Kris

It is going to be called the Safire Gen II. From what I've heard, one of the things they are fixing is the trim on the canopy in regards to complaints that the sweet spot for the flare is too deep in the control range. I don't remember what other tweaks they were going to put on it... Kris

Yup. I did my first jump at Paradise, decided I wanted to continue but thought I'd check my options. I walked into OSC and knew I had found the right place. YEOUCH! That had to have left a mark! Glad to hear that it wasn't a lot worse and that you got back into skydiving. Mikey doesn't bitch too much about low turns for swoops anymore but there are a couple of jumpers that we worry about and he lets them know it. Did you ever meet Greg Gerondale? Now that guy can surf a canopy. He was doing an AFF load and the student's mother was in the golf cart with Mike while he was talking down the student. He hooks it right behind the golf-cart and screams past her side of the golf cart at over 50mph less than three feet from her. He scared the AFF student's mom so bad she lost control of her bladder. Heh, that's Greg for ya'

She told me but I forgot it. Sigh. She was about 5'5", kinda blonde hair, light tan with this cute button-nose thing going on...

OH YEAH BABY! I have accepted kevin Smith as my Personal Savior© along with the "Buddy Christ®" I am 5-minutes away from walking out the door to go see "Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back" with a cute little red-head. Life is good. Kris "You're going to listen to something I said? Haven't I made it abundantly clear during the tenure of our friendship that I don't know shit?" Brodie - Mallrats

Mike Farmer was at the Freaks Flock Together boogie at SDD and saw when Bill Hallett demo'd that new toy. I do like how they made BOC almost as secure as a PUD handle. Bill picked up the entire rig by the handle. The handle is supposed to come out with just a tiny twist. It's what I ordered on my new Mirage UNISYN but I am having bill send a demo PC to me to try on a staff G3 at my DZ to see what the actual "extraction hassle" is like. Since I am going to jump an elliptical I don't want something that I am going to have to get freaky with in the air. On the ground is a different matter.

Line dump is when you thow the PC, the bag comes off your back and all the lines dump out of the bands at once because of improper line stowage (loose bands or short bite or a combo). Now the fun part begins. The canopy starts to inflate before you hit line-stretch. Sounds fun, doesn't it? NOT! You basically go from 120mph to almost 0 in a heartbeat. It will probably hurt you or your canopy or both. John LeBlanc of PD classifies it as a malfunction and the one he would least like to have, ever. Kris

Aww, shucks! I knew being ugly had to count for something.

I bet they did pay hell! Mike is absolutely anal about how the student rigs are packed, not that it's a bad thing. The only student rig cutaway's I've heard of were Josh Mathis's line-over and Scott Bunch's bag-lock that happened before I was a student there in Sept 98. There have been two cutaways in the last twelve months but one was from a student who didn't like how loud his slider was (we asked him how he liked the slider on the reserve) and the other was from a student that appeared to have pulled his cutaway handle instead of his PC or he pulled it *right* after he pulled the PC. I had no idea you trained at my home DZ... Small world. It was Manta's and ROL with FXC AAD's. We changed to BOC & CYPRES last year and in the last two months we ditched the Manta's and Raiders and put in new PISA Skymasters. We still keep student rigs with a Goliath, modified Vector Tandem 360 and a Falcon 300 for the big-boys. The rigs are still the yellow & black Prestige's made by Adventure Loft in Texas and Mike just changed out the velcro on 80% of them. That's one of the many things I really like about how my DZ is run. Mike puts money back into the business, he replaces things before they get worn out, he's a maintenance nut when it comes to the airplane, and we always try to err on the side of safety. KrisZilla Proud to be a JM at OSC...

Hmm, Mike Farmer warned me when I went to Quincy last year that I *WOULD* (not might) land off airport at least once. Me being a 50-jump wonder at the time thought, "Yeah, right. They use GPS, dumbass." Sure enough, my first jump at Quincy was out of a CASA-212 and instant-karma came up and straight bitch-slapped me as she took my jump-ticket. Me and a buddy exited for a two-way freefly and I happened to look down, no airport, I looked out, no airport. I looked almost TWO MILES OUT... there's the airport. DAMN! Check the traffic, can I open high? Nope, there's someone above me, track like hell. I tracked like hell. Look up, there's that same idiot 1000' above me. I veer off 90-degrees, no good. Alti-check, 3000'. Track some more. ARGH! He's still above me! Hummed it down to 2K & pitched. Found a small, mowed patch 1/5 the size of a football field and I land dead center. What was the consolation? The absolutely total hottie girl from Atlanta that landed next to me. It made for a nice walk back to the road where we met up with my friend and got a ride back to the airport. Now if you want to talk about other bad spots, ask Mike Farmer about the time he landed in the prison or the time he knowingly got out three miles down-wind to catch a friend. Heh. Kris I couldn't make this stuff up if I tried.

If you hate purple, my new gear that I just ordered will get your ugly award but I think she's gonna be beautiful: Heatwave 190: Neon purple top & bottom skin with neon green ribs & slider Mirage G3: Entirely purple with white trim tape, white embroidery & silver accents. Now my old Sabre 210 was ugly as hell on the ground but damn pretty in the air: Navy/Turquoise/Lime/Lemon/Lemon/Lemon/Lime/Turquoise/Navy Kris Three weeks until my new rig...

From what I've heard about that video he had to stip off his altimeter & then his glove so that he could pull his reserve handle. Yeouch! Close one... The lesson here is know thy gear & know how it will interfere with anything else that may be on the dive. Kris

Yup Zennie, you might have caught a rotor off of the hangar. Mine was a double-fault: Landing too close to the hangars along with being heat-sick / low blood sugar at the time. I knew I shouldn't have jumped but at the time it was easier to leave the airplane after pitching the last student then it was to climb back in. On landing the ground was coming straight up at me (yes, the canopy was open, heh) and it felt like I was flaring with two limp noodles but I did flare. I guess the fact that it was easier to leave than to climb back in should have been my first clue.

It depends on the gear and the DZ, period. At my DZ, the student gear is just as safe, if not more safe than some of the rigs I have seen other people jump. I have only heard of two malfunctions that were real (not the student cutting away because the slider was too loud or they freaked out) and those were about three years ago. My DZ averages a couple of thousand students a year. All of our student rigs have new mains (PISA Skymasters), CYPRES, huge reserves, and BOC & rip-cord deployment option. The mains are all packed to the DZO's specs no matter who is packing the rig or it gets re-done. There is a method to his madness and it is a damn safe one. But, they're only safe for RW, not for freeflying as they have velcro-risers and a small bit (1.5") of exposed bridle between the BOC pocket and the flap of the container. Just my $0.02, Kris IAD/JM

ARRRGGGHHH!!! Quit teasing, Kirils! I still have three weeks until my custom Heatwave and my Mirage UNISYN gets here. And Damn you, Farmer! :) Let me know if you still want me to come over tonight and help you with a line-check on your new toy.

Congrats, Cyric77! I had the exact same thoughts when I had my cutaway around jump #76. I used to be REALLY, REALLY nervous and after my cutaway, I am a bit more clear-headed and I know that I can perform my emergency procedures now. It was nice to "finally get it out of the way" and it takes a lot of stress off of my skydives now. Kris

Oklahoma Skydiving Center IAD-FJC including ground school - $135, $45 for additional IAD student jumps, $55 for freefall student jumps. AFF-FJC including ground school - $250 for Level I. Tandem - $150 Optional video of tandem or AFF $50

Thanks for the replies everyone. Spectre: Thanks for the info. The canopy I custom ordered is a Heatwave 190 and packs plenty small to begin with. The M5-sized container would not allow me to down-size down the road and I plan on keeping this container a long, long time. As for my jumps, I do a lot of JM'ing (hop n' pop's), skill jumps with newbies (RW) and the other half is freefly. Lisa: Actually, I used to be almost 275# out the door and put a couple of jumps on someone's Fury 200 a couple of years ago. It was a little scary but both jumps were standups, one was in no-wind. I think the main scariness came from the low jump numbers I had at the time, and being used to a Sabre 210. As it is, I have lost a good deal of weight over the last six months and it is still falling off weekly so the wing-loading is coming down. PhreeZone: I have seen three Raven's stall on landing now. One was a Micro-Raven 150 loaded at 1:1 and it messed up a friend of mine for a couple of days. As for the actual landing, as soon as the toggles got below his shoulders the canopy dived backwards and dropped him square onto his back. The second was my own Raven Dash-M 249 and it pounded my ass into the ground on an into-the-wind landing and there was a 5-7mph wind that day. The canopy folded just before my feet touched the ground. The last one was two weeks ago, it was an instructor with 2000 jumps on another Micro-Raven 150 at 1.3:1, it didn't flare much at all and bruised the hell out of his heel. I have seen a Tempo loaded at 1.45:1 come in and swoop just like a ZP canopy for a nice standup. I don't think loading a Tempo 210 at 1.16:1 is going to be a great hassle. I would love to have the PD Reserve in my rig but reinforced or not, I'm just not comfortable with that wing-loading. For my main, no problem in about 500-600 more jumps or so, for my reserve, never. Aviatrr: Thanks for the info, Sandy Reid is a great guy and really helped me out when I got my Talon as my first rig. I am going to go with the Tempo-210. BTW, PhreeZone, your C-license is one digit above mine. Small world... Thanks again for all of your feedback! Kris

I just ordered my new Mirage G3 in the M4 size. It will hold a PD-160 or a Raven Dash-M 181 for the reserve. Since I am about 245# out the door I was leaning towards the Dash-M 181 but I also heard that I can fit a Tempo 210 into the same area. Anyone know if that's accurate? I thought I'd try here before bugging Bill at Mirage again. I'd like to have as much square footage over my head as possible.

Almost all student mains use "de-tuned" steering lines. Generally, the steering lines are longer than they need to be so that even if you have a long-armed gorilla flying the canopy, they still cannot stall the canopy and the turns are slow and do not lose much altitude. Because student mains are generally very big and under-loaded, they are still quite landable even though the full flare-power isn't there. Kris IAD/JM

Sorry, but I just had to add on to this thread. I've been trying to decide what kind of rig to buy over the last two months. I had been waffling between the Wings and the Mirage but I just really couldn't justify the high cost of the Mirage. Then I started using one of our demo Mirage's at the DZ to JM with after I sold my rig to buy a new one. The Mirage wasn't sized to me but was still the most comfortable rig I had tried on compared to my Talon and a Javelin and a Vector I had tried. I liked the bridle and pin protection plus all of the great options that come standard. Then Mirage came out with their new UNISYN harness and their freefly deployment handle. That was all it took. Between all the calls I made to Mirage asking about deployment options, reserve options, other options and just general pestering I must have spent about an hour total talking to Bill Hallett. The kicker is that I am getting the rig at a staff discount because I am a JM at my DZ, Oklahoma Skydiving Center. Mirage isn't making much (if any) money off of me. Bill Hallett knew that and always took the time to answer my questions in a very friendly and polite manner. He also had some great suggestions and it was his customer service that really clinched the deal for me. My rig will be purple with silver accents, white trim-tape and embroidery, soft reserve handle, freefly-handle and I went with the nickel-plated UNISYN harness and added the very cool alien logo on the back. This is my first (BEER!) custom rig and I definitely feel that I made the best possible choice! Thanks, Bill! I can't wait until my baby gets here! Now if my custom Heatwave will arrive in time then everything will be perfect! Kris

The same thing happened to me a couple of weekends ago. Some of the guys on the ground watched it happen. I came in and at about 50-feet I stopped moving forward and just started sinking and no amount of flare happened at the ground. I managed to stand it up but I hit pretty hard. The conclusion from those that saw it was that I caught a down-rotor when I came in on final. Wind near the hangars on a hot, sticky, Oklahoma day can be fun sometimes. (not) Kris

I watched an AFF instructor fire the reserve on one of our staff Mirage G3's last weekend after blowing a line on the main canopy. The reserve PC was seen to launch quite mightily off of his back and less than 200 feet later he was sitting under a Raven Dash-M 150. That's good enough for me. My new Mirage gets ordered tomorrow. Kris

The student equipment at my DZ (Oklahoma Skydiving Center) are Prestiege containers setup for BOC (we use IAD, not S/L) and AFF, CYPRES, PISA Skymaster mains and Raven reserve's. For the experienced skydivers, my DZ is primarily a Mirage / PD biased DZ. One of our instructors got a hold of a demo Heatwave 120 that he is loading at 1.8:1 and he liked it better than a Stiletto, Cobalt and an FX that he had tried. This is the same guy who told me that if I bought a Heatwave that I'd be throwing my money away. Glad to see that he has his custom Heatwave ordered. I have also ordered mine and Mike Farmer is ordering his this week so we will have some competition for PD. As for students looking for a first canopy, I tell them to look for a Hornet, Spectre or used Sabre. The Safire I won't recommend until I see what the feedback is like on the Gen II mod they are coming out with and the Sabre2 sounds like it will be a good choice once it has been on the market a while and has had any remaining bugs worked out (if there were any to begin with). Kris

Yeah, what Avaitrr said! Myself, I love to freefly even though I'm a big-boy and have a fall-rate like a home-sick bowling-ball. I fully embrace "The Dark Side". However, you should make sure that you have a solid basis in basic RW skills before attempting to freefly. In freeflying your speeds are much faster than RW, altitude goes by fast and a dive can go from "Oh Wow!" to "Holy Shit!" in the blink of an eye. Awareness is crucial and so is getting good coaching from a competent freeflyer. Also, make sure that you have at least one audible altimeter (two is great) and, even though I'm a hypocrite for saying this as I do not have one in my rig yet, having a CYPRES in your rig would be a good thing too. The discipline will always be there when you are ready. I tell my own students to eventually try everything; CRW, Freefly, Freestyle, and even Accuracy. Our great sport has a lot of disciplines and you are sure to find something that you fall in love with, but to be a well-balanced "Renaissance Man" skydiver is a great thing and gives you greater overall experience from having tried many things as your skill level eventually progresses. An example: CRW - Teaches awesome canopy control skills RW - Gets you used to thinking in new ways and working with others. Freefly / Freestyle - Learn how to balance and fly on any part of your body. Accuracy - Could save your butt someday, teaches canopy control and is part of your license requirements. Skysurfing / Birdman suits - Well, those are just plain fun and I personally want to try a Birdman suit when I have the experience level for it. Think of them as your bonus / desert for learning all of the above... Above all else, talk to your Jumpmasters / Instructors when you get off of student status, tell them what you're interested in and they'll tell you what you need to focus on to get there. Just my $0.02 as another newbie JM Kris "I tried to get a rectangular bear for months Ended up I had to get a polar bear and use trig..."

I have psycho-packed my own Sabre for well over 100 jumps and other's Sabre's with no problems. I have also psycho-packed Stiletto's, HeatWaves, Spectre's, a Manta and even an Esprit with no problems at all. The psycho-pack is just like a PRO-pack until you lay it on the ground and roll it up. In my opinion it is better on the pack-job because you're not stuffing a ton of fabric underneath the canopy while not being able to control the lines. With a psycho-pack you're just squeezing the air out, folding in thirds and rolling it up. Just make sure to put the bag on up-side down so that when you twist the bag back 180-degrees to normal it is facing the correct way and you may need to use a 6"-8" bridle extension between the top of the canopy and your D-Bag so that the ring-stop is at the PC connector at the bottom of the bag instead of your canopy fabric. Do a search on some of my old posts as I wrote a how-to on it a month or so back. If you have any questions, let me know! Kris