Tonto

Dacron or spectra lines? t It's the year of the Pig.

Ah.. Peej is a master of understatement. Manny femured and is in hospital, but in good spirits. t It's the year of the Pig.

Yup. We had the discussion. I met her when I'd been jumping about 5 years (500 jumps) and was in a competition team. She "loved who I was and never wanted to change me." 2 years later I had 1000 dives and we were in the US together while I did AFF and Tandem full time. 1 year later I had 1500 dives and we were married. 2 years later I went to the world meet. Our daughter was 9 months old. I got back to "No more world meets." It was an ultimatum. No negotiation. We were divorced before the next world meet. It's been 10 years since we got divorced. I now have 4900 dives and have been averaging 200+ dives a year as a weekend only skydiver. That's over 4 dives a weekend, every weekend, for 21 years, regardless of injury, weather, money, broken planes etc. I don't think I'm going to stop. Anyone who expects me to stop is wrong. After reading the post below - I also have insurance for both life and disability, as well as good medical insurance. If I go in - at least the financial aspects are covered. t It's the year of the Pig.

500 on a 220 100 on a 177 100 on a 190 200 on a 170 200 on a 150 1300 on a 120 800 0n a 107/109 so far These totals exclude some 1600 other dives done on Tandem rigs and CRW rags sized from 150 to 132 sq ft. The reason for the 500 on 220's is that that was pretty much all there was in those days. t It's the year of the Pig.

Mine works. Sometimes it logs a dive when I ride the palne down. (Looks like a wingsuit dive with a 300 ft deployment.) Sometimes it starts logging when the King Air throttles back and I'm last out. As far as an alti goes though, it works well for me. I don't "see how long the batteries last" and I update the software when it's released. t It's the year of the Pig.

"The early bird catches the worm." Weekends I'm up at 06h00 and at the DZ by 07h00. By 16h00 I've done 10 or more dives, my students are debriefed and my gear is packed. "If you snooze - you lose." If you need 20 people to get a load up - it's prudent to get there when other people are jumping. "If you're not fast - you're last." So some DZ's do suck. Especially when you get there late and everyone else there has done a bunch of dives and are done. "He who hesitates is lost." "Strike while the iron is hot." etc, etc, etc. It's not always other people's fault. t It's the year of the Pig.

I struggle doing a fast one from 450 on a Stilleto loaded to 1.85. (DZ is 5000ft AMSL) t It's the year of the Pig.

If tracking is hard, flying a wingsuit is REAL hard. There's a wingsuit workout that works here.. http://www.flybirdman.com/learn/rr/workout.html t It's the year of the Pig.

I've used Safires loaded between 1.4 and 1.85 with great success. Also a few on a pilot, but the openings were too slow for my liking although they were on heading. I've used both my Mirage G3 and G4 for wingsuit dives. Both have dynamic corners mod. t It's the year of the Pig.

As long as you're not the lowest, slowest bird in the flock, you won't notice much difference. Your numbers sound good to me, and are better than most of my flights in an S3-S. Of course, I don't care much for numbers. It's the flying I like. t It's the year of the Pig.

What canopy was it? What's your wing loading? What altitude above sea level did you deploy? t It's the year of the Pig.

22. It's the year of the Pig.

For me jumps are like going to gym. if you went 5 times in a year - do you think that's training? I don't. I do count the years I only did 20 dives, because I'm averaging over 200 a year for 21 years. That's about 4 dives a weekend, every weekend, for 21 years. Your "I've been doing Martial Arts 20 years" is very common from people who did it for a month a looong time ago and started again last week. All stuff like that just makes it look like you're not very good. In the end we are all students, and are all working as hard as we can to be better at what we do. Numbers are less important than that. t It's the year of the Pig.

I can't.. The small print was on jump number 2 you need to be the "guide" for the next person in and dump AFTER them. Don't choose a newbie who waves off first... t It's the year of the Pig.

I can, but it may dislocate my shoulder! t It's the year of the Pig.

Good thread.... 1. About jump 20, repeating full series cos the last one was too slow.. Decieded to go faster by cutting out the "unnessesary" things, like alti checks. Opened at 700 ft - years before the cypres was introduced or AAD's were used on student gear - completely unaware of my altitude. 2. Jump 159, swoop landing number 3. After succesful 90 degree and 180 degree toggle spanks, I had "slowly" worked my way up to a 270. I hammered in and smashed my left femur. 3. About 600 jumps. Asked for a run in of 65 kts from a Jet Ranger on a demo jump into a University. On run in, saw we were moving BACKWARDS. Asked the pilot if we were doing 65 KTS and he confirmed. I said "Faster" and exited anyway... 4. Around 1000 jumps. Joined "The magic 1" (A lunatic fringe group inspired by the low pull competitions of the past and required a terminal main deployment below 1000ft.) I lived. Yay. 5. Kicked a pilot with about 60 hrs and no instrument rating out of bed in really bad weather to fly. Called him a pussy till his ego got us off the ground. Spent about 5000ft stuck to the roof watching the airspeed indicator way past VNE and the VSI against the stop as the alti undialed. Got out at under 2000ft when he managed to recover. (The spot sucked) I've probably done another 30 - 50 things at least as stupid as these. Others have died doing everything right. This sport really isn't very fair at all, but luck does count. t It's the year of the Pig.

You did good. Only improvement would have been to use your reserve instead of your main. t It's the year of the Pig.

For me, it's a bit like getting old.. I see other people doing it, but it doesn't happen to me. I'll be old in ten years time, and that's been true for at least the past 20 years. If forced to name a number, it would be 1000 dives. If nothing else, 1000 dives shows a great deal of time and money put into the sport, which for many of us = commitment. It helps if some of those 1000 are at different DZ's, in different contries, at different altitudes, out of different aircraft and doing different things. No one says, "I have 40 years of experience in tying my shoelaces." Those are things we can learn pretty much everything about real fast, and then continue to do for a lifetime. For it to be experience, you need to keep doing bits of it wrong, and getting better. "Experience is what you get when you don't get what you want." t It's the year of the Pig.

We'll never know that until 2 identical clones can swoop the same course a few seconds apart with no wake turbulence and absolutely identical input, one with "regular" set-up and one with "everything" setup - and we measure the difference. I agree that in theory, every single change to reduce drag helps, but whether or not that drag is enough to make a difference other than in one's own mind? That's an endless debate. If you're going to streamline - you can't stop at the cool bits. It doesn't make sense. t It's the year of the Pig.

Hi Karl, Coming from a background (Long, long ago..) of competitive cycling, where arguments over taping the underside of saddles, changing from alloy to steel for time trials due to reduced frontal areas, to shave or not to shave legs, pro's and cons of ankling in the strength vs drag debate etc rage on and on, I often consider it laughable how some people focus on only some aspects of the problem. If a jumper is removing the slider PURELY to lower parasitic drag - then I wonder why the baggy sweat tops and long shorts and flapping shoelaces are ignored. Why are we not dressing like speed skaters, and placing little fairings over our legstrap hardware? While removable sliders have several other benefits, as mentioned by several people in this thread, if the goal is to reduce drag - a far more complete aproach needs to be taken. We're not yet at the point where a race like the Tour De France - over 1000's of miles, is won by a second. Maximum distances travelled at different swoop competitions sometimes differ by 100ft or more. What the pilot does has far, far more consequence than what they are wearing or what they have done to their slider. I see the same people who say "It's not the arrow - it's the Indian." to just about everyone, spending a lot of time fletching their arrows. I find the entire thing quite bizarre. t It's the year of the Pig.

I'm coming up on 2000 AFF dives, and like Chuck, have dispatched 1000's of Static line students over the last 20 years. My DZ is 5000ft AMSL and experiences extreme Density Altitude issues in the summer. Like Chuck, I've used large student ZP canopies (Skymasters, almost without exception) for my students, usually in the 290 to 200 sq ft range. I jump a Stilleto. It's loaded to about 1.85, and I feel it's an OK canopy for some of my skydiving needs. It's been around a long time now, coming up on 15 years. We know it well. It's NOT the canopy I use for wingsuit dives because of the spin-up thingy and the fact that wingsuit manufacturers and the wingsuit instructional ratings that I hold do not recomend highly loaded elipticals for use with their wingsuits. I use a Safire loaded to about 1.85 as a wingsuit canopy and find it suitably forgiving. Perhaps I rate myself too highly, but even in a poorly controlled wingsuit deployment, I think I'm probably more in control of my body position than someone with 20 skydives, but I choose not to use a Stilleto for this task. The poll indicates that apart from a "lunatic fringe" the vast majority of respondents are clear that the Stilleto will never be a student canopy. I suspect that if the poll were restricted to instructors - it would be even less in favour of Stilletos for students. t It's the year of the Pig.

That's what the last "D" is for "Attention Defficit Disorder" I think they meant "AAD" t It's the year of the Pig.

If you die cos you never pulled, then not having a cypres would have been a bad desision. If you died in a plane crash, or from a freefall colision, or a canopy colision or a hard opening or a poor landing, or are killed by a swooper when walking off the DZ or one of the 1000's of other ways to die while skydiving, then not jumping with a cypres was probably the right desision. If you don't die at all - then either desision is the right one. t It's the year of the Pig.

1. "It ain't braggin'..if ya really done it!" - Don Yahrling 2. All AFF instructors should be mindful of fallrate. I don't think worrying helps much. 3. Be aware of your limitations. I learned mine through failure. Fallrate is variable, and lighter, skin tight, weighted students can easlily escape from tent wearing instructors if they lose stability and fail to recover. In the same way, tent wearing, heavy students can escape from skin tight, weighted instuctors who are pegged to the students "flat" range when the student goes unstable. We are - almost without exception - afraid of the floater, and thus are seldom compromised by one. In my opinion, AFF flight requires 3 primary skills. a) Control of exits b) No contact proxcimity, regardless of fallrate c) Vertical aggression If an AFF Instructor suspects that ANY variable will put the student beyond their range in those 3 categories, pair them up with an instructor more likely to cope. t It's the year of the Pig.