Grogs

LOL. I bet you're glad. I remember going home every night after my AFF jumps on a Manta and being unbelievably sore. I had massive bruises on my inner thighs from those **** openings. I jumped a PD 190 on my Level 4, and I was actually reaching for the handles by the time it opened. Until then I just assumed skydivers learned to live with the bruises.

My DZO has a good skydiving saying: "Skydiving is not a spectator sport!" Oh yeah, my whuffo friends at work also say: "If at first you don't succeed... skydiving is not for you!"

I'll be there, along with Jumpergirl Jaime

I think the MSW is just something the gear manufacturers use to avoid lawsuits. Many manufacturers put a MSW on the canopy that's basically 1:1, so if the parachute fails for anyone over this conservative figure, they can point at the MSW and say it was the jumper's fault for overloading his canopy. We were talking about something along these lines this weekend at the DZ. It's pretty funny that most skydiving gear (chutes, helmets, and containers come to mind) basically say on the label 'We make no guarantees whatsoever this thing will work, even if used correctly'

Well, I've never been to Quincy, but usually at large boogies this isn't a problem. They have people load organizing, so you shouldn't end up on a plane where everyone is doing a 50-way and then they're mad because you didn't make it in.

I'm guessing Zennie just used a printscreen and pasted the image into Photoshop or some other type of photo-editing software and saved them that way. I kinda like the Mardi Gras. Nothing wrong at all with getting advice from people. Sure, it's your canopy design, but if you're the type of person like me who needs fashion advice when picking out clothes in the morning you need to make sure you're not getting something that looks godawful. I could probably make a canopy design that would make the kids at the DZ go screaming in terror when I landed (although not as well as PLFKing can I'm sure!)

LOL. Funny you should mention that Frank. I was having a conversation with Stacy last night. Seems she's going to hit 200 jumps soon, and get her "D" License... a MASTER jumper.

Nor have I. But from talking to a couple of people about their brand new Safires, it is a miserable, very slippery material to pack when brand new. It seems to be a nice canopy to fly though. Personally, I would recommend you don't buy brand new gear at this stage of the game. With 15 jumps, you're still going to want a canopy with very conservative wing loading - probably around 1:1. Within 50-100 jumps after that, you'll most likely want something a bit more aggressive, maybe a 1.2-1.3 wing loading, so it pays to buy a used canopy off student status. By the time you're ready to downsize, you'll probably have a much better idea of what you want and then you can consider buying a new canopy to keep for a few hundred jumps after that. As for the types of canopies, I'd say take a look at what's available around the DZ, maybe what some other jumpers have. When you find one you like and can fly and land safely, get one. Again, you'll probably be wanting to downsize before too long as your canopy skills improve so it's not absolutely imperative you get the perfect canopy right off student status, just something you can use safely.

I want some of whatever she's having!!

Well, I think USPA actuall defines a hook-turn as a hard toggle turn. Personally, when I talk about someone 'hooking it in' I don't really differentiate between whether it was a toggle or a front riser turn. The riser turn is the safer move because it doesn't distort the shape of the canopy like a toggle turn does. When you come out of a hard toggle turn, the canopy has to re-inflate on the side the toggle was pulled down on, and then level out. For the canopy to recover from a front riser turn, it just has to level off since it's still fully inflated - this means you recover more quickly from the maneuver. Still, whether doing a hard toggle turn, or a hard front riser turn, if you don't come out in time you can seriously injure yourself. As for a swoop, IMO, a swoop is just moving accross the ground at a high rate of speed just a matter of inches off the surface. Most swoopers lead in with a hard turn, normally a front riser turn, to build up speed for the canopy. Before they reach the ground, they flare about half-way, which levels the canopy off, but allows it to keep moving forward and swoop accross the ground. When they run out of forward speed, they flare the rest of the way and set the canopy down. Just my opinions. Feel free to chime in if you disagree. I'm certainly not an expert.

What? Tastes like chicken?

Welcome back Winger! Well, back to Germany anyway. Say hi to all the fraulines for me

As said before, I doubt it would affect your canopy flight any, but I would try and avoid it if possible. If you're under canopy inside of a cloud, you will have a much harder time seeing oncoming canopies, and a canopy collision can be very nasty, possibly fatal.

Yeah, Happy B-Day! I bet that's the first time you've ever turned 24 isn't it? That's a case of beer for sure

I've never tried it, but I think it might be fun. There is definitely something to be said for flexability!

I've had a few pretty cool ones. In one, I'm standing on the ground near a large opening (i.e., at the edge of the Grand Canyon). People will come tracking over me about 50' above the lip, come out of the track over the canyon, and open. In another dream, I'm jumping with a friend of mine and we're racing each other to see who can land on a cloud first. When we land on the clouds, we actually stop there, just like they're made of cotton

One way or another, there will be some mass jumping this weekend!

To answer the original question, I'd have to say doing a low-level military static line would be much safer than doing a 300' base jump. I can't give you hard numbers, but from what I remember the military chutes have very few malfunctions and they're actually designed to open within the first 100' or so. While I was in airborne school, we made over 1000 round S/L jumps with no malfunctions. We did, however, have many landing-related injuries - it's not any fun to land those rounds. We jumped at 13-1400' during training. The lowest jump I heard of was from about 700' during the invasion of Panama. And to answer MikeD's question, no they didn't make them wear reserves, although some of them did anyway just so they'd have a little additional padding when they hit the ground.

Kick ass Pammi! Sounds like you had a blast. It's pretty wild jumping your own pack job isn't it? I just remember the sweaty knuckles I had the first time I did that. Even though I had a rigger standing over my shoulder watching me the whole time I was just sure I had messed something up. Now, I wouldn't want anyone else packing it.

I don't know. I personally don't think it's that dangerous - not like a freebag is that big or anything, so I think the odds of serious problems would be pretty low. I definitely wouldn't recommend swooping a main that's been cutaway though since that would be much more dangerous if it wrapped up.

Well, I'd say I fall into all categories. I work as a LAN Technician (although I haven't seen much of that disposable income...). I've built all my own computers for the last 5 years, although I probably won't be getting a new one anytime soon... I could get a new main for the price of a new system. And there are probably a few dragon dice laying around my bedroom at home (although the only RPG I've played in a long time is Shadowrun and all you need for that is 6-sided dice).

Believe me, it's not because of your balance. $1000 is nothing as credit card balances go. I actually know a guy who keeps about a 25k balance on his credit card. Every 6 months, he changes over to another card so that he can keep the interest at 1% or so. Most likely, it's because you don't owe enough money. Wait'll you own a house or two and owe thousands of $$ on your cards and you'll have credit card companies fighting to take your balance.

Ok, guess I'll have a go at this. *why did you have to chop? In a word, stupidity. I managed to pack the chute with one of the steering lines wrapped around the other lines. The chute opened perfectly, but there was no controllability. *what are your recollections of the skydive (from exit to landing the reserve) Not too much. Fairly normal solo skydive. I was test jumping a chute so I opened high to be able to play around with it (4k or so). When it opened, the canopy was pointed about 45 degrees to the right of my body and I noticed the steering line wrapped around the other risers. At first I thought it was just a line twist until I tried tugging on it and it wouldn't come out. I realized I was going to have to cut it since I couldn't steer, but I sat and thought about it for a while before I built up the nerve. Then I pulled the cutaway, waited 2 seconds, and pulled the reserve (my RSL wasn't connected). And after what felt like an eternity the reserve opened and I set down uneventfully. I had the presence of mind to hold onto the reserve handle, the cutaway handle stuck to my jumpsuit

LOL. Don't you love that look they give you when you're buying like 5+ cases of beer at the same time. People are looking at me like 'Damn, this guy really has a drinking problem' Of course at the store nearest the DZ, I think they're used to seeing us in there, so the clerks just sort of mutter 'skydiver' under their breath while we're checking out.

I think the stastics at safety day yesterday were something like this: Of 30 fatalities, 14 were jumpers with