ramon

I will not tell you here, but if you do a search on deja news in rec.skydiving for the word "space ball"..you will find what you seek. it will take a while and you will have to sift through a lot of stuff, but if you want it bad enough you will find it

After you left it clouded in and we watced videos on the big screen and drank beer, was still fun. You did great on that jump ramon

Decent used rig, reflex, Dolphin whatever. jump your butt off and later on sell what you got and buy somehting else if you decide to downsize. have fun

Hey, no pun intended, but They are actually easy to pack and a rigger (senior rigger) is supposed to be able to follow the instructions in the manufacturer's manual.. It is not like a racer or anything, I have very little rigging experience but was able to pack my reflex nicely. a hasty rigger can do a "less than neat" job on the pilot chute...but..sheesh. it really is an easy rig. a good FAA rigger should do a good job on any rig he accepts. but I may be wrong ramon

there are a lot of bad feelings and arguments involved with this incident. very sad and it shouldn't have happened. ramon

the intent was a 2nd or pond swoop rig.. price paid was a little high for a swoop rig, but fantastic for a rig that has never even been packed. oh well, Wane will make it dirty soon enough

in a Space 150 (loaded 1.5), packed by someone I did not know. dytter was flatlining at 2500 on strange DZ while I was swinging around on my back. so I chopped, although I might have been able to get out of it, but why risk it

Mine is not installed. Emergency procedures..baby ramon

the mod was really just the old C-flex (Crew) modification. It does not cause you to not have to tighten your pop top. it is just a floppy flap of material to prevent another canopies lines from getting under your pop-top. I'm not going to bother, my Reflex is a pond swoop rig anyway. ramon

No. they all loosen. Some of the newer ones had a nicer pop top design that looked neater and looked tighter longer. A tighter fitting reserve will make it look looser faster also. Now, if your rigger, pre stretches their closing loops, some anal riggers do that, it may make stretch minor enough to were it is unnoticable until next re-pack. That is a pain in the ass, I re-tighten mine myself everytime it gets loose (granted I know how to do it safely).

Why would pie be mentioned?

I think his hope is all the ladies will go out with him. Plan is only do 2-ways with me at strange DZs no-one knows how mediocre he (actually we) is and then swoop like hell when he lands. ramon

My buddy Wane just picked up this rig off the internet. HAHAHA He can't go head down, but he can swoop a XAOS 80. Fine rig, never been packed and has back pads and stainless...but it says Fillippo Fabbi all over it and has Olav's school stuff. ha ha I think if Wane wears it to a strange DZ everyone will think he is a skygod until they jump with him. it is a great skydiving rig, but I think my friend will use it as a pond swoop rig.

Maybe if some of us other than Chuck were actually there, it would be more interesting to look at 50 versions of the same shots over and over again with different people (un named) and canopies. I (average skydiver out on the net who is actually interested in swooping) can recognize a couple of people (Eric Butts, Heath Richardson) and that is it, not having names on the pictures makes it less valuable to me. I can't even figure out which one is Chuck Blue, and It is way to boring to look at them all closely (modem speed)...yawn. At least a couple of them show some water contact or a spill. I'm sure you will sell plenty to the competitors and their friends and family. bloo skies ramon

Nuff said.

If your arms are held in tight and you de-arch slightly (a little head low), you will reach maximum foward speed. I am a 195 lb male 5'11" which means I am thick (thick headed more like) and I can track 95 mph before I get tired and my form goes bad. I bet you can go slower than that. ramon

blak skies

keep your canopy and demo everyone elses 170/150 as spring apporaches. By the time youare ready to buy you will be more current, better, and have a good idea what you want. Demo everything, it is fun having a differnet canopy waiting at the DZ for you every other weekend, take your time and you will really look foward to the one you buy and will enjoy it more rather than force yourself to adapt to it. just my 2 cents ramon

Go to Moab Utah and hook up with some experienced people. If you jump outside of Utah, make sure you trust the people you jump with not to get you in trouble. It is imperative that you find a mentor who knows all the ins and outs especially as was mentioned, getting fried on some antennas. good luck. r

that sounds really smart. Yellow cables are what I call "old school" sorry...piglets and double cutaway clips are really old school . some of todays canopies are a little different from yesteryears container technology. Although.... some are arguing, new methods of getting out of spins. My friend Derek is writing an article about aligning your links when in a hard spin to induce a flat flight with line twists. I guess that is sound (it works for him at 3.1 on a VX 60) if there is not enough friction to prevent you sliding a riser downward a little to even your links. I have hard cutaway housings on my Vector 3 and I heard the PD swooper (serious hearsay) had his life saved on a violent velocity spinner down his risers by them

I'd like too but I will be working. I wrote a custom software package that doesn't work (I'm an engineer not a programmer), and I have to go over there to "tune" the package. before you start thinking things it is for a petrochemical plant (polyethylene) bloo skies ramon

ha ha ha ha ha

Took this off another forum. Read learn, make your own decisions. bloo skies ramon From Roger Nelson's recent update & email: Missy called and revealed a very close call she experienced in Eloy. Missy opened up in a severe line twist spin under her Velocity 90. She told me she immediately was thrown on her back which she knew meant the centrifugal force would not allow her to kick out (Skydive Chicago exclusive training!). Immediately she went to cut away and couldn't. The spin intensified and with all her might she tried and tried with both hands. Over and over with her knees curled up in her chest she tried to thrust her cut away handle but nothing worked. Soon she heard her ditter flat line and she knew she had to do something before impact so she dumped her reserve, which then entangled around her body. She grabbed the pilot chute and free bag and hand launched it away and it worked itself out, but with line twist. Now in a down plane well under 1,000 feet she cut away her main which released and she frantically kicked out of her line twist. The moment she was clear she grabbed her toggles and flared for the landing. She got to a phone and told me the story. I had to sit down even though I knew she was ok. I felt so small and powerless and all I wanted was for her to be home where I felt I could protect her. As soon as I hung up I dropped to my knees and thanked God for her protection. Oh how I love her! Missy, you handled it and did what you had to. You were in a bad situation with no clear recovery technique yet made split second decisions that saved your life. Be proud! While Missy was telling me the story she kept explaining how she reverted back to her AFP training, which had been reinforced every time she went up with her AFP students. She said she followed the "Golden Rules" and never gave up. So now that the emotions of the event have lessened, I would like to reveal why I shared this story and what I believed happened. Why she couldn't cut away. Skydiving equipment manufactures independently make the different components. With the continual advancements it appears the harness and container manufactures are still catching up with the high performance canopy manufactures. Since the risers are manufactured by the container companies, there is a gap in compatible research for the different canopies. Nation wide information is coming in of extremely hard cut-away pulls reaching the point some have been unable to cut away like Missy. The riser manufactures are attempting to address the problem with a hard housing sleeve that is inserted in the riser cut-away sheath. What appears to be happening is the line twists are winding down past the lines into the risers. The twist passes the point where the cut away cables end and therefore bind up the end of the cables, vastly increasing the cut away pull pressure. Both Kirk and I have discussed this and at this writing believe the best riser being produced is the one by Relative Workshop. It is the most advanced design, which is typical of Bill Booth. I URGE EVERYONE JUMPING A HIGH PERFORMANCE CANOPY with a wing loading of over 1.0 (this applies to anyone whose exit weight is more than the square footage of their main canopy) to have their risers modified with a riser cut away end cable hard housing insert. DO IT NOW! Please Note: In today's environment having a toggle come free on opening is the beginning of a number of the canopy malfunctions we are seeing today. Poor Velcro, loose elastic keepers and or riser covers have contributed to toggle being knocked off

Chuck and/or Alan, I've been trying to jump my FX lately instead of my vengeance because it is so much faster ( load fX @ 2 vs 1.67 on veng). and it is pretty my vengeance is butt ugly The Vengeance is very easy to swoop and it dives hard for it's size. The brake lines are a little tight, as a result, if I am diving slightly cross wind and need to make a heading adjustment I can bump a toggle and it is done,no problem. This is good especially if I am swooping traffic (a no no, but it happens, and someone who has right of way starts drifting into my lane while I'm diving. My FX has really loose brake lines. I think I pull them5 or 6 inches before I feel anything. When I dive it or I am pulling out of a dive little toggle movements don't do anything to my heading and well.... I am leery of bumping a toggle at 50 mph or while I am planing out. I'm sure this sounds amateurish and stupid...any advice? ramon