frost

When asked for, good advice is GREAT and very much appreciated. However, when advice was not asked, but was given anyway or given on subject not originally asked about, then it's bound to result in negativity. When the advice giver starts by saying "you dont know better or you dont understand or your experience is not good enough" then the BEST advice will fall on deaf ears. Demeaning someone else's opinion or expertise is THE worst way to get your point across. Basic human psychology man.

Very, very arrogant. I guess the safety of internet allows you to make such statements and call people "fucking idiots" with no caution. Oh well - i guess thats your thing. More power to you. And yet you still give advice... LOL That IS funny. Considering that you are just a season of jumps ahead of the original poster. and as far as "Why? Because he asked.....pretty simple." He didnt ask for your opinion on what he should or should not do. He asked about RDS design.

If you feel that he is "coming across as youve got it covered....all figured out......I can handle it......thanks for your opinion......" then why not just let the man do what he wants instead of aggravating him by telling him what to do and what not to do, calling his instructors "fucking idiots"? You are coming off like you feel that you know so much more then he does... Do you REALLY think you can get your point accross to ANYONE talking like that?

I sign my name under this one without hesitating MEL is DA man, super nice guy, goes the extra step to hook you up and does high quality work.

Man, thats fucking dumb. I'm not even sure if I'm talking about jumping an RDS and not swooping, or just getting open at 1800 ft, or combining the two. Anyway you want to cut it, just dumb. First off, pull higher. At least 500 ft, maybe more. Tell all of your buddies too. Even if you're doing RW, move the break off up, and your pull altitudes as well. One day the extra feet may save your ass. Really. Second, either ditch the RDS idea all together, or man up, and repack your shit if you're not planning on removing it. Keeping things as simple as possible the way to go. Having an RDS if you're not swooping is dumb, and then to not even remove it on a jump is really making things far more complicatied for absolutley no reason. I vote you ditch the RDS until you're an awesome swooper, and it's the only way you'll go any faster or any further. Dude, above all, take a deep breath, and think about what you're doing. You're skydiving. Jumping out of a plane. Thats exciting enough for now. Don't try to reinvent the wheel, or make things harder then they need to be just to do it. Thats how you get yourself or someone else fucked up. Just the fact that you would use a centered single-piont attachment for your RDS shows a lack of understanding as to whats going on. While i agree with you completely... why waste your breath, telling the man what to do? Obviously he will do what he wants to do anyway, the man himself just advised him about how bad the idea of RDS is at 200 jumps. Are you even allowed by BSRs to open @ 1800 with 200 jumps (no D license right?)

Couldnt agree more!! Even in 2001-02 there was may be 15% of people using rear risers @ some of the events i saw... I think today a decent swooper with 1000-1500 jumps and 2-3 years in the sport is years ahead of a 3-4 thousand jump pro of 2000-2002... Pilots are progressing so fast, quickly catching up to the evolution rate of the wing design. These are exciting times for swooping and canopy piloting.

I can personally vouch for that also. Nothing but good vibes and high quality work from MEL and Joe has been really cool about taking the time to explain things to me...

The weather was CRAP - low clouds and rain, we only got 3 jumps in out of 9 - straight lane and half of a carving lane. But it was still a lot of fun. Here are some awesome pics by papa Laci: http://theblueskyranch.com/gallery/2006RanchSwoopMeet My favorites: http://theblueskyranch.com/gallery/2006RanchSwoopMeet/MG_7234 http://theblueskyranch.com/gallery/2006RanchSwoopMeet/MG_7271 http://theblueskyranch.com/gallery/2006RanchSwoopMeet/MG_7319

Watch the Swoop DVD

cool, thanks! i'll PM him

Any idea where i can find info on that?

Thank you divnswoop and Spizzzarko ! Another option for those who are like me are concerned with high reserve wing loading is to demo it. I will be ordering a demo 113-R to jump it as a main a few times, just to know what to expect. Of course there are other important concerns with a small highly loaded reserve like divnswoop said. Dual canopies out is also a major one... but i guess those are the extra risks we're willing to take? I'm a little scared SoFPiDaRF - School of Fast Progress in Downsizing and Radical Flying. Because nobody knows your skills better than you.

Does anyone here have a full time rig with a PD reserve loaded at 2 to 1? Have you actually flown it? How did it feel? Any concerns, worries etc.?

You're right... I wonder how many big names were considered a hazard to themselves when they were just starting out... You do it long enough and survive you WILL get better. May be this kid will be the next Top Swooper someday

Johnny talked to him right after the crash... I came up 10 minutes later and from a few phrases it seemed that the advice fell on deaf ears... i also thought that when someone is on a x-fire 99 @ 300 jumps and then on a VX @ 450 jumps, he probably heard it all before. Probably might even fall in a category of people who are in tune with their body and have been racing motorcycles their entire life. You're on your way

I guess this story will be too familiar for most... So we had this new kid at the DZ last weekend. He was jumping a VX-80-something. Not a small guy, probably 175-180 w/out gear. I dont recall ever seeing him swoop here before. He was swooping the pond, doing big turns - 540's mostly. On EVERY turn he was super low, coming out of the dive already in 3/4 brakes. Watching from a distance, locals were commenting on how long before he beefs it. And he did... Lucky for him it was on the water AND water level was a foot or so lower then usual. If it was ground... he'd be proper fucked. The splash was spectacular! After making sure he was OK (he had a few bruises and some blood from a cut on his leg, but no breaks), I asked him to dub the video that his girl was shooting. He was nice enough to let me do it. Needless to say it will make the end of year DVD. Here is the fun part. He said he had 150-200 jumps on that canopy. Guess how many he had overall? 450!! He was on a X-fire 99 before that. !!!!! Now, may be he was lying about one or the other but still... Appears that some dealer sold the canopy to him at some boogie... I may be wrong about that though. Now we can go into a debate of responsibilities, freedom of choice etc. etc. but it wont change anything. It seems like a bad accident just waiting to happen... Chances are, any course of action to prevent this from happening would probably be useless. What can you do? 1. Talk to the guy? He might listen, but probably wont hear. Most people want to hear only what they want to hear. 2. Banning from DZ? There are other DZs around, he'll go somewhere else. 3. Or just shake your head and go about your business, hoping that he will be ok? 4. what else? Speaking for myself: Knowing what the response to 1 would probably be, I chose number 3.

Whats the deal with JVX lineset on VX? Does it change the trim or is it just that it's thinner?

Did he ask for advice on what to fly? No. He posted a great video for people to look at. Why do people feel the need to give their input on something they werent asked to give input on?

i speak good

It's great that you paid such attention to the original post! Did you happen to see the one where i was saying that i was simply raising a discussion? and that I've read the theory, understood it and now simply was questioning it? I was hoping that was still the best way to learn. It isnt warranted being talked down to like a clueless AFF student... There are different ways of relaying information and that way is the least productive one. Someone can be providing most excellent info but if presented in such manner it will generate nothing but rejection - the opposite of what was intended by the speaker. This is not directed at you personally, just a general comment. If I am saying something that differs from my original post, that is simply because I dont really have a solid position on this and am trying to determine the reason why I find myself having to make a quicker turn in higher winds or using toggles to come out of a dive. Thats all. BTW, I am not an english language guru either - it is afterall my second language. But i think this topic is definitely getting semantic. And redundant.

I was being as sarcastic as i could without putting a gay smily at the end of my post Must i go and quote another thread? It has EVERYTHING to do with that.

If one chooses to think of the wind as homogeneous mass of air from the physics point of view where the wind is strictly parallel to the ground... then it works as designed. I don’t think anyone was arguing with that. But in reality, when is wind ever straight forward and parallel to the ground? So if you allow for the fact that it alters your flight IN RELATIONSHIP to the ground horizontally, then why not accept that it can alter your flight vertically IN RELATIONSHIP to the ground? Since the wind is not perfectly parallel to the ground, it will carry you vertically into or away from the earth. If you think of it as 2-D flight, you won’t see it, but in 3-D it will be a different story.

Lets wait for the gurus of swooping to tell you that you are too low and are doing something wrong. May be you'll learn something, but you'll have to keep an open mind. Forget what your neptune is telling you - they know better.

LOL OK bro. thanks for your help - I'll be sure to follow your teachings on all points of swooping and canopy control.

LOL hey marks, you sent me two PM and now wont accept mine? Oh you're breaking my heart man, after all we've been through....