his death, not his actions). The time was 3:23pm on 4/26/04. Since that was his time, he would have also died had he been behind the wheel of a car, on his couch watching TV, or asleep in his bed at the same time. Logical? www.WingsuitPhotos.com

My fucking god. I, the extremely fashion conscious (and sarcastic), had no idea what Hugo Boss was, so I went to their website. I still can't figure out what the fuck it is. At the main site, I have 4 options to choose where I want to navigate. 1) Irreverant modern 2) Positive independent 3) Dark enigmatic 4) Provocative seductive Where is the option "tell me what the fuck your company sells"?! Btw, assuming the dumbass figures out how to work his straps and alti, and somehow makes a skydive and lands safely, I'd like a picture of his pretty face after freefall with a loose zipper on his chest. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

That's a ridiculous answer. How do we access the fate calendar to know whether or not we should jump on a certain day? In the meantime, I guess we shouldn't even worry about being a safe skydiver, since we won't go in no matter what we do if it's not our time yet. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Yeh, I agree that vertical separation is not something to aim for. I was just making an off-topic comment about the correlation between experience and how low you're "in the saddle". At 50 jumps I wanted to be in the saddle by 3k or higher! www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Guess I'm above the average then. I have almost 200 jumps and like to be in the saddle by 2.5k, which equates to a 3.5k pull with my sniiiiiivel. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Same here, 99.9% of my jumps have been on my own pack jobs, and I always check the lines for a step through. Just a curious thought which spawned my question...

I'll second it. Arlo is a great guy. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Another happy customer here.

Meh, I know it can be done (see Greg Gasson (I think) in Good Stuff), I'm just curious how difficult it is, and how stupid it would be for someone untrained in that type of "stunt" to try it. Honestly, it doesn't seem like it would be too hard, but I could be very wrong... www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Regardless of how different the throw is, it is my (very inexperienced) opinion that a spot shouldn't be so close that "throw" makes a difference whether or not you make the landing area. I.e., a good spot should allow you to go quite a bit past the landing area, as a sort of "safety factor" (engineering term) so even if you do get significantly more or less throw in different situations, you can still make the DZ no problem. An analogy (and an example of safety factor) is that when you see a weight limit on something, an elevator for example, if the weight limit says 2000lbs, the elevator can probably realistically hold 2-3 times that much weight, depending on the safety factor. Analysis of any situation should always allow for error in either direction, and I don't think your spot should have to be so dead on that your body position on exit determines whether or not you make the DZ. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Bumpity bump? www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Reading the post about tandem mals, I got a crazy idea when someone mentioned cutting away a step through. With regards to a normal solo jumper (i.e. not a tandem), could you grab your risers and do some sort of crazy monkey flip through them to undo a step-through? Or would you risk entanglement and/or stalling the canopy depending on how you grab the risers? I said with regards to a normal jumper because I'd imagine that idea is even crazier and less plausible with a tandem, unless you're massive and your student is a 100lb girl. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Hahaha... "Those bastards! How dare they wave at us! It's as if they're enjoying life!" www.WingsuitPhotos.com

I agree with at least one of those... www.WingsuitPhotos.com

I know, and I do talk to them. I was just making a joke regarding the sentiment in the original post... Now, would anyone care to PROVE that I am friendly with skydiving icons for the disbelievers out there? www.WingsuitPhotos.com

This statement confuses me. I don't think some whuffo would pick up a magazine, see an ad for a shiny rig, and want to start skydiving because of it. As far as I know, people jump because they want to. Care to elaborate? www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Well, hell, there's quite a few of them walking around DeLand most of the time. Most of them are quite friendly too! [self-quote][/self-quote] www.WingsuitPhotos.com

I wish I could meet some skydiving icons. Oh wait, does the count? www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Bet you can't get one as big as Z-hills had at New Years. That was the largest campfire I've seen in my life. For the first few minutes, you couldn't get closer than 30 feet because of the heat. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

This is a very good point. Even now with almost 200 jumps I still wonder how accurate my counting is in the door... my adrenaline definitely still flows. But I know for a fact that when I had 20 jumps my counting was VERY rushed,, what I thought was 8 seconds was sometimes 2-3, seriously. So how do we teach people to count accurately? Should the green light flash one time per second? www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Yeh, I was just using 150lb as an arbitrary number. And I was going to say, that I still believe it has to do with weight, but I just changed my own mind. Think about this - in order to pull down on something that required force (a greater force than your body weight), you need a force that restrains you from lifting up. You know, like those pullup machines in the gym that you sit down for. You have to hook your knees under a bar if the weight you want to lift is heavier than you. Otherwise you won't be able to move it, no matter how strong you are. In a solo canopy ride there is nothing holding you down, so as long as the force required is less than your weight and you can do a pullup, you can move the riser. But under a tandem canopy, you DO have a force pulling down on you (the student). I guess that was the bad part of my analogy. So if you and the student are each 150lbs, and there is a 200lb force required to pull down the risers (not trying to be realistic here, just making a point), you'd have to be strong enough to do a pullup with 50 lbs on your back in order to move the risers. I'm really not doing a good job of answering your actual question, what the magnitude of the force is. Just pointing out that if the combined weight of you and your student is say 300lbs, it is physically impossible to pull down on the risers any harder than that, no matter how strong you are. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

Ron has made the best point in this thread. That's scary. I'll admit I have insurance for certain things. It has to do with how valuable they are and how likely I think it is. I have renter's insurance to cover all the things in my apartment and most importantly my rig. I spent $5k+ on a new rig and it's covered in full if it's stolen from the DZ, my car, anywhere. I think the possibility of that happening is high enough to warrant the premium ($200/yr), especially considering the price of the rig and the fact that the policy covers everything else I own. If I didn't have the policy I'd have my eye on my rig all day long at the DZ, but at least now I can relax and set it down and walk away for lunch or whatever. But not all costs in life are best turned into low monthly payments. That's the way most of our society lives (paycheck to paycheck), but it is good to save some percentage of your earnings. Life isn't normalized, i.e. the same thing doesn't happen every day. There are highs and lows, so we can't spend as if every week is the same. NG - sorry to hear about your cat. I'd probably be stupid enough to spend $900 on my cats too. www.WingsuitPhotos.com

I didn't want to put this in any of the other threads, and I hope it doesn't seem like a troll. I am in full support of all the effort being put into finding a safer, universal system of determining exit separation. But I am curious... how many incidents happen on a regular basis (or have ever happened) because of insufficient separation? Again, I'm not knocking the value of separation - in my very short time jumping I've already seen a few close calls during deployments. It's terrifying, and we've all seen it happen and heard stories of people freefalling 10 feet away from a fully inflated canopy. But I'm just curious how often the shit actually does hit the fan. It's obvious close calls happen with some frequency. www.WingsuitPhotos.com