Kris

You know... I might be able to show up for this... Let me see if I can get someone to cover for me at the DZ that weekend and I'm there! Kris

True story... Two years out of high school I somehow managed to find myself in bed with two of my ex-girlfriends. It was an interesting, weird, erotic, funny, kinda psycho and somewhat enlightening experience. Through a weird twist of fate, we all actually respected ourselves in the morning but the kicker is that they started dating each other about four months afterwards.

I'm just put on a new set of Slinks when I got my new Heatwave. For my main canopies, I love them (had em' on my Sabre). I also re-checked mine about 10 times before I went up the first time and as I looked at the unrecoverable spinning mal above my head (short last stow on an elliptical, I felt the bag bump the container when it left my back and hit the burble) I had two thoughts, "That's a pretty canopy!" and "Hey, at least the Slinks held!". :) After that first jump, I don't even think about them anymore. As for my reserve, give me Rapide links any day. Kris

Since I don't have a whole lot of jumps on mine yet, I'll give my limited impressions... I have a Heatwave 190 and my Mirage is an M4 size designed for a Sabre-170 main. I can easily fit it in there and just for kicks, I tried putting it into Mirage bag made for a 150. It was a bit of work but I was able to get it in there. So yes, it does pack really small depending on how well you pack. I'm only loading at just over 1.3:1 but the riser pressure is pretty nice compared to my old Sabre or the demo Stiletto I jumped. I do find it easier to front-riser if I give it a "bump" of opposite toggle before cranking on the riser. After that, I can hold the riser for about 270-degress of rotation before we start getting into an arm-wrestling match. The Heatwave seems to dive a bit longer than the Stiletto I tried (maybe 10-15% more) but planes out on its own. You don't have to bump the toggles to stop it from diving. Then again, that may change at the wing-loading you are thinking of. Roy over at Rigs n' Things has the best deal on them along with a 30-day money-back guarantee if you don't like it. The only nag-point I really have on the canopy is that the oversteer takes a lot of getting used to. I now find myself planning my turns 2-3 seconds earlier in my mind than I had to before but it's all good. As for the deep brakes, the canopy gets a teensy bit washy but seems to stay pretty well pressurized and doesn't noticibly oscillate. I would feel safe making a braked approach with it as the lift on the thing is flat-out incredible, even compared to the Stilleto I tried. YMMV, Kris

1) What is the lowest you have intentionally exited an aircraft (i.e. no emergency, fallout etc)? 1850. When we took off the clouds were at 2500 but could only get to 2K and then we lost a bit more altitude by the time I climbed out. I knew I was getting out low so I packed my Sabre to open fast. It was a bit too fast... Ouch! 2) What is the lowest you have gone WayLow intentionally (i.e. no loss of altitude awareness) ? 1700. Quincy 2000, had an idiot 800' above me following me while I was tracking away. I zigged, zagged, they followed. I finally had to decide to suck it down and deploy a bit under 2K to be safe. My normal pull altitude is 2500', as in, the pilot chute is leaving my hand by 2500' 3) What is the most stupid/dangerous thing you have done in freefall? My first jump off of student status was a 4-way, not the brightest idea. 4) What is the closest you have come to killing yourself? While learning to swoop some friends on a two-way offered to let me try to swoop to them. I waited 3-seconds and bailed. Found them, aimed to the side and started hauling ass. The drifted towards me, I flared out too late and passed by my buddy Larry with less than a foot to spare and I was easily going 50mph faster than they were. 5) What gives you the biggest kick? The fact that I can skydive, period. 6) How many times have you been grounded? .5 I got a real stern talking to after turning one of my student 10-second delays into a 30-second flail-fest and was told to take a few hours to reflect and catch the sunset load instead of the next one. 7) How long is the longest grounding 7-hours, see above 8) What do you get grounded for? See #6 9) Any other comments………………….. Damn, I love this sport! Kris

Agreed! Kolla rocks and she will get you taken care of. There's even been rumors that she has, umm, ahem, "liberated" John LeBlanc's (PD's Vice Prez) personal canopy in the past when she needed to send someone a demo...

I have put just under 10 jumps on my new UNISYN and Man, is it ever comfy! I truly really noticed how comfortable it was in the air and under canopy after I had put about three jumps on the rig. A buddy asked me how I liked the fit of my new rig and I was dumbfounded. The reason...? I never even thought about it once. Once I put the rig on, I pretty much completely forgot I was wearing it. Even after I landed, I didn't even need to loosen the legstraps before I walked back into the hangar. I had also put some jumps on a standard Mirage G3 (no rings) that fit me and while it was okay, it was nothing compared to my UNISYN. I don't know if it was confidence, flexibility or not having my old rig either but I definitely did feel a bit more fluid in the air with my new rig too, especially in a sit and during transitions. Kris

Well, take this with a grain of salt as the first jump on my new custom Heatwave resulted in a violently spinning mal but I think it was because I left the last stow too close to the riser (I felt the bag bump something when it came off my back). Since then, I have done two fully flaked PRO packs and then went back to my standard psycho-pack for the the last five. All I do is quarter the slider and pull it over the nose just a bit. As for the nose, I take the four left cells and gently fold them back, same with the right. I leave the center cell exposed just a bit to make sure it gets air first. Then roll the tail. All the openings have been on-heading and soft 600-footers. Kris

Ben, you're going to love the Heatwave. Not counting the first jump I put on my new Heatwave two weekends ago where I had to chop it, the four I put on it last weekend were very sweet. Once I got the brakes dialed in it handled almost as good as a Stiletto I tried and the landings were better. The Heatwave has massive amounts of lift and just wants to keep flying. I'm loading mine about 1.35:1 as well. The only thing I didn't like were the factory trim settings. I set the canopy to that as a starting point and the first thing I did after landing was to immediately shorten the lins by 4 inches and try again. That left me with about 2 1/2" of toggle before I started deflecting the tail and made for great front-risering without the canopy bucking. You should have seen the look on my face when I went to pull the toggles down at the original setting while I was wondering why nothing was happening.

Charlie is at home and doing surprisingly well. He mumbled something about wanting to visit the DZ to see his friends this weekend so I mumbled something back about my kicking his ass up one side of the hangar and down the other. So I think he'll be visiting the weekend after, it will give him more time to heal as he can't stand for long amounts of time right now. Tell me about it, April. But you have to know how stubborn and persuasive Charlie is. If he wanted to drive himself home not even a team of crazed skydivers could have stopped him. Ahhh.... Pammi, my little blonde nymph. It's the purple isn't it? Sure... Everyone talks about what it would be like to have sex with Barney the Dino but nobody ever follows through. Sheesh, people today, no commitment to principal.

You know... I should have expected you to say you liked his suit. After all, I have seen how you dress in public (Pammi, help him!).

Okay... Okay! I get the point. I have a loud jumpsuit.

This is definitely a subject that I can speak about. I am about 245# out the door and both my cutaways were spinning mals. Cutaway #1 was my Sabre 210 in my old Talon with large risers / large rings. It was a spinning mal and was an easy one-handed pull. Cutaway #2 was weekend before last on my new Heatwave 190 elliptical in a Mirage G3 with mini risers / mini rings. It was a violently spinning mal with several line-twists above the risers, but was still an easy one-handed pull. Even if it had been down to the risers it still should have been just as easy since the Mirage has armored risers just like the Vectors do. I thought long and hard about getting mini-risers at my weight because of the spinning mal issue but now I know my new Mirage can handle it. The only other down-side to mini-risers is that you will have to inspect them every so often and they will need to be replaced every few hundred jumps as they will not wear as well as large risers will. Just my 2 peso's... Kris

Well, I'm sure if I get injured, no one will shed a tear for my jumpsuit either.

Okay guys, here's the haps on Charlie... Last Saturday night, on the last load of the day Charlie failed to initiate any flare at all and hit the ground in full flight. He was flying his Sabre 150 which he was loading at just over 1.1:1. At the time of the accident, Charlie had just over 220 jumps, 150+ of those this year so he is very current. It was the sunset load and by the time the jumpers came in for landing, we were in that weird 15-30 minute window of twilight time where depth perception is tricky at best. Another jumper was completing a very high-speed hook running west to east, Charlie was approaching north to south over the hangar. He was looking at the other jumper trying to decide if he needed to correct his approach. He looked at the exact same instant he should have started flaring. He snapped his head forward to look at his approach and hit as soon as he turned to look. There was no time to flare. Charlie apparently struck legs first, bounced a foot off of the ground and came to a stop and did not get up. An ambulance was called and he was taken to Cushing Regional Hospital. The doctor initially stated that he possible had a crushed back & pelvis. The X-rays came back and they then stated that he possibly had a dislocated left ankle, compression of his spine and a good deal of soft tissue and muscle damage on his left side. Today, we heard that he has a badly sprained ankle, compression and the soft tissue & muscle damage. Charlie's new nickname is probably going to be Gumby after this one.

Also, don't forget the state laws when it comes to things that are waiverable. In some states, you have to be 18 to skydive, no exceptions. Kris

Kirils, Since my first jump on my new Heatwave was anything but "on-heading"

Both of my malfunctions were sub-terminal: Mal #1 Spinning mal on a Sabre 210 caused by a hottie redhead distracting me while I was setting my brakes. I was watching my altimeter and was under my Dash-M 249 in a bit over 300 feet. Mal #2 VERY high-speed spinning mal on my new Heatwave 190. I was also watching my altimeter on this one (Hey, it's a good habit :) and I was under my PD-176R just over 200 feet later. Kris

That is something I worried about since I am a big guy and decided to get mini-rings on my new Mirage. My cutaway was noticibly harder than on my old Talon rig with the bigger risers. I had a spinning mal on my Talon as well. Luckily, I had just oiled the cables on the Mirage I was jumping and I have anti-line twist armored risers so while it took a little muscle, I was able to cutaway my wildly spinning Heatwave last weekend with one hand. I think the mechanical advantage for cutting away is 200:1 for large rings and 40:1 with mini-rings if I remember correctly. If not, someone correct me. Kris

Sigh, what is it with me and jumps on new gear? Here's a little history: First jump on the rig I bought off of student status: Down-rotor slams me in. First jump on my new Bonehead: The people I jump with crack my head into the side of the C-182 on exit and gouge it. First jump on my freefly suit: Had a brain-fart and ate tarmac, slicing through my chest strap. Maybe this is why my DZ nick-name is Master-"D" and no, think Disaster, not D-license. So, I show up at the DZ on Friday after work and my new Heatwave 190 is there in all its purple and green glory. Since my reserve isn't in yet I throw it in a staff Mirage after hooking up my Mirage bag, risers and pilot-chute to it. The staff Mirage has a PD-176R in it for a reserve, I'm 245# out the door. Aww, I won't have to use it. I had to teach the first jump course Saturday morning so I didn't get to jump it until it was time to take my students and fling them. I couldn't wait to try my new toy but I didn't rush them. Luckily, it was a small class of four and they were all enthusiastic and intelligent and we were done by 1:30. I geared them up, checked them, had another JM give them a second gear check (policy at my DZ) and off we went. All four students performed flawlessly! After a week off, things were starting to look good. After the last student left the strut, I threw a grin at the pilot and jumped. He was nice enough to keep climbing during the passes and we were at just under 4500 when I went. I took about 6-seconds made sure I was rock-solid-stable and threw out. Uh-Oh. That didn't feel right. The bag "felt" funny when it came off of my back. I looked up immediately as it started to stand me up and saw that there were about 6-cells open on the canopy and two line twists below the slider about two-thirds of the way up the lines. I immediately started leaning in the harness away from the twists. Then the other three cells inflated and the canopy immediately spun up at least six more times and I was now spinning on my back. I tried to get out of the twists, no go. I looked at my alti, 3400'. I tried again. 3100'. My next thought was, "That's a good-lookin' canopy!" Yeah, it would've looked better without the twists but I was digging the purple. I looked down (damn hard to do while spinning on my back) to see exactly where I was going to lose my freebag & main at. 2800' I had better do something riGHT FUCKING NOW! LOOK! GRAB! ARCH! RIGHT! LEFT! ARCH! I chopped at 2600' and I had a fully inflated PD-176R over my head at a hair under 2400'. Hell, at least it was green. I got an eyeball on my main and freebag and did a controllability check on this tiny (to my fat ass) reserve since I was loading it at 1.4. Good turn rate, the flare seemed okay; poweful and with no hint of stall. It felt a lot better than the Dash-M 249 I had on my first reserve ride. I looked for the DZ and thought to myself, "Well, at least the winds were running about 10mph." Turns out I'm not that lucky, the windsock was hanging straight down. What did I do to deserve this one...? Downwind, base and now I'm on final approach. 10-feet off the deck and FLARE! To a nice, soft, stand-up landing after about 15-feet of surf. My main landed in the prison on the other corner of the airport property and just three small feet from a razor-wire fence. The freebag was found a few hundred feet away. When we got the main back and I checked it and every seam over here were the general conclusions: 1. I only left about 13-inches of slack between the risers and last stow, that could have caused the bag to spin in my burble, especially since I decided to try the new last stow on the Mirage bag which is a center-stow, not at the side of the bag. I usually leave 18-22 inches. 2. I tried to psycho-pack an unfamiliar canopy and instead of flaking everything to ensure symmetry until I learned my Heatwave's quirks, I just did a "shake to flake". I had gotten away with it on my Sabre and demo Stiletto for over 100 jumps, but not this time. I didn't roll the nose, I just left it hanging, quartered the slider and I didn't roll the tail. I grabbed each end and just pulled them across each other making a perfect triangle, as usual. I then squeezed the air out, folded in thirds and rolled her up. 3. While I was very meticulous in checking the lines and ensuring continuity, I futzed with the brake lines a lot while I was temp finger-trapping them (until I found the brake setting I liked) and after pulling the brakes on the ground I found that the right brake line had 9 twists in it, the left 0. The canopy spun to the right when it twisted up. I called the rigger who saved my sorry ass and I have a bottle of Crown Special Reserve for him. (Thanks Tony!) I bought my case of Corona and all is well. I didn't get to jump it today as we were on wind-hold the whole day. Here is the lesson peoples... Break the chain. Major problems are usually caused by a "chain of events". There were several important things I overlooked in my enthusiasm to try my new toy and things could have turned out a lot worse than they did. Props go out to our pilot Kevin as well who spotted the white freebag and pilot chute from 4000' while they were sitting in deep brush by the side of a dirt-road next to the prison. Damn, I'm going to bed now... Kris

Which reminds me of the button I have affixed to my gear bag: "Commercials show you how detergents take out bloodstains. If you've got a t-shirt with bloodstains all over it, maybe laundry isn't your biggest problem..." Kris

Not quite... Red cells are refrigerated and have a shelf life of 42 days; plasma is frozen and can be stored for one year; platelets must be rotated at room temperature and have a shelf life of five days. Taken from http://www.obi.org/bloodfacts/donated/donated.html Kris

Heh, thanks for the new name suggestions.

The Testor's airbrush system ROCKS! That's what I used to paint my Bonehead. I painted one half with jade Testors metallic flake and the other half with purple Testors metallic flake. With the airbrush I was able to lighten it just enough so that the carbon fibre can still be seen underneath the paint. Kris