NickDG

Seth was also a B.A.S.E. jumper, and that side of the house misses him too . . . NickD

Yes, from the last photo it looks like you need to re-attach your toggles. If you are in full flight it looks to be inhibiting the tail a bit. Otherwise you need a re-line when the canopy starts acting like your girlfriend and not your wife. It really depends on how tapered and how highly wing loaded your wing is as to how much out of trim you can stand. Like a PD 170 can be severely out of trim (factory line spec) but still be okay to jump because its a low performance canopy and wouldn't put you into the kind of line twists that you'd have to chop. The higher the performance and the higher the wing loading the more you need to pay attention to line trim. Taking a small Stiletto, at a high performance wing loading, to 300 jumps and you will be pushing the line specs. The above discounts, of course, any obvious line damage. And the reason lines go out of trim is because we use sliders. The inboard and outboard lines actually touch the slider grommets as the slider descends and this rubbing creates friction that heats those lines enough to heat shrink them. If you only just B.A.S.E. jump without ever using a slider your lines would never go out of trim, or at least they would go out of trim evenly and you'd never notice it . . . NickD

I was out of town this week but didn't see anyone mention the anniversary of the Perris Otter crash. Jumpers in Perris had a thing last night off the DZ at a local restaurant. Remembrance vid is here: http://www.dropzone.com/videos/Detailed/57.html Blue skies you guys . . . NickD

No thanks necessary, Gary. Especially from you. You've done your bit with all the stuff PARACHUTIST has printed. They never use the stuff I send them as it's a bit too blunt for them so I gave up. BTW, I was working at Square One in the early nineties when you came out with that computer canopy coloring program for Windows 1.1. If Tony Domenico had given you a just small piece of every canopy we sold because of that program (the rubes were lined up out the door for a go at it) you'd be a richer man today . . . NickD

"Hey Man, Got Any Reefing?" I think we are confusing line dump and bag strip. And, more importantly, the role of the slider in all this confusion. Line dump isn't the end of the world as long the last two locking stows stay in place on the d-bag, and they usually do. They do because the upper part of a line set is where the cascades are and the extra bulk of the finger traps makes this section a bit thicker. So even someone who loosely stows their lines by not double wrapping the stow bands, or using stow bands that are too big, these initial locking stows are usually tight enough so they stay in place and keep the mouth of the d-bag closed. So line dump is when the d-bag lifts off and some of the lines fall out of their stows and remain in the container. But bag strip is when all the lines fall out of their stows, including the locking stows, and then the bag is stripped off the canopy leaving the canopy and all the lines sitting in container momentarily. But even in that extreme situation as long as the slider stays in place until full line stretch you aren't going to get an explosive opening. In order for that to happen, somewhere in this mix of line dump and/or bag strip you must also have a reefing system failure. And yes, you can have a reefing system failure without having either line dump and bag strip. So what is reefing system failure? As your canopy lifts off your back sans its d-bag in a bag strip situation the slider can begin to come, or more correctly fall, down the lines prior to full stretch. Because the grommets in the slider give it a bit of weight together with the fact there is really nothing holding the slider in place at the top of the lines, it's simply a matter of inertia. And this is what causes hard openings. What you want is for the fabric in the slider to inflate in the relative wind (which makes it want to stay up) and as the canopy spreads that force has to act against the slider by pushing it down the lines. And this is what cancels out explosive openings. So keep this in mind - line strip doesn't cause explosive openings, bag strip doesn't cause explosive openings, reefing system failure is what causes explosive openings. And at one time free-packing rounds and squares was fashionable. In this method no line stows and no d-bag are used. With squares the lines were simply coiled and placed in the bottom of the container and a trash packed canopy (trash packing is the forerunner of pro-packing) is laid on top and the container is closed. How we avoided reefing system failure with the free-pack was by stowing the slider in its up position with stow bands, and in my case I would triple stow the slider to make damn sure the only way the slider could come down is when the opening canopy began to push it down. Now that you know reefing system failure is the true culprit in explosive openings you need to know how to avoid it. And there are a few different ways to induce reefing system failure. Some of these will be simple mistakes students will naturally make, and some are just comically inept errors made by experienced jumpers. For experienced jumpers (or packers) not un-stowing an already collapsed slider prior to packing gives you reefing system failure before you even set foot in the plane. This is an unthinkable mistake, but it does happen. Also not tightly wrapping the bottom of the canopy (which helps the slider stay in place without being stowed) is another. Students who are first learning to pack are a whole different ball of wax. And the following is directed at Coaches and Instructors who teach packing. No matter if you're an Angel who makes it a point to give packing instruction for free, or if you're a extortionist who charges for it, it isn’t enough to just teach this fold goes here, and that line goes there without explaining all I've written above (and more) to your charges. The problem is I know many who can teach the how but not the why of packing. And if I can digress for a moment, in these days of paid packing, and money changing hands just to initially learn packing, I believe the teaching of packing to students should shift from Coaches and Instructors to rated Riggers. At least that way students will get the whole nine yards. And it would be another small income stream for Riggers and at the same time introduce students to Riggers and what they do. Another side benefit would be increasing the cache for a member of the skydiving community who mostly toils behind closed doors. Also packing instruction shouldn't be done at the drop zone. It's too important to be imparted to a student or novice while they are contemplating their next jump in a few minutes, nor should it be done during the normal din, sights, and sounds of the DZ. So back to Coaches and Instructors. Before you dare teach a student to pack, you must not only fully understand packing yourself, you must also understand the psychological aspects of new jumpers. When a student packs, with every fold, flake, and stow, it's natural in their minds to be thinking open, open, open. So they make everything loose, open, and airy. What they should be thinking while packing is don't open, don't open, don't open. This is the fundamental principal of reefing. You must make the canopy work hard to open. But students won't do that by themselves and it's the reason you must explain all the above to get them even close to doing it. Lastly a word about line entanglements and another problem called over-reefing. Upboard several people mentioned line entanglements and their connection to line dump or bag strip. And they were wrong on both counts. Generally you need to have two things happen to have a line entanglement. You need something to happen out of sequence (remember, proper reefing is a staged series of events that happen in sequence) and then something else has to happen to hold the tangle in place. Most line entanglements (we'll talk about tandems in a moment) that cause solo skydivers to cutaway happen below the slider. And that second thing is the pressure of a still trying to descend slider providing the pressure that holds the entanglement in place. Solo skydivers who have a line entanglement above the slider are rare and are either the result of an improper initial assembly and as you pull the slider up during packing you unknowingly push the tangle up the lines. You could also push a step through up the lines using the slider. And this is the reason you should always do a four line check before starting any pack job (You guys who are teaching packing are including four line checks, aren't you?) Tandem canopies do sometimes exhibit line entanglements above the slider, but tandem canopies aren't simply bigger canopies than solo jumpers use. And it would be another whole page of typing to explain their issues of bad behavior. I'll leave it by saying any tandem packer who worked under me that caused a line entanglement either above or below the slider which caused a cutaway could stand by for an ass kicking. On over-reefing? Ever see a guy who says his canopy snivels for a thousand (or sometimes more) feet? On a personal level I feel that an awful long time to be completely out of control in a crowded sky. Most times if you watch these guys pack even though they have an already slow opening canopy they will still roll up and bury the nose in their pack jobs. Or packers will do it to every canopy they pack because today's jumpers equate a fast opening with a hard opening. That's dangerous thinking. Look at it this way. In freefall you are under control and under canopy you are under control. But during the opening sequence you are basically a living breathing sack of potatoes with no control at all. So you want that phase of the jump to pass as quickly as is comfortable. So what's a young and beginning jumper to do? I'd say look to a Rigger for your initial packing instruction. I'd also say don't discount the B.A.S.E. side of the house. Your average B.A.S.E. jumper with just a hundred jumps will generally understand the principals of reefing and packing better than many skydivers with thousands of jumps. But, in any case, be proactive. And don't fall for the common wisdom that gear isn't something to worry about in the beginning of your skydiving career. Today's climate sort of allows for that, but if you were the type that follows the crowd you would never have started skydiving in the first place. So don't get sucked into doing it now. So at the very least show up at your local rigger's loft with a broom or a rake or some paint and brushes and offer to do anything possible to get schooled. The great equalizer in skydiving is no matter how you fly, free or belly, or whatever else new we come up with, we all have to land under a functioning canopy. So getting hip to that part of the sport is your job number one . . . Oh, and if you want to sound like you know what you're talking about there are no "rubber bands" in skydiving, there are only "stow bands." NickD

>>and "Cowboys Caravan".

With earthquakes on everybody's mind here's a good article (and different than most you'll see) that might teach you a few things about surviving. It also fully debunks some old myths about what to do in an earthquake . . . NickD

The kid in the white shorts = A young Tom Pirus? NickD

>>You sound like the Muslim crazies

Mike also did the Leaning Tower of Pisa in Italy. I have a hysterical video somewhere of it. The hysterical part is Mike running after the jump with some Italian old lady dressed in black chasing him off. She actually bopped him with her cain a few times . . . Below is Nigel Slee's UK BASE magazine called "JUMP" with Mike on the cover from October of 1989. NickD

We used to use plastic coffee can lids, much lighter than a Reader's Digest . . . NickD

>>'our little world' would be somewhat different had you instead decided to re-up~

N/A

This is really messed up. Almost 7000 Marines died on Iwo Jima including three from the flag raising photo. No matter the issue there's just some things you don't screw around with . . . NickD

That was John Carter (sp?) . . . NickD

AFAIK Mike McCarthy and Alistair Boyd did the Empire State Building, not the WTC. And they static lined it too. And that ties into John Vincent going hand held off the WTC. The Brits are the ones who perfected static line BASE because of their lack of tall objects. So when doing something high profile you bring your "A" game instead of trying something, or at least, something you aren't as familiar with . . . And yes, I do now recall Van Refuse, I have something on him and I just have to find it. Also, I don't think you meant to make it seem so, but Mike Sergio didn't jump, he was only a henchman, what we call ground crew today . . . (Although he was on the roof). NickD

I saw an interview that Marah Strauch did with Owen Quinn (she's the niece of the late B.A.S.E. jumper Mike Allen.) It was for the BASE history film she's currently doing. Qwen's a really neat guy who doesn't come off at all like the nutjob the media and state of NY painted him to be. Her website is here: http://www.scissorkickfilms.com/index2.html NickD

>>I gottta ask. He went hand held off the WTC!? I know what the picture shows, but ...why?

>>On Sept. 13, 1980, an unidentified jumper successfully jumped off the WTC.

>>I got shivers going down my neck!

>>Have you jumped in Nevada in the last decade?

I'm pretty sure Cowboy was with Andrew that night. They set the auto pilot and left. And they had probably done it a few times before. There's also a current big time gear manufacturer who cringes every time this subject comes up. I'll never say who it is as I don't want to sleep with the fishes . . . NickD

The early FB vids were ripe with classics, some they stole like Peter Gunn, and some they came up with before the no-rules Freak Brothers convention became the Mommy May I Boogie. They even held it in a cool place, Freeport . . . I have some of that stuff on VHS, and I'll see if I can render it for you . . . NickD

This is a blatant repost from basejumper.com but I think, like me, it has a footing in both worlds . . . "Don't let them bother you, they goof on all new people around here. Mind if I look at your camera helmet?" He was a straight looking fellow in a sea of hippy jumpers. His short hair and buttoned down shirt was weird for a drop zone in 1975, but at least he was talking to me. He picked up the camera helmet I'd just put together the night before and noted my Nikon F was mounted too far forward on its mount and also too high. "There's a better way to run this wire too," he said, "have you jumped with this?" This guy was the last thing I needed after a day I'd dreamed about for a long time was turning into a nightmare. I'd just been discharged after four years in the Marine Corps a week earlier and now back in the "world" with about 70 jumps I was anxious to leave straight-laced military sport jumping behind. Lake Elsinore was all I'd heard about, the Mecca of west coast relative work, and the place to be if you wanted to get on the hot loads. But so far only three people gave me the time of day. And two of them were trying to sell me something. A dark and brooding Charlie Manson look-alike told me to look him up when I needed a repack and another handed me a card and told me if I needed any gear to call him, and he was scarier looking than the first guy, and that's how I first met Al Frisby and Max Kelly. And now this guy who looked more like a narc than a jumper was fingering my camera helmet. I thought about the big bag of Maui Wowie in my gear bag I'd picked up in Hawaii and just wanted the heck out of there. My earlier attempts to get on a load fizzled not with a bang but with a whimper. The three groups I approached didn't just say no, they wouldn't even acknowledge my presence. And my outstretched hand of introduction is left dangling in mid-air. My interest in camera jumping was a natural for me as my job in the Marine Corps was that of photographer. And I could hold my own in the air with the military sport club I was jumping with, but like a lot things about jumping I didn’t yet understand, I didn't realize just how bad they sucked. I left my latest detractor and my camera helmet sitting on the wooden packing table and walked away. I wandered out into the field and just sat while rolling myself a joint and I watched the canopies land, a 60/40 mix of rounds and squares. I was halfway between re-enlisting and sticking it out as I walked back sometime later. And my camera helmet was gone. That's just great, I thought, so much for fucking Lake Elsinore. "Hey, there you are." And the narc looking guy is standing there with my helmet. The wire that tripped the shutter is now nicely attached with small screws down the side of the helmet where I was only counting on tension to keep it in place. There was also a new hole drilled in my mount and my Nikon was pressed flush against the front of the helmet. "Try this; I think you'll find it better," he said. "And oh, by the way, my name is Carl Boenish, what kind of gear are you jumping?" Later that afternoon I made my first jump at Lake Elsinore, my first jump at a civilian drop zone, and my first jump from an airplane. All my previous jumps had been from Marine helicopters. I bought a ticket for 12.5 from the manifest lady (seven dollars) and she asked who I was with? I said I was doing camera and wasn't sure yet. The truth was I was with nobody. In the military all our jumps were carefully briefed and then de-briefed just like combat missions. But this was something new as everybody just wandered out to the DC-3 in a gaggle so I just followed along somewhere in the middle. I sat amidships trying hard to be Mr. Invisible, and wondering how I was going to get through that small door with my camera helmet. All the way to altitude, which after the turbine helicopters I was used to, took forever, people around me kept asking, "who you with?" When the group in front of me got up I did too. When the guy in the lineup in front of me turned to say, "Who you with?" I looked him in the eye and said, "I'm with you!" And so I followed him out the door and got Z'ed in my first experience with prop blast. After tumbling I found them below and just put my head down. The old axiom about your body following your head is true, especially with a few pounds of helmet and camera on your head. I set up above them and snapped away just knowing I was getting good stuff. I tracked off early and pulled high busting my lip open on my highly mounted chest reserve. I jumped into my car and went home. Anxious to process the black and white film in the home darkroom I'd set up in my bathroom. In 36 exposed frames all I got was an errant leg on exit and the rest was just sky. But I was on my way and I didn’t yet realize what meeting Carl Boenish would mean to my life. Three years later, in 1978, he asked me to hang around after sunset because he was going to show a new film. I did, and it was the first rough cut of his El Cap footage. What a long strange trip it's been . . . NickD

Part 105 of the FARs are the only requirements. Nobody ever went to jail, or paid a fine for busting a BSR as they aren't laws . . . And if the USPA was capable of making laws, God help us . . . NickD