DrewGPM

Most people are going to defer advice to your instructors, since they know more about your canopy skills and your awareness level. In this case you have one on each side of the debate. I'm sure we're all wondering why each instructor feels the way they do. Maybe sit down with both of them and the three of you can come to an agreement. Downsizing just be able to jump in higher wind conditions seems kind of crazy to me. Are you comfortable with your current canopy? Are you standing up all of your landings? Do you own it, or are you renting gear? Been through any canopy control training? How strong are winds when you stop getting penetration right now? Do you care whether you jump in winds in higher than that right now? Before downsizing, make sure you're proficient with the canopy you have. There are two great checklists worth reading. http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/safety/detail_page.cgi?ID=47 and http://www.bigairsportz.com/art-skilldrills.php are good resources. and read the thread on jumping in winds...http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=1621584;sb=post_latest_reply;so=ASC;forum_view=forum_view_collapsed;;page=unread#unread good lessons to learn there. Notice that the new person saysthe winds were fine, but the old timers who were there say she had no business jumping at the time. As you start jumping in higher winds, the cost of making some mistake goes up. At 700 jumps, I'm usualy grounding myself at 17mph and any time the winds are gusty

I'm the man you're looking for. The schedule posted at http://www.canopypiloting.com/ill.htm. The competitions will be Sunday. Saturday will be used for practice AND for the MWSL 4-way and the new VRW 2-way competitions. I am not planning to use the pond for meet 1. People at the other DZ's haven't had a chance to see it yet, so i don't think it's fair. If you get a chance, please go to http://canopypiloting.tempwebpage.com/cgi-bin/gforum/gforum.cgi?post=2504;sb=post_latest_reply;so=ASC;forum_view=forum_view_collapsed;;page=unread#unread and list yourself as a competitor. Feel free to email me if you have any questions.

The guy is jumping a Spectre with a 1.1 to 1 wing loading. How is that so dangerous that you are convinced he's gonna kill himself with it? Or is there more to this story that we haven't read on here?

I agree with everything except swoop cords. Everyone told me to get them, so i did. Unfortunately they don't help you slow down your base fall rate. When you go low on a formation, swoop cords will get you back up. But you can't fly with them once you get back up there. As soon as the swoop cord relaxes, you go low again. I wasted 20-30 jumps trying to fly the swoop cords. Now they are disconnected on most jumps. The base fall rate comes down to body position, jump suit material, the booties and how baggy the suit fits. heavy material is key. Big booties generate a lot of drag. Big grippers help, especially if you get inside and outside grippers on the legs. Extra fabric in the forearm and big wings are a must. Two layers of fabric on the front helps too. Don't use a lot black fabric, that bad boy is gonna be hot enough as it is! For the love of god, no spandex. Big guys in spandex of any kind just wrong...trust me, i tried on a speedo once...lesson learned! The body position is important too. Stay very flat, almost no arch at all. Point your toes to the side while you fly, it helps you utilize all that bootie fabric. Get coaching and tunnel time to figure out the body position, it's faster than figuring it out noe jump at a time.

From one large mammal to another, get a jump suit and work on your fall rate. Those fast jumps are fun, but the longer you wait to work on controlling your fall rate, the harder it will be to master. You learn so many bad habits...and those are hard to break. I spent 400 jumping a suit that was too small. My average fall rate was 130, and my body position was more like a de-arch. I learned to fly like that, but my range sucked. I couldn't jump with most people because they couldn't/wouldn't keep up with me. When i did jump with them, I was in the base of formations, then i'd go low when we transitioned from point 1 to point 2. I got so frustrated that I stopped doing anything bigger than an 8 way. That eventually lead to me jumping with freefliers. But I was missing out on a lot of fun jumps. I regret waiting so long to get a better suit. Two years ago i picked up a new suit from http://www.zutesute.com/index.html and it changed EVERYTHING. I've been as slow as 117 and my average is down to 122-125 on most jumps. I still go low on some of the bigger formations, but now i have the fall rate range to get back to the formation. Do yourself a favor, get some coaching in a wind tunnel. there are a lot of drill they can show you. My first time in the tunnel i was stuck on the bottom, and that was using the biggest suit they had. By the end of the 3 day tunnel camp I was using my own suit and flying around the tunnel like it was nothing.

I don't know that a wind change would account for a 200 foot difference. I think it is a game of inches. You dial everything in perfect and you get 494 Miss the sweet spot, or hit it at the wrong time, and you end up at something less.. There must be something going on there. The average competitor dropped over 100 feet from jump 1 to jump 3. Chirs Hayes and Luke Aikins are the only one to have roud 3 be better that round 1. Hayes and Provenzo were the only two to improve from round 1 to 2.

did you look at the website before moving this? The website is a team of guys that "offer talent for Aerial and other stunts, we specialize in B.A.S.E. (fixed object) jumping..." Granted the clip he referenced is not BASE, but the most of site is.

Took a few tries before i noticed the power bar. I couldn't figure out why some launches were really fast and others were really slow. 938 for me.

http://www.canopypiloting.com/2005grandprixresults.htm

glad to see somebody picked up on that.

you should be able to find it at any shoe store. There has to be one of those near by. I buy mine at the grocery store, but only at the big chain stores..mom and pop stores don't seem to carry it.

I hear it happens all the time at http://www.skydive-illinois.com/ and many of the drop zones listed on http://www.makeithappen.com/jumps/review/cedartown.html#smiss That's just what i hear, never been there myself

some compete, others like world records and big ways. Some belly fly, others freefly, and crazy bastards do CRW! You find what you like and stick with it. Try new things, you never whether you'll like it if don't try. I prefer 4-way. I compete but we never train or get too serious! I also choose 4-way for my fun jumps. I like working with newbies, and 4-way makes it easy. Other that you'll see me on the sunset load with cooler around my neck...so i can have snack on my cross country! You haven't lived until you've had a pulled pork sandwich at 12,000 feet! THAT IS WHY I'M IN THE SPORT! Find your thing and go with it! I got two words for you NAKED JUMP!!!! Stick with it and have fun!

Uh... What's a vagina? Where do I buy one? You can't buy one, but you can rent one if you know the right kind of woman. Some take cash, others will take Visa. The really smart ones take the house, the car and your dog!

The fact that there hasn't been a water fatality in a while could very well be attributed to the required water training. I have 8 friends who are alive today because they had water training. They had unintended landings in Lake Michigan. Just because you normally jump in a desert doesn't mean you don't need water training. Plenty of people travel to mexico and other places that are near water. Plus, you never know when you're gonna find that one river or pond in the area. I'd rather have the training and never need it. I say you have to keep that in there. Canopy training should be part of the USPA student program. The ISP includes freflying....which graduates may or may not do after they graduate. In fact, some of the most experienced freeflyers feel that nobody with less that 100 jumps should be freeflying. But canopy control, which we do on EVERY jump, we don't teach. I don't get it. We gotta teach it to them while the instructors still have some control. I hope drop zones will add canopy control coaching to help students. Students are looking things to do after graduation anyway...why not canopy control drills?

that figures...i got there just in time for the strippers to be putting clothes ON! At least i got a quick flash...and a margarita! Not a bad deal

according to http://www.kombucha.org/, it is not a mushroom. Sounds interesting though.

don't be so sorry. You demonstrated why he is so pissed off at USPA. You, with 100 jumps, have formed a basic outline for a canopy coaching system. The USPA with thousands of members and countless years of working in the sport, won't come up with anything. Why do we pay them all that money to renew if they can't do something that someone with 100 jumps can come up with?

Let's see if i have this straight. In a 3-d image, you have the x, y and z axis. If the center (0,0,0) is the belly button of a person facing you, then the X is pitch, Y is yaw and z is roll. That means that: a turn on the Roll axis is like a cartwheel a turn on the Yaw axis is like spinning around while standing a turn on the Pitch axis is like doing a front flip or back loop

I think his point is that the USPA is telling us to get professional coaching, but they don't offer any instructor rating for the sport. A valid point of disgust. Tandem masters have to be strong rated or vector rated. But they do have a USPA rating. Brian Germain offers a Canopy Coach Rating. I trust him far more than i do USPA. Not sure if anyone else has a coach course designed yet. Drop zones should encourage instructors to get that rating, in my opinion. How many more fatalities and broken femurs are we gonna read about while USPA decides to do something about it? I for one, am already promoting canopy control courses for everyone and encouraging instructors to take Brians coach course.

There is more info in the Sigma at http://www.relativeworkshop.com/pdt_sigma.html . That tells you a little about why it claims to be so much safer. As far as why the other manufacturers aren't using that design...talk to Bill Booth at Relative Workshop. This is his baby, as was the 3-ring system. He has some interesting experiences from sharing your patents with others. It's an interesting case study...and in case you're thinking it, the desicion isn't just about making money on your inventions.

Not sure about your schedule, but see if you can't get away long enough to attend a canopy seminar. Brian Germain will be in Sweden and Denmark in July. If you can't make it to one of those, see if he'll come to Finland for you. It'll be worth it! http://www.bigairsportz.com/schedule.php

amen to that! Great post. The WFFC incident...i always wondered how the people on that load were affected by it. Sorry you had to endure that.

Sorry to hear the nobody ever told who can and can't sign your jumps. It's in the SIM though. I'd suggest reading through the SIM, in case your instructors missed anything else. According to section 3-1 part C on http://www.uspa.org/publications/SIM/2004SIM/section3.htm The signatures are required for license and ratings. So until you have a D, all jumps should be signed according that section. Once you have your D, then they only need to signed if you need them to qualify for an instructor rating. The jumps that you signed for yourself should not be counted toward and USPA license. I'd suggest having a signing party to get all those jumps signed by someone else.

There is a thread where Brian Germain talks about flat turns. It starts out talking about yaw, but talks about flat turns. http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=1607399;sb=post_latest_reply;so=ASC;forum_view=forum_view_collapsed;;page=unread#unread