Grogs

I guess I'll jump in here with my 2 cents. I've got about 150 jumps on my Silhouette, and I'm still quite happy with it. I jump a 170 loaded at 1.1-1.2:1 (with/without weights). It turns nicely once it gets going (takes a bit to get started up though), lands nicely, and remains very stable in turbulent conditions. It doesn't have as much flaring power as a full zero-p, although in fairness, the last zp I jumped was a Cobalt, which isn't really much of a comparison. I think you'll also like the openings. I have never gotten snapped on that canopy. As for the resale, it seems to me that the biggest single factor in reselling a canopy is the size. At our DZ, it seems that if the canopy is a 190 or smaller, it sells pretty quickly. Larger ones tend to take a while.

Hmm. We must be a little different. This doesn't seem to happen very often (or maybe never) at my DZ. Almost all of our instructors are married and faithful to their wives. The tandem masters seem to get quite a few offers, but as far as I know they never take them up on it. I think it probably has a lot to do with the type of DZ. We do most of our business on the weekends and almost all the instructors have some sort of M-F job. At some of the larger 7-day a week dropzones, a lot of the Instructors tend to be single guys that live on the DZ, so I would think that type of thing happens more often.

We had a nearly identical mal a few months ago. The guy had borrowed the rig from one of his SEAL buddies, and when he threw out he ended up with a PC in tow. He popped the reserve and landed uneventfully (main stayed in the container). When our riggers inspected the rig on the ground, they determined that the PC in tow was caused by the bridle making a half-hitch around the pilot chute. Most likely, there had been some excess bridle sticking out of the pilot chute pouch, and when the jumper pushed it back down, it somehow found its way through one of the S-folds of the bridle at the back of the pilot chute. When he threw out the PC and the bridle went tight, it locked itself down and strangled off the pilot chute.

I've noticed the broken banner ads as well. That doesn't really bother me at all, but I've noticed something else peculiar that's related to the banner ads. About every 2nd or 3rd time I try and pull up a page, my browser will attempt to open the banner ad directly (even though I never had the mouse anywhere near it). So I'll click on a page and I'll see Error 500: Internal Server Error and the url listed is http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/webadverts/ads.cgi?page=ClassAds. I hit the back button and get the page I wanted originally. My browser is Netscape 4.77 and my OS is NT 4.0, SP6a

Ummm.... could it be because they're running $300? I could pick up a 1.4 GHz processor, motherboard, and 512 MB of DDR SDRAM for that price. Or maybe even [gasp] make 16 skydives with it. Of course I don't really run any seriously graphics intensive games, so my GeForce2 MX (which I got for $65) doesn't have any problem keeping up. Until my system seriously starts getting it's ass kicked with some of the newer games, I doubt I'll be upgrading it.

Hey Justin, I got pretty much what you described when I tried opening the page in Netscape 4.77 - just the raw html code. The first thing that sticks out to me is you don't have the closing arguments and at the bottom of the page. I can also save it to my desktop and then drop it into Netscape and it opens up ok (or as ok as an ASP page can open without it's supporting stuff). I'm not much of an expert when it comes to coding asp pages though. Most of my stuff is limited to coding straight html in Notepad, with a Java applet thrown in here or there. I would be curious about which version of Front Page you're using though. Front Page '98 was notorious for dorking up web pages and almost every html book I've read says avoid it like the plague. FP 2000 is a lot better.

Hey Kingie, I'm sitting here looking at that very cartoon. It's hanging on my cube wall at work (great minds think alike, eh?). The caption on it actually reads: Murray didn't feel the first pangs of real panic until he pulled the emergency cord. I guess Gary Larson isn't a skydiver, but it's still funny as hell. I told some of the guys at work we pack anvils into parachutes as a practical joke and some of them believed me. I've been fortunate and I've only landed out once so far. It was at the Carolina Sky Sports Easter Boogie. My friend Chip cutaway his canopy, so I tried to follow it down for him. I landed in a big open field with 2 big houses in it. It looked like a great place to land until at about 50' I noticed the 10' tall trees all over the yard. Fortunately, I was able to find a spot between a couple of them and land safely. By the time I went to go get the canopy (it was in the next field over) the DZ manager was already grabbing the canopy, so I caught a ride back with a family in their minivan. The kids got a big kick out of that.

Bah, double post!

Kelly: I can relate to your story completely. While we were at the Easter Boogie, my friend demoed a Cobalt 170. The demo canopies were already set up on risers, so all you had to do was cutaway your main and reattach the demo canopy. We attached the Cobalt to his canopy, and we did a continuity check (steering lines and stabilizers) and it just wasn't checking out. We called Cobalt Dan over and after about 30 minutes the 3 of us determined one of the D-links had been put on the risers backwards and fixed it. Then I did another continuity check and it still wasn't checking out. We called Dan over again, and after another 30 minutes of looking at it, he gave up and got one of the local riggers. Turns out that not only had the D-link been put on the risers backwards, the lines had been put on the D-link in the wrong order. Turns out the riggers at that DZ had goofed when they put the canopy on the risers. It probably wouldn't have hurt anything, but you can never be sure and my friend didn't want to find out at 3k he had a big problem. As an interesting side note, my friend had a cutaway during that boogie, and after seeing what had happened when they put the canopy on the risers, he chose to take his gear back to our home DZ for a repack rather than getting it repacked at the boogie.

SWEET deal brother! I'm glad to hear you're moving along so quickly. The A is the big one. Now you're no longer a student or a novice. You can move freely about the country and pretty much jump at any dropzone you want. Much better than handing in your logbook and waiting 4 hours to go up, eh? Anyway, congrats again. If you're ever out in my part of the country look me up and we'll do a bit of jumping and I'll do the same if I'm out you're way.

Hey, sorry to hear about that Merrick. I hope you heal up soon. I know several guys who've done the same thing, some of them up in the 5000+ jump range. When you're swooping in, that little 1 inch obstacle can get you in a hurry.

Hehe. That's my really fast fall position. If I want to get down to someone in a hurry, I grab my ankles behind my back and pull them in and I'm down in no time. It works pretty well when you're right over the target so you can't really swoop, but need to get down quickly. When you're a skinny bastard like me you have to learn these tricks.

Hehe. Small world. When we were talking about the Hornet on AIM yesterday and I told you we had a lot of Hornet student canopies at our DZ, I was referring to Skydive Suffolk. The web site Dan posted is correct. If you want to call Larry, the dropzone phone number is (757)-539-3531. You can't use the 800-SKYDIVE since you're outside of Virginia - you'd probably get a DZ in Ohio. I can also give you our master rigger's number if you want it, since he packs most of the student canopies, watches them open, and talks the students down on them. AIM me if you want that info. Blue ones, Grogs

Sounds to me like you might have the Syllabus for the Basic Body flight instead of the one that comes with the video Snowflake. That's more along the lines of what I'm looking for. Well, we do have an actual Skydive U coach at our DZ, so I'll try and get with him and see if he's got a copy of the one you're talking about.

The majority of our containers (including student gear) are Javelins. Cobalts are the hot canopy on the DZ, mainly because our DZO is a dealer. Probably about half the experienced jumpers are jumping them, and we even have a Cobalt tandem (not recommended).

I'm kind of curious about that video myself. Now that I'm starting to get into coaching and teaching people what to do to move up/down/side slide/swoop/etc. it would be nice to actually have a really good video that showed all the points of doing the motions so I could watch it, digest it, and pass it along. I know how to fly my body, but so much of it is subconscious I don't even think about what I'm doing.

I had a similar thing happen to me during one of my coached jumps. The coach pulled my chest strap and it came undone all the way to the sew-back at the end of the strap. It took me about 5 seconds to realize what had happened, and then I nearly crapped myself. I can honestly say that on *every* single jump I've made since then I've checked my chest strap several times before I left the airplane. I've never heard of this, but I can actually see it happening. Maybe on the hang-over load in the middle of a week at some big boogie. Everyone on the load was so hung over they never even noticed, including the jumper himself.

I think the little icon on your post should be a

Hmm... maybe she was fat. Ticket for excessive cellulite exposure maybe? I don't think it's a law, but after watching some of the 250lb women walking around the mall in stretch pants and cutoff T's I think it should be.

Hehe. I actually met quite a few of them while I was working in Los Alamos. Hmm, come to think of it, I guess I'm a nuclear physicist based on my degree: major in physics and minor in nuclear engineering.

Congrats on your 100th Zennie. Don't feel bad at all about crashing it. It's YOUR skydive after all, so you can do whatever you want (within reason - don't kill anyone). I'm sure FFF wishes he could have been there for the pieing. He's quite skillful at it, just ask Stacy.

182, 206, Caravan, King Air, Twin Otter (regular and super), Casa, C-130, and Ultralight

Hmm... I'd tell you to drop by Skydive Suffolk on your way up, but I'll most likely drive up to CK for the Labor Day boogie myself.

I'm with Brandon on this one. You definitely *can* arch too much for other people to keep up with - I've had that happen to me. It is great to have that sort of capability though. If you can do a good slow fall (

Yep, Frankenotter is a beast. I got the pleasure of riding it at Louisburg. He also swooped the tent city at about 20 feet while climbing out on Sunday morning. Talk about a wake-up call. I agree there's not enough time to take a nap because of the fast climb on it. Also, with the bench seats and high rate of climb you're leaning about 45 degrees to the rear, so it's doubtful you could sleep even if there was time. Speaking of Frankie, did they give it a new paint job? I heard they were planning to paint it (blasphemy!)