yoink

Kiwis. They can't get anything right.

Southwest, Delta and Virgin have all been good to me. I'll never get on another USAirways plane.

Possibly the best catch in cricket history? http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=9Wq5MHIRWqQ

People have to remember that in windy conditions the area of turbulence from an object can extend 10 times the objects height. Just landing a bit aways from objects isn't good enough.

Ow. That looked brutal. Great example of why jumping in winds, even if they're steady, can up your risk significantly.

I LOVE that pic!

Fingers crossed for you Sangi. That sort of condition I wouldn't wish on anyone. I'm sure your doctors will have told you that nerve regeneration is pretty much the slowest process in the body, but it can happen. Try and stay positive.

Oh the irony! Your Bounce Bingo card has crashed! Try again... Nope, didn't even come close to dying. How about posting your name and DZ so that people can make an informed choice not to jump with you if that's what they want? You can go and be the Skygod, and they can avoid you, problem solved. Of course, if you're just trolling, or if you know that you wouldn't say half the dumb crap you come out with to peoples faces at your dz, by all means, keep schtum. The Sangi thread is an exact parallel. Ignore the camera vs canopy bit - it's the attitude of 'I know everything' that makes people draw the conclusion that you're on the same path. I won the bounce bingo for him - who's going to do it for you, I wonder? This isn't about harassing newbies - if you're going to come onto a public forum, full of people with far more experience and knowledge than you seem to posess, and then make blanket statements that are plain wrong you can expect to be called on them, because one day some gung-ho newbie may well read your WRONG statements and use them as justification for doing whatever they want... "Oh - I saw on the internet that there has never been a fatality attributed to small format cameras, so I'll probably be fine putting one on at 50 jumps. My skills are way ahead of the curve." Then they take out another jumper because they're in over their head without realising it, based on bad information. That's what it comes down to for me - posts here stick around, and it's amazing what people dig up as justifications for doing stupid shit, and unfortunately for every 1 post saying 'you'll probably be fine' it seems to take about 50 pointing out how dumb it really is to make any impact on the future newbie. I don't get why you wouldn't put your name on your posts - if you're so certain of your conclusions, and confident in your research...

You're missing the point entirely. The guys skydiving skills have no relevance in this thread. He could fly like a World Team member and it would STILL be a dumb idea to wear a camera at his experience level. Your post was just bitching about a check dive that was found on his youtube channel; overly bitchy, in my opinion. At your point in your skydiving career you should be saying 'nice one completing your checkout dive, dude!' and be stoked for a fellow student while leaving the hyper-critical appraisal to others. By all means form your own opinions, but posting as an expert-type analysis from your ivory tower makes you come accross as kinda dumb...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YiIcKXIKnkc&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL Check out the next one on his video list... Looks to me like an AFF dive with a freaking costume on. WTF? 1) Didn't even pretend to spot 2) I counted maybe 5 alti checks 3) flew like a can of pringles 4) delta track =! hands on ass 5) looked at the ground at deployment (contribute to his line twists?) I'm sure there are more but i stopped paying attention So we've gone from saying that being allowed to wear a camera while you're a student is a dumb idea, to just bitching about his general skydiving, huh? That looked like some sort of qualification jump to me, so answer me this - how are YOUR student jumps going? I'm sure you look like a pro and fly perfectly...

Lawyers should be fined for every time they sue someone which doesn't make it to a certain stage of the process. There has to be some way to get away from the 'SUE EVERYONE!' mentality.

Sucessful relationships require compromise, so sure, sometimes I'll stay in watch some crappy chick flick, even though I'd rather be out with my mates. I'm certain that sometimes she'll do stuff with me that she doesn't really want to. If you've got a problem with this sort of stuff with your mates, that's YOUR issue. Not theirs.

Equality and respect shouldn't come out of your mouth. I don't believe you have any concept of what the words really mean. You're one of the most shallowly mysoginistic people I've ever seen. Every single post you make is derogatory in one form or another. Your attitude towards women in particular and relationships in general is like reading something out of the medieval ages. Yet somehow, despite all of that, you manage to convince yourself that you're the 'enlightend guy'. Sorry pal. You're not. You're an embarrassment. An embarrassment with serious psychological problems. Seek help.

Super cool video, but yeah - it looks REALLY fucking twitchy on fronts after you've got it diving. I reckon Icarus took a GL canopy swooping.

Yup - it looks liek exactly the same sort of frontal collapse you'd see on paraglider-based speed wings. Those tend to fold under then reinflate really fast though, but pulling on a front riser on one of those wings is a guarenteed way to induce one! It's odd to see it happen on a wing that's designed to be flown with that type of input in mind though, and also in what must be a high pressure phase of the flight.

That's my point - you're going at it backwards. Step 1: Pick your main canopy. It sounds like you're going for a Safire 179? Step 2: Choose a container that fits that main and is sized correctly for you. Almost all containers will by default fit a similar sized main and reserve. Step 3: Pick a reserve that fits the specs of the reserve container based upon your personal preferences for a manufacturer. As -ftp- says, picking the smallest packing reserve you can is only an applicable seletion criteria if you're trying to jam it into an already tight container that you've got, and that's not a great idea if you can avoide it by buying properly sized gear off the bat. All of that aside, conventional advice would be to build your first rig out of second hand gear, rather than buying new. Have you considered that option? Edit: If you were serious about your answer being option B, I'll let you in on a home truth... Experienced jumpers laugh at newbies who have all matching, tiny gear. Honestly. It's the ones who save their cash to progress their skills that we think look cool.

Why is it important to you which packes the smallest? Get a main parachute that fits your experience. Get a harness / container that fits your nely determined main parachute, your body size and will allow for a downsize later, then find a reserve at the same size as that main and check it fits the container you've picked - it should do. Chosing your gear by 'which is the smallest' is a strange way of looking at it.

A general stab in the dark, since he's still on the PDFT, that it is a new R&D canopy. They've been known to show up with goofy canopies to different meets in the past. It also says a LOT about their skill as a canopy pilot. I've been jumping the same canopy for a long time now and I still can't keep up when they're on a canopy they've been on for a couple of hundred jumps. Looks interesting, 9-cell x-braced, no stabilizers, and looking fast. Then again, JaMo could make a large blue tarp swoop fast. Maybe it's just a wierd camera angle - I've not seen too many from that perspective, but that second clip looks like the canopy has a super high AoA. You can see almost the entire top skin throughout the swoop. always good to see some new stuff - even if it never makes it to production. I loved Icarus' R&D video playlist that they released earlier this year. It'd be great to see some of PD's! nudge nudge, Ian!

Props for trying, but dude! If the welding can't even keep the wheel struts together, I wouldn't want to be the first person testing how the wings are attached!

Yeah. Someone who spends all of his time whining on an internet forum about women? Seriously, is there a name for what's wrong with you?

now take a guess why my instructors, once i've mentioned dizzy.com, told me to never-ever take anything serious from here - 4 1/2yrs ago!!? Isn't it a huge coincidence that it's full of good advice when it matches the message you want to send, but as soon as it's not what you want to hear nothing on it can be taken seriously? You can't have it both ways. At the moment, everytime you post, you're sounding more and more like a child, and worse, a 100 jump wonder. You've been around enough, both here and in the real world skydiving that you know 'My instructor with x thousand jumps says I'll be fine' is a standard response from newbies who are pushing it. You also know that the advice on canopy progression here comes from people with far more experience and who have put far more thought into those recommendations than whoever you're taking advice from has, yet you ignore it because, well, you just don't like it. That's just childish - it's the DZ equivalent of sticking your fingers in your ears and going 'LALALA I can't hear you!' How do you not see the similarity between you and Old-Sangi?

You must have missed the BPA's official "clarification" which basically says that no you can't unless the other guys are coaches. so the Bpa ops manual is out of date or been failed to be updated as per NB1 in section 6.4 thats a bit lax on their part Correct. Although the BPA insist the ops manual has only been "misinterpreted" and therefore doesn't need updating. Can you provide a link to any official (or not!) communication from the BPA that says any of this? The ops manual is all skydivers have to go on - if the BPa think that the possibility of misinterpretation is there, then they are obliged to alter it. If the BPA were serious about it, they'd make the wording explicit - it doesn't cost anything. Of course, it would smack of making an actual policy - something seemingly forbidden in the BPA lingo(!), but this sounds off to me - where did you hear this? From the Ops Manual "No more than one Category 8 jumper per group, all other jumpers in any group must be FS1 parachutists." (6.4.1 NB1) No mention of coaches anywhere. Seems clear to me, and every other skydiver out there. To the OP - you may be done. It's not for everyone. I quit eventually. But if you're not, the rules allow you to do more than solos.

Ask you DZO why he thinks it a good idea to let someone with less than 100 jumps jump a camera and fly a 135 against every recommendation out there. If you're genuninely worriedd about this, the way to deal with it is to simply refuse to be on a plane with the idiot. If enough people do it, he'll either be told to get his shit together, or be sent packing. You may miss a couple of loads, but you won't be in the sky with a flying crater. Also, have him read the 'Watching out for Newbies' thread in this forum. When he says 'I'm not a newbie', or 'I've got mad skills', tell him to get his head out of his ass and to talk to Sangi, the subject of that thread - and he had 3 times the number of jumps your friend had. He was standing up all of his landings fine too - right up to the point he femured in as we all predicted. Have him read the incidents thread and look at the photo of Sangi lying in the grass, struggling to breathe and broken. Your mate is on the same path. Edit: Spikes - this is why newbies are so dangerous to themselves; they simply don't have a full enough understanding of skydiving to know what risks they're taking. It's not quite as simple as his weight, or even his skill - even if they guy is 120 pounds, smaller canopies fly and react differently to big ones, even at the same wingloading. You might get away with it for a while, but you're reducing the margin for error in learning to almost zero. Combine that with the camera flying, and to me it shows a dangerous attitude, or a lack of understanding of the risks he's putting himself and others in. However, if you said this to him, I'm prepared to put $20 on him saying one of the following: "It's not a distraction" "I just turn it on and forget about it" "I only use it for solos" "Hot shit canopy pilot X says I'll be fine" "I fly conservatively" "Some people learn faster than others" "I'm attending / have attended a canopy class" "I'm not going to swoop" "The old guys are just jelous of young guys who are better than them"

Oh god. I think I felt my IQ drop 60 points from the first 2 minutes of that video. Must be the chemicles in the air con round here.