ChasingBlueSky

I personaly know several that are 1:10,000 or better. Me-2700:2 both were my packjobs. The majority of (mal)"functions" are jumper induced, not packjob. I'm about the same - I packed one mal (mine - which may have been from a broken line) in almost 5000 pack jobs. _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

$7=37% of a $19 jump ticket!!! More customers at a lower price will make you more than charging more with less customers. Cheap pack jobs are good for the packers. Yes, it is hard work, but you don't have to be a packer. Unless you have cash to toss about, I don't see why you would want to pay over $5 - but that is just my opinion. I've said it before - we don't charge less for smaller canopies (which are usually more sensitive to pack jobs), why should a packer charge more for a larger canopy? I've packed a 260 new Safire in almost 7 minutes to get someone on a ten minute call. If the packer is any good, size of the canopy shouldn't matter. However, tips are always appreciated but never demanded - lack of tips will should not get you packs that are any worse or any slower. Why should I charge higher? When I was a full time packer, I would average at least 50 a day, 70 a day on a good weekend, and 89 is my best in one day. Do the math, now add in tips. Yea, rainy weekends would suck and I would be on Ramen for dinner after those weekends - but that is the life of a packer. The only time I charged a different rate is when I was packing for a team that promised me a certain amount of pack jobs. If a packer wants to earn more, they should pack tandems where it is usually $7-10/pack job. Usually I pay for a packer only after a long hot day, after the sunset load and I have taken a sip of beer, or after a full contact skydive. _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

While I doubt I will ever fly one - it is impressive to watch an amazing pilot fly it. Complicated? I never realized a parachute could be that complex. I had a chance to sneak a quick peak at it on the packing mat one day. Either way, Mike Swanson can do some great things under it. _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

Plus what other pilot ratings? And how long have you been involved with aviation? Oh yeah what do you do for a living? You are NOT the typical student John. And what about the rest of us? John is only one of many students that have gone thru the program and taken a similar route - there are quite a few people on this forum that are the same way. Personally I was under a Stiletto before I hit 100 jumps. Was it blind luck or skill that prevented me from killing myself under it? (And looking back, I would have been able to do BillVons checklist). Maybe there is something to be said for the amount of training that we get, as well as learning how to "feel" how a modern canopy flies right from the start. Wasn't this the same reasons we stop teaching students with SOS and moved to BOC? _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

I hate packing, it hurts my lower back. There is nothing wrong with using a packer, or being one. However, I think everyone should know how to pack to better respect their gear. If you are not familiar with it you have a better chance of gear problems or complacency. That said, I think I am over 5000 pack jobs (I would have to pull out my tally sheets to get an exact number) now and one mal. If I have the time/money, I will become a rigger soon. I have yet to pack anything over a 300, BASE, reserve or round and have only been shown how to flat pack once. I learned to pack on a 260 Safire and 230 Sabre (ouch!). _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

Interesting. John LeBlanc was just telling us how PD was trying to invent this sort of canopy for them, and after cutting it away (60 sq ft with a line across the top for the chopper to catch it), it inflated and he tried to catch it himself.....only to have it wrap up on his foot and turn into a small downplane! edit to add - he mentioned he was jumping with four canopies at the time - the only reason he attempted it. _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

True, they could be unethical and use a source from an old article - not checking up on sources is a terrible thing to do. Maybe they should do a check on Terry and see what they find, he may lose some credibility. Nonetheless - no one in my five years at SDC has anyone refered to it as "the compound." However, we have made plenty of jokes about Kool-Aid. Let people believe what they might - if they want to latch onto the Terry stories, fine. We don't need those people around to bring the rest of us down. My first thought when I saw this post was "sigh. here we go again." I'm not certain I understand the reason for this article, and it certainly has put a dent in my mood....some of the deaths mentioned in that article are still hard to accept to this day. You missed the canopy collision of two jumpers after a team jump. Still, that would easily lend to your point - the DZ, location, training methods or DZO had nothing to do with the lose of our friends. Like Chris, all of us at SDC have lost countless nights of sleep trying to figure this out and what could have been done different. We have lost even more friends from people quitting the sport and stop associating with us since they couldn't handle the pain anymore. It is a safe operation. If it wasn't I wouldn't jump there and I would do my best to get all my friends to leave. Rook and Missy are doing an amazing job. In fact, they are doing better than some seasoned DZOs that I know. I've only been around 5 years, but the amount of growth both of them have gone through since the first time I met them is something to behold. Skydive Chicago hasn't missed a beat, the support staff and training staff are world class. I doubt I will ever find another DZ that is as safe, friendly, and greats everyone with a smile. STL _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

I'm not looking for a one-size fits all answer - and sorry if the poll made it seem that way. That is what annoyed me about the article....I guess others feel the same as I did. The perspective of how a person was trained should be factored in as well. There are several DZs that are not as conservative as others, but their training program has been split into freefall and canopy skills. If someone has gone thru AFF in 8 jumps without being taught how to do braked turns (and letting them know you still lose alti during it) and other similar skills, then this will directly effect the type and size of canopy they can handle. Also - John LeBlanc was just at SDC for the Spring Expo to give his Wing Loading talk. It's about the 7th time I've seen it, and I keep learning new things from it. He challenges everyone to listen to him and to challenge what they know about piloting a canopy. I recommend everyone to hear this if you can. One thing he mentioned was WL - it doesn't scale from smaller to larger canopies. 1.5 under a Sabre 107 is not going to be the same as 1.5 under a Sabre 230. Not trying to make a point - just food for thought. Pet peeves: * there is no such thing as a true eliptical canopy in sport skydiving. * why do people feel that stand up landings by a novice is a good way to judge their piloting skills? I know plenty of great pilots that due to medical conditions can not even walk out a landing and have to PLF each time. _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

Jump suit selection can factor in as well, no? _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

I was just reading Kevin Gibson's April Safety Check on page 11 in Parachutist. He is talking about how 2004 is the year of the canopy and that the mismatch of pilot skill to canopy selection is now the biggest safety challenge in this sport (I do agree with that). This is the section I want to talk about: "One huge challenge remaining is to convince first time rig buyers and sellers that what's been going on for the past 12 years is a mistake. Newly licensed jumpers need bigger canopies and more advanced training on how to use them. The largest canopy manufacturers and equipment dealers say they are still selling more 150s and 170s than anything else, more evidence that many new jumpers, under advice from others, are buying the wrong gear, despite all we have learned." I realize that a smaller canopy is going to be more responsive, have a quicker turn rate and thus could be more dangerous in a panic situation near the ground that could result in injuries or worse. Maybe it is from the training I had right from the start, but I don't see an issue with a novice under a 170...and in some cases a 150 (of course, I would rule out anvil type novices at higher WLs under these canopies). Do you feel we should be putting our novices out under 200sq foot and bigger? I know this is a can of worms...so let's try to keep this civil and respectful. AND, if you start giving out advice please feel free to add your experience level, how you were trained, etc...etc. If you are a newbie....ask away and don't be afraid to challenge the experienced jumpers on their point of view. _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

One of the reasons, outside of high cost, that I didn't do BM at Rantoul was flightpath. Why not treat them how CRW is done there? I've yet to see an issue with them. Maybe BM need to land off to be 100% safe in regards to jumpruns? _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

Never have. You don't have to give me a penny and you're more than welcome to keep on enjoying all the benefits available to you on Dropzone.com without any guilt. Always been like that. As long as it's free, that's what it is. Free. This one comment wasn't directed towards you - but to a certain set of people that seemed to have focused on this issue recently. Exactly. Isn't community one of the things you enjoy about the DZ? Of course! Even if you do 20 jumps a weekend, that is only 20 minutes in freefall - the rest of the time on the ground and in the plane is spent being part of the community. But I thought you said Talk Back wasn't needed? Now you're saying closing Talkback is the equivalent of the whole "plane being grounded". It's a bad analogy. The DZO may however ban bonfires at his DZ if people keep picking up burning logs and tossing them into the fuel hangar. A DZO may also decide to close down the bar because fights keep breaking out that brings bad publicity and less jumpers to his DZ. Talkback is fluff - but as I mentioned in my post - it has some fun moments and it has done a good job of building a community. I would prefer it to stay, but I wouldn't cry if it didn't come back. TB is not the only place that people are causing fights - whenever the AAD threads get going, they usually end up in name calling and personal attacks. Just recently a thread about deployment methods got out of hand. That's noble, and I even agree. But I'm not convinced this group is able to do that on their own on the internet. Comparing the internet to the real world is a bad place to start from. Here people are faceless, anonymous and not accountable. Thought you said we don't need more moderation? No, we need moderation - we don't need over moderation. Adding more moderators is not over moderation, and I think you know what I mean. Internet communities do need some sort of policing, as does a DZ. I have already suggested this to you before - and I still think it is a good idea: To help prevent someone coming back and reposting a deleted thread or posting "Why Was I Deleted," a PM or email stating the rule violation and a warning not to do it again will help this subside. I'm pretty certain you could automate this during the deletion process. I've been on here longer. Showoff! If you insist! That's a different problem that I'd love to hear suggestions about. There's a whole conversation in the Suggestions and Feedback forum dealing with the challenge of establishing credibility online. I've been reading that thread, and most of my ideas and issues have been brought up so far. I don't have a solid answer on how to fix this problem and I don't know if there even is a fix. When I think I can be of benefit to that discussion, I will jump in. _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

You don't get it. There doesn't need to be a compromise. This is Sangiro's place. He can do whatever he wants with it...even shut it down. Fine, then shut it down. Or, charge for it - but don't create a community and then pull it away just because. And if someone wants to donate, they shouldn't be guilted in to it. Because everyone keeps telling me I need to donate, I won't. Talkback is fluff. It is not needed. In fact, this entire site isn't needed for skydiving - the sport will go on either way. It would be interesting to see talkback go away for a year or so and see what it does for traffic and participation in the skydiving forums. Also, a bonfire is not needed at a DZ either, but it helps create a community. I know this weekend that for the four or five hours the fire was going more than skydiving was talked about (*gasp* someone talked about politics). I know I got annoyed at one of the people around the fire and I just walked away for a while, and then came back later. There is a community here now, and the majority can't participate because of a handful of people. Do you think a DZO would ground the airplane because one person pissed him off? We don't need more rules, we don't need over moderation - what we need is respect. Respect from the users towards the rest of the community, and respect from the moderators towards the users as well. There are too many people on here starting to act like skygods (and it usually seems to be those with almost no jumps). And there are ways to be blunt in telling someone they are being stupid and going to kill themself without being a total asshole about it....and that person may be more likely to listen. If the moderators are taxed - maybe Sangiro should recruit more of them. I've been on this board since the older style forums -I've seen it grow, and seen some very positive results from the forums - including talkback. I've also seen the growing pains, and right now I feel the real problem on this site is the newbies giving advice....and I don't believe there is any real way to prevent this. Much like a real DZ, you can't stop everyone from being stupid. Want a suggestion? Get rid of PW ratings. It was fun once upon a time with a few hundred of us on here to see the occasional PW thread - even Sangiro created one once upon a time. Now we have people with 0-100 jumps making 100+ posts a day just so they are not in "newbie" status....then they venture into the skydiving forums and start giving out advice. _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

Bill Booth at the Expo this weekend mentioned there is a sweet spot number for how fast the bag should be extracted...I don't recall that number, but I do remember him saying that 0.6 seconds is the sweet spot from letting the PC go to the canopy leaving the bag..... .7 and higher can cause hesitations and .5 and lower can cause faster openings. Anything from the size of the PC, the size of the canopy and the construction of the PC can have an impact on this. _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

There is video footage from a security camera that shows the plane approaching the building. Also, if it wasn't a plane - then where did all those people on the flight go to? The families have reported them MIA/assumed dead, and the Pentagon did lose people in the crash as well. Let's not forget about the phone calls made from the airplane during the hijack. IIRC - the plane crashed just in front of the building damaging the ground floor which caused a collapse after the impact much like the WTC. From a friend that saw the building - he told me there was a crater in front of the pentagon and small pieces of debris were everywhere - the air smelled of jet fuel. Take a look at the Penn crash pics - the debris is small and spread everywhere....these planes hit fast and hard (launch an object at a brick wall between 250 and 600 mph and see what happens). Also - what would the benefit be of such a lie? The entire world watched the attacks on the WTC earlier that morning. _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

DSL comes down two of the four wires in your phone line. There has been many arguments and even talk of some lawsuits over the practice of forcing you to have a phone number when all you want is broadband. The phone companies are hoarding as much money as they can - the Bell companies are not used to competition and fight hard to hold onto every foothold they already have. Yes, you can have DSL without a phone number - but the Bell's own the phone lines and they get to make the rules, for now. _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

That's bullshit. It has been known to be one of several elements in determining probable cause, but a high electric bill does not establish probable cause in and of itself. A huge spike in electrical use has been seen and used to track drug users. However I recently had someone tell me is that you should just add a new lamp to your house on a weekly basis and leave it on 24/7. _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

What is GSMR? AT&T has GSM (newer digital) and TDMA (older digital) and are slowing phasing out AMPS (old analog network). They use GPRS and EDGE for data transfer. AT&T TDMA still works in the CSC region, right? It did the last time I was there. If you really want to stay with AT&T then pick up a "tri-band" phone that will do TDMA/GSM/GPRS. The Siemens S46 is a great phone that works on both networks - and can only be found in their retail stores (I think they have an Erickson phone as well - both are free right now with a two year contract). When I use the S46 I find it always tries to stay on the GSM network, but when driving west on 80 or 88, it will switch over to strong TDMA signals when the GSM broadcast can't reach it. This doesn't cost anything extra on your plan or minute usage and AT&T doesn't tell you about it because they are pushing only GSM these days. This phone was perfect when I spent a few weeks in Cincinnati which has no GSM but great TDMA coverage but the KY region I traveled to every day had GSM...it worked no matter where I went. The trick with tri-band phones is they require both the sim card (for GSM) and "over-the-air" (for TDMA) programming. Don't forget - AT&T will be Cingular by the end of the year and their coverage maps will increase in size. _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

If it isn't a StarTec from Motorolla - I wouldn't waste your money. I've even had a Motorolla employee tell me that. Nokia has one of the best interfaces. Siemens is a great phone and could possibly take a large portion of the market away from Nokia given some time. Erica - I use a Nokia 6800 GSM/GPRS AT&T phone on a National plan. It works like a charm for me around Chicago and on the drive to Tampa. I haven't had a chance to test it at CSC, but there are a lot of dead zones once you are west of the main airport. _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

It didn't come on my Nokia 6800, but I found the file on the internet and was able to install it over IR using the Nokia PC Suite (free). The game sucks. _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

The week I spent here: http://www.mexicomansion.com/ I think the pictures will speak for themself. _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

Does anyone know if Indyz made it home alive?? _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

The Clinton Admin and GWB Admin both dropped the ball. Do you really think all this political finger pointing will prevent anything? The only good thing about Nader is that he isn't Bush or Kerry - I don't want either one of those guys in office. _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

once again - huh? _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

what does that mean James? The Expo was great! John - you did a great job on the exit seperation seminar and I don't see how anyone could listen to it and say how freeflyers could go out first or how the 45 degree rule works. BTW - I heard a swooper give an excuse that freeflyers should get out first so they can have better swoops and dzo's would see it's the right thing. Bill Booth and John LeBlanc's talks were fantastic! No matter how many times I hear those guys talk, I learn something new each time. The great thing? I heard everyone asking them the same questions all weekend long, and they were as energetic and stayed long after every seminar talking to the straglers.....and then John gave an impromptu packing lesson after the day ended on Sat. Had a chance to look at a Katana 97 and watched a 107 in flight. After talking to John and J - I can't wait until they finish up the 150 so I can jump it! It sounds like the 135 is further along than the 150, and they will be done when they are done. Had a chance to talk to Aubrey and I am very curious to try the Vision now. Freefall Accessories are a nice group of people with custom faces for their Altimeters. On top of that, the "Inversion" model has been designed to work better while freeflying. And there was a lot more that happened as well.... I'll have some pics to post later. Now. Who stuck around and heard the secret news for Summerfest???? Rook. Sign me up! _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....