gus

I jump a Crossfire2 at around 1.7 or 1.8 and I find the riser pressure 'moderate'. I'm not a strong guy by any stretch of the imagination. I can adjust my 180 part way through the turn and end in double fronts if need be. Last weekend I put a couple of jumps on an VX 84 (2 or 2.1) and the front riser pressure was off the scale. I tried starting my turn from brakes and using harness input but I couldn't hold a 180. Pathetic eh? I'd quite like to try a Xaos 21, there are plenty of posts saying that the riser pressure is much more manageable than the VX's but how does it (the Xaos 21) compare to the Crossfire2? Thanks! Gus OutpatientsOnline.com

Here are my thoughts, for what they're worth. That's a bad habit to get in to. When you go from sit straight to flat you 'cork' incredibly, ie you suddenly slow right down from sit speeds to flat speeds. In a 2-way you can get away with it because you can be certain where your friend is. But what if you're doing a 3-way, you loose sight of someone, go flat and it turns out they were 50 ft directly above you. You can very easily create very dangerous closing speeds between 2 jumpers. Closing speeds high enough to break bones, dislocated joints, knock you out....or worse. The problem with tracking off on your back is exactly what you've said: lots of people just aren't good enough at it! But there's another problem and it's about clearing your airspace again. Suppose you're doing a 3-way and at 5k you're sat facing your mate but you've lost that troublesome 3rd person again. If you blindly roll backwards and start back tracking off, what happens if they're directly behind you? That transition from sit to backtrack can generate alot of horizontal speed, again enough to hurt or worse. The first step to a successful breakoff is prevention. Boring but true. Choose your jump buddies carefully. Be realistic about everybody's skill level. Consider the weather conditions (might you loose people in cloud?). Have a plan B incase plan A goes to shit. The second step is observation. If you loose someone on a jump don't just say "ah fuck it" and hope it'll be ok, try and find them. This comes down to choosing your jump buddies again, you shouldn't really be jumping with people who can't stay close enough together to maintain visible contact. The third step is anticipation. Don't be suprised when your dytter goes off at 5. Especially in big groups I start to plan my escape during the last few thousand feet, making sure I can see everyone, finding my gap, maybe even sneakily repositioning myself to get a more favourable tracking direction . Finally, in sit jumps, I like to turn 180 and go in to a steep track, gradually flatening it out until pull time. As I turn 180 from the center of the group I look above me to make sure there's no-one there, then I look in the direction I'm about to track to make sure there's no-one there. Then I roll forwards, put my head where my feet were and track like my life depends on it. Phew! Hope that came out more helpful than preachy. You caught me on my lunch break and I'm in no hurry to get back to work . Gus OutpatientsOnline.com

Not really. As a very general rule a skydiving parachute will descend at something like 1000 feet a minute. Skydiving parachutes are not designed like paragliders to glide and catch thermals. Therefore if you open your canopy at 3000 ft you can fly for 3 minutes. Imagine how congested the sky would get if we all stayed up there for an hour! Basically you are always moving forward. Modern, rectangular, ram-air canopies (like the one you did your tandem on) are wings just like the wings of an aeroplane. These canopies don't slow your descent simply by producing drag (like jumping off a roof with an umbrella) instead they produce lift. But, like aeroplanes, to produce lift there needs to be air flowing over the wing so basically you are always moving forwards. Some canopies will fly backwards but they're not really designed to do so. They're pretty much the same thing, it's when you pull down on both steering toggles. That increases the amount of lift the canopy is producing, therefore slowing your descent ie for landing, and also the amount of drag, which slows your forward speed. Gus OutpatientsOnline.com

Some discussion here. Gus OutpatientsOnline.com

Surely it's a myth? If it was essential or even just a good idea then at least one of the manufacturers would recommend it. Having said that I'd do some anyway, just to get some time under that awesome XF2 99!

Well I did 7 hop and pops between 3k and 4.5k on Saturday. It was a blast!

The BPA ops manual reads: In reality, if this was followed to the letter we would very rarely get to jump, that's the reality of British weather. In my experience the CCI's decision to allow jumping or not has more to do with the level of cloudbase: if it's low, and people are going to be opening and flying around in cloud, then we don't jump. There's another European country (Sweden? Norway? I can't remember) which has no restrictions on cloud cover. Gus OutpatientsOnline.com

I chose to get another bridle, just to keep the shrivel flap clean really. There's a lot of mud in England! Gus OutpatientsOnline.com

The Teardrop Classic is certainly not ideal for freefly. I've done several hundred jumps with my best mate where he's been jumping a Classic and nothing bad ever happened BUT his main flap was ALWAYS undone and to be honest it made me a little nervous. Like you, he was always very good about replacing the velcro and the riser covers never caused a problem. Rather strangely, he sold that rig (to someone at the same dz) and the new owner was told he wasn't allowed to freefly in it . If you keep the velcro in good condition, keep the closing loop tight and in good condition then it's probably ok for solos at least. Remember though, as soon as you start jumping with other people the chances of your pin getting knocked in freefall go up. IMHO you also have a responsibility to those you are jumping with. Do you really want a premature deployment just as your mate is coming in to dock on your shoulders? Keep it but aim to replace it sooner rather than later, that's what I'd do. Gus OutpatientsOnline.com

Dude that's awesome

When I was looking around for a new rig I wanted a Vector but I also wanted a 99 main and that meant having a pretty small reserve (like a PDR 106). So I bought a Wings and they built me a great container for a 99 main and a 126 reserve. It's completely solid, as far as I'm aware nothing's every come open in freefall. Gus OutpatientsOnline.com

You know who the best people to ask are? skydive@bpa.org.uk Gus OutpatientsOnline.com

Like this? (originally posted in this thread in the crw forum) It looks like a lot of added complexity for not a lot of gain. Gus OutpatientsOnline.com

There's an ad in the BASE section of the classifieds (here) which reads: Is that as unusual as it sounds? Gus OutpatientsOnline.com

The problem with having your ProTrack inside your helmet is that when you move your head around the change in pressure can confuse it a bit. For the purposes of logging jumps or getting average speeds or freefall times that doesn't really matter. But if you're doing something like speed skydiving and you want to download the data to look at the speed/time graph it can be a bit 'screwy', ie you'll get a 'cleaner' graph with the ProTrack mounted on your leg than mounted in the helmet. In short: mount it in the helmet. Gus OutpatientsOnline.com

Some pictures for your amusement. These were taken after I'd done an initial clean. Gus OutpatientsOnline.com

Thanks Chuck, thanks Charles. Unfortunately there's considerably more than just a few small spots of grease but I'll try and find those things you've suggested and see what happens. Gus OutpatientsOnline.com

If anyone has any experience or expertise in cleaning minging sticky industrial grease from F111 material can you get in contact please? Or post any advice here. Thanks, Gus gus AT outpatientsonline DOT com OutpatientsOnline.com

What I mean is: I can't throw the pc out (ie sideways) until I've pulled it down a bit (towards my feet) and extracted a bit of the pc from the pouch. And because my arm is already straight when I grab the pc I don't have any reach left to pull the pc down unless I bend a bit at the waist. Gus OutpatientsOnline.com

I've only done a couple of leg pouch jumps on my S3 but what I noticed is that with my hand on the pilot chute my arm is already straight, so in order to pull the pc down (ie towards my feet to extract it from the pouch) and out I have to bend slightly at the hips to create a bit of 'slack' if that makes sense. Is that pretty normal? The suit was made for me and fits great. Gus OutpatientsOnline.com

The text reads: I don't think it's really suggesting that you should be able to lift your rig right off the floor by your pin flap. Like Rob said, very few containers will pass that test and it's not really a fair one. But if you try it and the flap opens really easily then maybe there's a problem and I'd guess that's the point. Gus OutpatientsOnline.com

Hey Darren, The vid from that jump was pretty frightening, glad you came through it. And kudos for discussing it here. I took my S3 to that same wall but decided I wouldn't jump boc so I'm getting some leg pouch skydives done before I go back. It's definately the way to go. Gus OutpatientsOnline.com

Surely that depends on how much slack there is already in the braklines, before you move the toggles? Gus OutpatientsOnline.com

Done. SDM is cool. Gus OutpatientsOnline.com

I used to jump a Sabre2 120 and packed a Crossfire2 119 in to that rig a few times. I barely noticed any difference in pack volume. If anything, I'd say the Crossfire2 packed up a tiny bit smaller but they seemed almost identical. Gus OutpatientsOnline.com