Grogs

It IS a worthwhile experience if you just need to work on your basic flying skills. The catch here is, you'll need to wear the baggy suits they have just to be able to stay up belly flying. Freeflying is out of the question there (at least it was last time I was there). Although the flyaway tunnels can be useful, most of their business seems to be from tourists rather than skydivers, so they never had freeflying in mind when they built the tunnels (actually, I'm not sure anyone had ever heard of freeflying at the time they were built). The only tunnel I know of in the US you can freefly in is the one in Orlando, and even then it takes some coordination with the people running it so they'll turn the fan up.

I thought it was a year. Anyway, here's the drawing of the one I have on my left shoulder. The actual artwork looks better with the shading and stuff, but you can get the idea.

I think this just illustrates that jump numbers don't mean everything. I think it's more about attitude. I see some guys with 5000+ who are cautious, get gear checks every jumps, always practice emergency procedures, don't jump in 30mph winds, etc. It's the guy with 5000+ that's hung over and comes running to the plane with his rig in his hand as the engines are firing up that's much more likely to get in trouble. Complacency kills, especially in this sport. As for the tandem question, in a small plane like that the tandem student should either be buckled in or attached to the TM at all times when the door is open. We actually go so far as to not let the tandems take off their seat belt at all until they're are hooked up to the TM. This applies even (especially) to experienced jumpers we have riding as passengers for evaluation jumps. After all, you never know when instinct will take over and they'll jump out the door as soon as it opens.

I think you should just sit down with the S&TA/DZO/head AFF etc. at your dropzone and explain the situation to them. They're the ones that ultimately decide what a person needs to do before they're signed off. If you've been jumping at this DZ for a while, they probably already know you well enough to sign you off. After all, if you can turn 2 points on a 4-way, you already fly better than 90% of the students coming off the coach program, so what would be the point of having you do 12 2-way coach jumps. We had a similar situation at my DZ where we had a guy with 100+ jumps and no A license. He had made all those jumps at our DZ, and since it seems like there's an AFF-I on just about every jump, they were able to sign him off. I would think that the worst you would have to do is 1 or 2 recurrency-type jumps at $50 each or so.

Remember, that figure is in AUD (Australian Dollars). The going exchange rate is just under 2:1 these days, so it's roughly $180 US. That's seems to be a pretty reasonable rate at most dropzones.

Depends on the conditions. I went back and reread the article and the details are a bit sketchy, so all we can do is conjecture. But, if for example, the plane took off at a field with a barometric pressure of 30in, and the DZ was at a pressure of 29, even if they set their altimeters to adjust for the altitude, it would still be reading ~1000' higher than the actual altitude. As for the Cypres and Dyter, it depends on the difference in field altitude since they work on AGL rather than MSL. If the take-off and landing are the same altitude, they'll work (in theory) regardless of the field altitude. The Cypres has an adjustment for +/- 5000' between the take-off and landing and take-off sites, but as far as I know, the Dyter doesn't. Also, in re-reading the article, hypoxia was mentioned as a possible cause of the incident.

Yep. There was a 4-way that went died in Antartica in '95. Actually, only 3 of them died. The lack of depth perception probably played a big part in the fatalities. Also, from reading the fatality reports on skydive.net, the field elevation where they were jumping into was 9000', so it's very possible they had problems calibrating their altimeters/dytters/cypreses to that landing elevation. The Cypres only adjusts to 5000' above the take-off field altitude if I remember correctly.

Nah, the lines always get all messed up when I do that. I usually just toss it in a bathtub full of bleach for a couple of hours. The canopy packs like a breeze after that, and the openings are so soft you won't even notice it's there -- mainly because it won't be after all 9 cells blow out at once. Seriously though, the best thing for packing ZP's is to keep at it. After packing brand new ZP tandems around the 360-385 sq ft range all Summer, I don't get too intimidated by most canopies anymore. Some of the meager advice I could give you though is: - Only put 2 S-folds in. Make the first ones at the lines, put your knees on it, and then bring the rest of the canopy up along the top of your knees, fold it in half, and put it on top of the first S-fold. I used to try doing 3 and that made it almost unmanagable. - DON'T kneel on top of the S-folded canopy. It'll blow apart if you put too much weight on it. Just use light pressure from one hand. - Try and put the canopy in the bag from the side and turn it. This tends to make it a little bit off-center, but IMO not enough to cause concern. And once you start getting it in the bag, keep at it. - Also, if you got a few extra bucks, a way to make your life a lot easier is to get a ZP D-bag. It makes the canopy slide in really easily when you load it in the bag sideways.

Hehe, yeah actually we do work for the government and that's at least part of the problem. None of the 'head honchos' are willing to let Information Systems block the security holes like hotmail. We also can't block all attachments, because the government is famous for their 50mb Powerpoint briefings.

Don't feel too bad about that Larry. We have Norton Antivirus for Exchange and NEMX Powertools (a content filterer) and we still managed to get hit. We were blocking off *.scr attachments using NEMX, but somebody opened the attachment through hotmail or something similar. Norton didn't pick it up because it wasn't in the definitions yet and NEMX didn't reject it because it was originating from inside the organization (it filters at the Internet Mail Connector). We ended up disconnecting our mail server from the network for about 2 hours until Symantec released the new virus definitions that would detect/clean the virus off the server. Not too bad as these thing go, but certainly not fun.

Right on brother! I'm actually taking an EMT course for just this reason. I'll probably start riding around on the ambulance a couple of times a month this Winter.

Actually, 4k is for groups of 6 or larger. 3500 for smaller groups. Of course, those are the minimums, so you can always plan to break higher. I can feel sympathize for your friend though Michelle. I too jump a slow opening 1000ft-ish canopy (Cobalt) and I don't like to throw out below 3k if I can help it. I am a little confused as to why she would raise her decision altitude *just* because the canopy was a slow opener. It seems like that would be a good reason to not raise it. Anyway, that aside, I definitely be worried. We've got a guy at the DZ who says 'At pull altitude, if you're still on me, I'll show you a pilot chute. It might not be mine, but I'm going to show you a damn pilot chute!' As for the JM's attitude, I'd have to say it was pretty piss poor. It's not like she's harassing you while you're trying to take a shot in basketball. We're talking about skydiving and all the potentially disasterous consequences for stupidity. We all have out comfort level, and as an AFF-I, she should be well aware of that. For her to not at least acknowledge she had gone beyond what your friend considered safe is pretty shameful.

I've never heard of doing this, and I have a hard time seeing it make much difference on the life-span of the spandex. I think extracting the pilot chute puts most of the wear and tear on the pocket, not holding the pilot chute in a little roll. If you're really dead-set on doing something like that though, you would want a really long piece of red cloth/tape sticking out of the pilot chute to make sure you remember (like the riggers use for temporary packing pins). Actually, along the same lines, when I got my new(er) container, it didn't have a main in it, so I put some bubble wrap in the D-bag, tucked the risers in, cocked the pc, and closed it all up. Scary thing was that even doing a thorough gear check it looked ready to jump. I just can't help but get the image of some guy throwing out and the bag/pc go floating off into space. In any case, I just set it up like that for a day until I could take it to my rigger to get the real main put in it. No doubt. If that were me, I'd probably be sitting there thinking "hmm... do I use the knife or the gun to kill him?"

LOL. No offense taken Chuck. People used to tell me that I didn't act like a West Point officer and I always took it as a compliment. :-) If I had it to do over again, there's no way in hell I would go to West Point, but having done it I'm glad I did. After going through 4 years of BS there, Airborne, Air Assault, and 5 years in some of the most anal-retentive units in the Army, there is very little that bothers me anymore.

Yeah, I remember the military hazings. I only had the wings pounded in a couple of times, and I never really thought it hurt too badly. When I went to Airborne School (95) they must have been really cracking down on that sort of thing, because the black hats pretty much said no way, no how, I better not even see it or I'll pull your certificate. At Air Assault School (93), they pretty much gave the same speech, but followed it up with 'but if you'd like my personal congratulations, meet me behind the bleachers'. The worst I ever got though was branch night. We got drunk off our asses and ran around all night pounding each others branch insignia into our chests, followed by staggering back into the barracks and having all the plebes pound the chest a little more. Many of us had to get a new dress uniform after that. Actually, the worst hazings we did at the academy (West Point) were birthdays. A typical birthday involved 10-20 guys grabbing the 'lucky' birthday boy, taping his hands and feet, pulling his shorts down, and writing his age on his ass-cheeks with edge dressing. This was sometimes followed by throwing the birthday boy in a laundry cart and pushing him down by the guard room where the OC (Officer in Charge) would find him. For these reasons, it was usually a good idea to keep your birthday secret, or else just tying him to a pole in one of the areas.

I love a good red wine myself, especially Merlot. I'll still drink a white every now and again though. I don't have wine too often though, usually more of a 'treat yourself for doing good' sort of thing. With beer I can easily have 1 or 2 and then hang it up, but with wine I usually end up drinking the whole bottle. I made the mistake of buying a 1.5L bottle a few weeks ago (insted of the 750's I usually get) and paid for it big time in the morning.

Yeah, I'd say go for it. I had some new longer lower brake lines put on this Summer. All the rigger had to do was replace the line from the finger trap/eyelet down to the toggles, costing me a grand total of $15. The difference it made in canopy performance was incredible. Not only was I killing performance on riser turns because it was deflecting the tail, I was also defeating the whole purpose of the riser turn since the riser turns were distorting the canopy.

What RedBull said is pretty much true. West Point seems to be primarily an RW dropzone. Orange on the other hand seems to be largely freefliers. Not to say that there are no freefliers at West Point or RW at Orange, but it is the majority. I'd say make your decision based on that.

Very cool. We've actually got a Breast Cancer Awareness event going on at our DZ this weekend. For every tandem jump made, the DZ donates $20 to Breast Cancer research. Also, some of the jumpers are planning to pay $25/jump with the extra being donated, and at least one of our packers is planning to donate all of his profits for the day to the cause. It should be pretty cool.

Did anybody see that show 'Who Wants to be a Princess' on Fox Monday night? I don't normally watch lame things like that, but I was flipping through the channels and stopped to take a look. Just as I was getting ready to go to another channel, they introduced a girl and said she was an 'avid skydiver.' That really caught my interest, and I kept watching thinking maybe she was one of the DZ.com hotties. When they asked her about her skydiving, she talked about the 1 tandem she had done a year before. I just thought their definition of an 'avid skydiver.' If one tandem jump makes you avid, we must all be lunatics or something like that. Actually, come to think of it, that describes most of us pretty well. She did give a pretty good spiel about how cool the jump was and how she wanted to do it again though. That's a nice change from most skydiving publicity on tv where they show guys burning in on Real TV.

Damn, I'm sorry to hear about this. I'm not a lawyer, but I would have to assume he's legally bound to send you the suit once he's received payment. The only question would be would the contract, i.e., e-mail traffic you guys exchanged, etc. hold up in court. Even if he's not though, I think any fair person would send you the merchandise. Not being personally involved, it's hard to say for sure, but I'd tend to believe the guy's trying to pull one over on you. If I had the money (which I don't), I'd get a lawyer and let him go after the guy. Of course you'll spend more money than the suit and your money order combined that way, but it would at least feel good. At the very least you can probably get a free consultation and have the lawyer confirm that you are indeed in the right. Throwing a couple of phrases like 'my lawyer told me...' into the conversation might be enough to convince the guy to quit screwing with you and send you the jumpsuit.

LOL. You should watch me pack a tandem sometime. 384 sq. feet of fabric blowing out of the bag in every imaginable direction. I used to feel really bad about it until I watched some actual tandem masters pack and their pack jobs looked worse than mine. IMO, packing is an art, not a science. As long as you do the things you have to do (like preventing the lines from getting in front of the nose), everything will be fine. 90% or so of what we do is just fluff to get the chute in the bag easier. Some of my worst looking pack jobs have gotten the best compliments from the people jumping them.

I'd guess he means that he wears them under the helmet and just pulls the helmet down on top of the goggles. I've seen quite a few people doing that. Personally, I really like my Z-1. It has a good, easy to work latch system that stays closed until you open it. I've seen quite a few Oxygen lenses fly off in freefall, but I've yet to see it happen with a Z-1. I'd recommend the model with the Dytter pocket on the inside rather than the newer model with and external pocket just because you can hear it better. In fact, I've heard my Dytter on every single skydive with that helmet. I've heard a lot of complaints about the durability of the Z-1, but I've yet to see any problems with mine after 200+ jumps with it. I would definitely recommend you just set the drawstring one time and leave it alone though. I think that's at least part of the durability problem. I've never jumped a Factory Diver, but the whole concept of a face shield that doesn't open would definitely make me nervous. Last Winter I had several dives where my face shield was completely fogged by the time I got under canopy. If I hadn't had a flip-up face shield, I probably would have had to pull the whole helmet off and try not to drop it.

Hehe. Actually, I've got the original canopy you showed packed into my container (the grey and black one). Of course mine is a bit larger than yours (135). Probably not easy to find if I cut it away, but I'm pretty sure I could get my homeowners' insurance to pay for it if I lost it.

LOL. If you sign up to do this, what they won't tell you is you have to pay full taxes on this money at the end of the year. You might end up having to take out a loan to be able to afford paying the taxes. My ex-GF did this, and the Army paid off around $39,000 in loans over 3 years. One day after she had gotten out, she got a nice letter from the IRS saying she owed all the taxes on the loan repayment, plus penalties for not claiming it, so she ended up with a bill for around $12-13K. Like everyone else has said, I really don't think the Army (military in general) is something to do half-assed. The most fun I had in the Army was when I was in Bosnia. Reason: much less bullshit than sitting around at the unit, and a real mission/sense of purpose. The worst times were sitting around at Fort Hood filling out paperwork and the like (which I did WAAYY too much).