el_chester

Blue skies Beezy... thanks for your professional help with that demo canopy in 2004, and for your posts on here over the years. -- Be careful giving advice. Wise men don't need it, and fools won't heed it.

why is the control tower mosaic'd out? -- Be careful giving advice. Wise men don't need it, and fools won't heed it.

What you said. I had until now too steep a progression, and only with retrospect am I able to see that clearly. The interesting thing is that in my case I would have heeded a "slow down" advice had anyone given it to me... but I was encouraged to go fast, and didn't know better to slow down. So... in a csae like the one discussed in this thread I also blame the environment for not stepping up and protecting inexperienced jumpers from themselves. I beleive it's our duty towards them and towards the sport. That's why I have no problem with being the unpopular guy always erring on the side of safety. -- Be careful giving advice. Wise men don't need it, and fools won't heed it.

http://www.airplane-pictures.net/image877.html -- Be careful giving advice. Wise men don't need it, and fools won't heed it.

Hey Gordon - good to read you man! As for the oficial DVD... didn't you hear that usually they send it a month or so before the next World Team, to get people motivated? In all honesty, I am eager to get it too... I recently got an email from Mark asking whether anyone had documented the "bear wars". Of course there are a million still pictures, but does anyone have video of that? I very often think of the great time I had on the british sector in '06. And like many others, when I do, I miss Taz -- Be careful giving advice. Wise men don't need it, and fools won't heed it.

Bob's own web page with many of his own pictures here: http://homepage.mac.com/bobflies/ You might want to download the pictures you like as these pages will be taken down if Bob's .mac membership is not renewed. Albums in his pages: It's All About Bob | The Adventure Begins | Gettysburg | Skydive Carolina | Jamestown | Colonial Williamsburg | Yorktown | Mariners Museum | Virgina | Break Down In Georgia | World Freefall Convention | Tennessee | Kentucky | Sequoia National Forest | Redding | Reno/The Lonliest Road in America | Bryce Canyon | Grand Canyon (Rim View) | Hawksnest Boogie | Grand Canyon (River View) | Arches National Park | Cambodia; Angkor Wat and Floating Village -- Be careful giving advice. Wise men don't need it, and fools won't heed it.

I had been looking for a nice steady wind day to try landing on rears with my brakes unstowed for a long time. So, a couple of months ago I found the right conditions, and went up and tried that out. Worked fine, although almost exactly after placing my feet on the ground, my canopy quickly stalled behind me. That just proved what I was expecting and I did not hurt myself. However, the leap of faith mentioned by phoenixlpr was definitely there... after having done many rear-riser flares up high, I expected a stall at the end of the flare and not knowing exactly when it was going to happen in relation to the ground made me a bit nervous. On THE VERY NEXT JUMP... I needed to land on rears after the packer forgot his packing tool (or whatever you call the metallic thing to pull up the loop) in my container and it prevented me from unstowing one of my toggles. I did not re-stow the other one, but wrapped it around my hand so that it would more-or-less have as much brake in as the other one, and continued with rears to the ground from there. It sure made me feel safe to KNOW I could handle the situation without cutting away. This time I flared more carefully, plus with the unstowed brakes, the landing was a pretty normal one. This was on a stiletto 135 at just over 1.5 WL. -- Be careful giving advice. Wise men don't need it, and fools won't heed it.

why should a swooper have to try and predict which way the "SP" flier will stop their s-turns on landing because their instructor never taught them the correct way to land? why should a swooper have to try and predict if a "SP" flier will be in the HP landing area? From what you wrote it sounds like if every slow canopy guy out there did a very predictable pattern, you'd be ready to land in the same area as them. I do not doubt that you have the skill to share the landing area with them, and even avoid them 99% of the times when they deviate from what you expected them to do, but isn't that exactly the way it's been done for years in many places? Isn't also this "sharing the space" the situation that led to the Danny-Bob incident? Stu, I agree that such an s-turn "Standard Pattern" guy like you describe is a hazard to anyone coming in faster than him who needs to overtake him. This hypothetical s-turn "SP" guy is in the wrong and if he is not a student, he should be talked to (well, also if he is a student, of course). However, I believe this is besides the point of this thread... the point is: we should try to figure out a way to avoid -as much as possible- people with different speeds converging into the same place at the same time. If we manage to figure out a way to do this, then there is less guessing needed, and the risks of at least this kind of canopy collision (fast canopy taking out slow one) are lowered. This is good for swoopers and non-swoopers alike! The way I see it is everybody has a right to land at whatever speed they like, as long as this is always done in an area where the speed differential with other people landing at the same time in the same area is not too big. The less speed differential, the safer canopies can fly close to each other (same as cars on the road). This whole thread is not about banning swooping, but about organising landing patterns. Having done many jumps at a DZ where it has been in practise for some years, I am an advocate of Brian Germain's "great wall" as described in this article, and particularly on the first option. I particularly like that people coming in "fast" with a 90º turn are not in the same area as straight-in, pattern flyers. They will still be way slower than the guy doing a 270, but at least, a 90º swooper using the swoop area should be in the "very predictable" category, or not be there. I do not like Brian's second option as much because it means that the slower canopies (and hence probably more inexperienced people in this group) are the ones who have to respect and pay attention to the "great wall" on their downwind leg. Of course Brian's diagram cannot be put in practise at each and every DZ, but then, one could argue that on those DZs where the landing area layout does not allow for a safe solution, simultaneous fast and slow landings are not all that compatible there. Brian's solution also involves more walking for part of the people involved, and that translates to time, translates to other problems, I know... but seriously, would you just leave things the way they are if you were confident that lower, slower guys would never ever turn or deviate once they turned to final? -- Be careful giving advice. Wise men don't need it, and fools won't heed it.

According to zoominfo.com, Performance Designs is in the "Toys & Games" industry. I'm not so sure about games... but I don't have a problem with calling canopies "life-saving toys" . -- Be careful giving advice. Wise men don't need it, and fools won't heed it.

Hey Kevin, thanks for sharing. Glad you could get rid of your mani! Oh, and I'm still doing my first CRW jump with oyu, someday. -- Be careful giving advice. Wise men don't need it, and fools won't heed it.

I will move to Sydney in a couple of months, so I have the following questions: - Do you know if a German license will be recognized to jump regularly (i.e. not just a couple of times as a tourist) in Australia? Or do I have to get an Aussie license once I have moved there permanently? - Does the Australian license have to be regularly renewed or is it a permanent license as long as one stays current? - Does one have to belong to the national parachuting organization to jump in Australia regularly? Thanks for your replies, E. -- Be careful giving advice. Wise men don't need it, and fools won't heed it.

Hi John. Check out this weeks news... The Aussie TV show that mexicans got offended by The patriotic response by one mexican BTW, to set the record straight... even though I am mexican, I beleive this guy is waaay over-the-top with his patriotism. Not to say that the people who do Big Brother Australia weren't stupid and should have known better than to do something which was evidently going to be seen as disrespectful and offensive by many, DUH! -- Be careful giving advice. Wise men don't need it, and fools won't heed it.

hey saskia was that the one i did (sector 11)? otherwise just pm me your address and i will gladly send you guys a copy of it - sometime... (i am slow with these "low-priority" things as i moved to Berlin last month and will be moving to Sydney in a couple of months...) -- Be careful giving advice. Wise men don't need it, and fools won't heed it.

Today I put on my TSR t-shirt for the first time since the event and when I came back home, checked the mail and the DVD was there. I got it in Berlin, Germany, so I would supose that most US TSR participants must have theirs by now. Great job on the editing! I loved Lee Honeycutt giving the props to our plane and our captain Harry Hopkins. We really had one of those sub-teams where everything went very very smooth and fun all weekend long. That back-2-back 150-way completion was not bad at all! Too bad the weather didn't help on Sunday, 'cause I'm confident we could have done the 2-point. Oh well, now there's an "excuse" to fly to another event in the future to meet up with everybody again. -- Be careful giving advice. Wise men don't need it, and fools won't heed it.

Congratulations Guy, Louie and Z-Team! -- Be careful giving advice. Wise men don't need it, and fools won't heed it.

Congrats everyone! I would also have "somehow" gotten myself on the pic with the brits if I had been there. I look forward to the TSR even more now

I hate to admit that although I have never jumped while still strapped, (knock on wood!) I have been strapped all the way to altitude at least 5 times before moving a bit and noticing I am still strapped. On the up side, when possible I always put the seatbelt with no slack around my body (not just the harness), so I notice as soon as I try to move. This is one ot the things that I have a tendency to forget. (Argh!) I am glad the person in this incident was promptly helped by the guy who cut the seatbelt. Do you have any info on the tool used to cut the seatbelt? -- Be careful giving advice. Wise men don't need it, and fools won't heed it.

I really wish I could be there. No doubt it will be fun. Plus there will be so many friends there... damn, it makes me feel like dropping everything and hopping on a plane right now! The Z-Team is one of the events I have enjoyed most in the bigway world. I hope you guys break the sequential record. Good luck! I will be at next month's TSR 150-way sequential attempts, so if you break the current sequential record with more than a 150-way, I am curious to see whether the organizers of the TSR are planning on trying a 3-point with us. Please keep us informed of your progress. -- Be careful giving advice. Wise men don't need it, and fools won't heed it.

I will not name names, but I will just say he is a skydiver and this was a skydiving-related discussion about exit separation. -- Be careful giving advice. Wise men don't need it, and fools won't heed it.

I once had a discussion on this with a friend, who stubbornly said this was impossible, because according to him, all air moves together in the same direction. Today from the window of one of the places I work at, I shot this time-lapse movie which -to my surprise- gave me the evidence I needed to convince that friend. Video here. So my point is... if you are not too experienced, don't assume you always have to land in the direction of the jump run, there are times when to land into the wind, you have to turn 180 degrees from the direction the plane was travelling when it dropped you, assuming it was a jump run into the wind (like most are). Always watch the wind at ground level and -unless DZ landing direction rules mandate otherwise- set up your pattern accordingly. (The only slight injury I have had skydiving was hurting my heels while running out a downwind landing @ 5000ft ASL.) -- Be careful giving advice. Wise men don't need it, and fools won't heed it.

sweet one bro! -- Be careful giving advice. Wise men don't need it, and fools won't heed it.

Better late than never... (Plus we can learn from this incident, no matter that it happened a while ago) Here is the full video. And here it is at full DV res (only the 3 seconds when the canopy opens), so that you can do all the "video forensics" of the incident that you like. I also found this video of the same kind of incident (maybe even the one discussed in this thread???). Edited to add: To open the full-res DV version after downloading from skydivingmovies.com, I had to rename the file by changing the extension from .mov to .dv -- Be careful giving advice. Wise men don't need it, and fools won't heed it.

Yesterday 15 years ago. I was 18. When I was about 7, I saw skydiving on TV and told my parents to take me. They said: "No way in hell we're ever taking you to do such a thing! However, when you are 18, you can earn your own money and we won't be able to opose." Little did they know that my first salary EVER was destined to my first jum course :) Oh, and they did come and see my 1st, 25th and around 200th jump. -- Be careful giving advice. Wise men don't need it, and fools won't heed it.

Well, it seems like yesterday. What a wonderful day Feb. 8th 2006 was... three jumps, each better than the previous: 376 --- "399.5" --- 400 I soooo look forward to being part of World Team in the future again. Warm regards to all World Team members from all over the world on the 1st anniversary of us setting the record. -- Be careful giving advice. Wise men don't need it, and fools won't heed it.

Did you already hold this talk? If not, I can send you a dvd with both videos i did during the world team. Neither has freefall on it, but the vibe is definitely captured. -- Be careful giving advice. Wise men don't need it, and fools won't heed it.