Kris

Yeah, right. I've heard the jokes you tell, Brit. I'm not buying that for a second! Kris Sky, Muff Bro, Rodriguez Bro, and Bastion of Purity and Innocence!™

Ahhh, classic Brittany humor. You really have to be in her presence to really get it. Here's one: A grasshopper walks into a bar. The bartender looks at him and says, "Hey! We have a drink named after you!" "Really? You have a drink named 'Bob'?", the grasshoper said. Kris You can tune a piano, but you can't tuna fish.

1:5:0 1 Call from Sunshine while she was drunk & lost in the Ghetto's. 5 FREE Skydives made after JM'ing students. Throw em' out and we take the plane the rest of the way up. 0 - Money spent at the DZ this weekend. Kris Sky, Muff Bro, Rodriguez Bro, and Bastion of Purity and Innocence!™

Dave, I think he was talking about a whole pumpkin, not the hollow one you were wearing. But that was a sweet dive, though! Kris Sky, Muff Bro, Rodriguez Bro, and Bastion of Purity and Innocence!™

Wow! A lot of great knowledge here! Thanks for all of your help! Kris Sky, Muff Bro, Rodriguez Bro, and Bastion of Purity and Innocence!™

Okay, I've decided to break down and get a freefly tube for sit jumps but I have a couple of questions: 1. I know of one vendor (Gotcha Covered) that I will probably use but does anyone know of any others? 2. What length should it be? I had always heard that the tube should be at least 5-7 feet taller than your canopy, measured from the 3-rings to the inflated top-skin, to help avoind entanglement problems with deployment. Is this true? I jump a Stiletto 190 and that's going to be one hell of a tube. I'm figuring about a 22-25 footer but my canopy is packed up and I don't have a tape measure. Any input would be appreciated! Thanks, Kris Sky, Muff Bro, Rodriguez Bro, and Bastion of Purity and Innocence!™

So, that wouldn't happen to be my coach dive that you're working on, would it? j/k Kris Sky, Muff Bro, Rodriguez Bro, and Bastion of Purity and Innocence!™

Actually, I am a JM, at least until I get my two night jumps done this month and send off for my "D". At that point, I am officially an Instructor. Until then, there are still others out there that are JM's and not I's. But, adding the Coach rating and adding "or foreign equivalent" to the list of ratings does sound like a needed upgrade. But don't get rid of the JM's yet. Kris IAD/JM '02 Sky, Muff Bro, Rodriguez Bro, and Bastion of Purity and Innocence!™

I jump a Stiletto at 1.35:1 I would land it. The rear risers don't really "flare" you but it will plane the canopy out and you can skid out the rest. If my canopy opens with a broken steering line it isn't a good canopy, it's a decent canopy. Not a bad one, but not worth going to my reserve either. Kris Sky, Muff Bro, Rodriguez Bro, and Bastion of Purity and Innocence!™

Don't worry, Steve. The colors were so loud I remember them a week later. Boy and girls, for your viewing pleasure... Sudsy's canopy! Kris Damn, I'm a punk.

Thanks! It's a Stiletto 190. I almost got the 170 but I would have had to have been too conservative with it. With this one, I'm at a decent wing-loading (just over 1.3) but it's still light enough that I can crank on her a bit and really learn with it. I think I'll be happy with her for at least another 200-300 jumps. Kris

Viking, that is actually 99% close to what my buddy Bob has on his Sabre. It does look pretty sweet in the sky. Here's my baby. Kris Sky, Muff Bro, Rodriguez Bro, and Bastion of Purity and Innocence!™

VIBEZ!!!! Lots of them! Coming your way right now! DON'T DUCK! Kris Sky, Muff Bro, Rodriguez Bro, and Bastion of Purity and Innocence!™

Nuclear weapons frighten me. Cobalt-jacketed weapons scare the living bejesus out of me. Throw a cobalt jacket around the outside of a nuke and forget about populating that area for a few hundred / thousand years. I was surprised when I did a class assignment once on background radiation with just how active concrete is. If you have a Geiger-counter you can find some pretty impressive results in your own house. Not to mention what you will find with an EM detector. Kris Sky, Muff Bro, Rodriguez Bro, and Bastion of Purity and Innocence!™

But of course! Ask any skydiver who has 20 or more jumps what "RW" stands for and there will be no hesitation before the words "Relative Work" comes out of their mouths. Now, as for Clay and the sheep, we're serious. He's awfully tetchy & posessive on that subject... Kris Sky, Muff Bro, Rodriguez Bro, and Bastion of Purity and Innocence!™

Hmm, you're nick is "SanDiegoRW" but your favorite discipline is freeflying? A little confused, aren't we? Then again, you are from California, the land of "fruits and nuts". Just kidding and welcome to the forums! Kris Sky, Muff Bro, Rodriguez Bro, and Bastion of Purity and Innocence!™

That's just wrong. Absotively and posilutely WRONG! Extremely wrong. Kris

Hmmm, I wonder where Sunshine was today? Kris "Running for cover"

It stores index information making it much easier to find what you need on your tape. Kris Sky, Muff Bro, Rodriguez Bro, and Bastion of Purity and Innocence!™

Umm...Not True. It's magnetic media. It's got a base (mylar), a substrate with the magnetic particles formatted in a striped layout for helical scan recording, and a thin (think angstroms here) layer of protective lubricant. Every time you play the tape, particles flake off of it. In fact, you can almost compare mini-DV media with AME or DAT computer media. If you've never seen magnetic media get made, it's a really dirty, messy process getting that gunk onto the mylar. As for computer media, I never used it past 100 writes/reads for DAT and and 150-200 for the better AME (advanced metal evaporative, yes, they evaporate the metal onto the tape) media such as that used in LTO and AIT drives. After that many uses, I can pull a log of the soft & hard errors seen by the drive and you can continually see them rise as the tapes get more use. Bottom line, use premium tapes (Sony, Fujifilm, TDK) and if you use off-brand tapes, make sure you are regularly cleaning your camera. Most of the off-brands are made by the big companies and is simple re-labeled but there are some really bad brands out there too. Stick with the bigger names and you should be fine. Kris Ex-Seagate Tape Storage Monkey Sky, Muff Bro, Rodriguez Bro, and Bastion of Purity and Innocence!™

Crap! Now what am I going to do with all of these twirly cookies! Kris Running to get some Oreos... Sky, Muff Bro, Rodriguez Bro, and Bastion of Purity and Innocence!™

Zofo? Unbiased? Heh. Dbatt, do both. Go see the Monkey and then go spend some time with the lovely Zofo. I highly recommend her bodyshots. Kris Sky, Muff Bro, Rodriguez Bro, and Bastion of Purity and Innocence!™

Damn! You may want to check your suit or your body position because I'm a bit (okay, a good bit) bigger than you and I max at 190 in the X position. I can pull it down to the 170's if I really get my limbs out there but I don't have the control to keep it stable when I'm that spread out. Also, you might try looking at the reading on some JumpTrack software and see where in the dive you are hitting it and where your range is at right now. Then again, I also have HD gills on my FF suit so that's gotta be slowing me down a bit too. I may have to try a dive in a suit without gills and see what I get. Just my $0.02, Kris Sky, Muff Bro, Rodriguez Bro, and Bastion of Purity and Innocence!™

Nope. You and your canopy are just objects moving in the air mass. The canopy doesn't care where the wind-direction is coming from and it has no influence over the canopy other than ground-speed. Line-twists can be caused by several things including: Poor body position, lax packing skills, improper stows, fate, and karma. Kris Sky, Muff Bro, Rodriguez Bro, and Bastion of Purity and Innocence!™

1:4:0 1 Phone call to a certain dz.commer so that I could rub it into her face that I was at Hooters and she wasn't there. 4 great jumps. Would have been more but the 205 developed an exhaust problem on the last load and we were stuck with the 172 today. 0 beer owed, it was a safe weekend. Kris Sky, Muff Bro, Rodriguez Bro, and Bastion of Purity and Innocence!™