pilotdave

You can pick any target you want and land near it. Don't need an instructor to sign off those jumps.... any jumper can sign your logbook. An instructor will just have to sign the application. Dave

Useful post #13,003 from kallend. And equally useful from me of course. Anyway, back to the original poster, your brother is hopeless... give up! Tell him terminal velocity is 0.... we end every skydive at that speed. Dave

My list of DZs not to visit is growing... I understand kicking someone off a 40 way for going low more than once or twice... but a 6 way fun jump? Real friendly... Dave

[qupte]I would rather help those that are trying to help themselves than the ones that blame others, insult me, and act like I owe them. This is EXACTLY the type of statement I was talking about. She has one post. She posted it after being bashed repeatedly in at least 3 or 4 threads on this site and apparently more on a local site. I don't blame her for being a little pissed off and trying to defend herself. I really don't see your point. Again, maybe it was a silly comment, but why have like 30 people brought it up? What's the failure rate of reserve canopies? They're pretty damn reliable. Almost freaking guaranteed to open. So she left off the word almost in her interviews? What's the big fucking deal? And what did that have to do with my comment that she hasn't blamed anyone else for her accident? Her reserve malfunctioned. Was that her fault? She could have gone and blamed the rigger or manufacturer. She didn't. She called it a freak occurence. How could she have made it sound better? Why does she owe us an explanation? I've heard many more "entitlist attitudes" from people on here than I heard from her. I don't give a shit what she said on here anyway. That has no effect on the situation. What's important is what she said to the international public in her interviews, and I think she did a great job. And I agree that jumping without insurance isn't smart. But that's a separate topic that applies to jumpers that have and have not already been injured. Already been plenty of discussion on that. Dave

There is no "real" terminal. Terminal is the speed at which your drag equals your weight. Get rid of air resistance and you'll never hit terminal. Change body positions and you change your coefficient of drag so it'll take a different speed to create enough drag to match your weight. Under canopy, you're at a terminal velocity (when you're not maneuvering). Put your canopy into a hard spiral, and it'll eventually reach terminal. Go head down with a slick suit, you'll eventually hit terminal. All those happen at different speeds. It's also easy to go faster than terminal. Go head down then get back on your belly... you'll slow down because you were faster than terminal. (Drag will be greater than your weight). Dave

Alright, let me clarify my "issues" with so many of the posts in this thread (in no particular order). And these aren't direct quotes, just ideas I've seen presented over and over. "she demanded blah blah blah" She didn't demand anything. She'd like help with her medical expenses. "she didn't take responsibility for her accident" She hasn't blamed anyone but herself for the accident. She's not suing anybody (AFAIK). She'd like help with her medical expenses. "she gave the sport a black eye" Skydiving was born with a black eye. Everybody knows it's dangerous. It wouldn't be a big deal if it wasn't dangerous. On the other hand, she explained repeatedly how wonderful skydiving is. I think she was a pretty damn good spokesperson for the sport, at least as far as injured students can go. "she turned her back on the skydiving community" can we be a little more overdramatic? "she wants a free ride with all the handouts" (that one is a direct quote) Again, i'd agree with that if she'd sued the DZ and rigger and all the equipment manufacturers for $20 million. She didn't. She'd like help with her medical expenses. "she shouldn't have gone skydiving without medical insurance" posted by people that have skydived without medical insurance. I don't disagree with them. Skydiving or skiing or driving or walking across the street without medical insurance is asking for trouble. But somehow it was ok for all those other people to do it because they accepted that they might get hurt. Same people that are pissed she made skydiving look dangerous on national TV. Again, had she sued everybody in sight to pay her medical bills, I'd agree that all those others were different from her. In reality, she's asked for help (and not particularly blatantly at that... watch her interviews, she doesn't freaking beg). "she should have come to the skydiving community first" Why? She said she has over $200K in medical bills, right? How much money could skydivers come up with? This is a thread full of people saying they wouldn't have donated anyway. Her chances of getting anything are a lot better from the public. "she had 2 landable canopies" I'm only getting my info from these threads and the news articles. I've seen zero evidence that suggests her reserve was landable. Did I miss it? All these people with 1000+ jumps believe that they could have gotten that reserve under control and landed it. How do any of them know? That reserve was in a nasty spin for undetermined reasons. Did she do all that could be done? Did she do all that a typical or even a sub-par AFF student could have known to do? "she wasn't properly trained" She obviously didn't do everything right, but what direct evidence is there that she wasn't properly trained? The fact she had an accident? Some comments she made while under the pressure of live TV? So people are PISSED at her. I just don't understand why. Why is this such an emotional topic? The accident really did happen. She had a spinning reserve malfunction and hit the ground very hard. Should we keep that a secret? Should we tell prospective students skydiving is safe? People are jumping on tiny comments and reading into them way too much. I just fail to understand why this is bringing out so much emotion. I guess the SkyRide thread got too slow. Those fuckers sued our national organization recognized by the FAA as our governing body for tens of millions of dollars. They could do more damage to this sport than damn near anyone, especially Shayna. Calm down and focus on something meaningful. Dave

I'm sorry, but WTF??? This story gets blown farther and farther out of proportion with every page of this thread. It is now officially ridiculous (I'm a certified ridiculousness official). Really, these comments are getting insane. Dave

I found this article entertaining: http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/local/13461114.htm. Kinda sums things up. Dave

I'm an engineer but I don't really use any math. I can't vote for math... the thought of it disgusts me.

QuoteYou may want to start on the low end of the price scale since you are first starting out, Quote That makes sense, but I've seen riggers pretty much do the opposite. They don't want to "steal" business from the more experienced riggers, so they try not to undercut them. Doesn't make much sense that a new rigger would charge the same or more as a much more experienced rigger, but it can help them from pissing off the competition by taking pricing out of the equation. Dave

Wouldn't overtightening any chest strap, rings or not, have the same effect? If your MLWs are pulled toward each other by the chest strap, it'll take more load during deployment as the MLWs try to straighten out. And the debate about load bearing vs non load bearing is really silly. Instead, why don't you debate whether it's "I could care less" or "I couldn't care less." The chest strap is load bearing for the loads it was designed to bear (the body rotating forward in the harness), not a component of the loads on the MLWs. But it depends on what your definition of "is" is. Dave

The facts may not be 100% accurate, but they're freaking close enough. The cause of her main canopy "malfunction" doesn't really matter. Haven't you ever seen an AFF1 student cut away for absolutely no reason? She at least had SOMETHING wrong with her main, regardless of what caused it or how easy it could have been to fix. Why do skydivers think it matters how accurate her story is? This is no Scott Lutz embellishment. These are minor details that she may not have fully understood herself. As far as saying she didn't have proper instruction, how the fuck do you know? Because she cut away when she didn't really need to? Because of what she said on TV interviews? Come on... get real. You didn't sit in on her FJC or anything else. You don't know how well she was trained. AFF students at the big DZs that have the best instructors do dumb shit too...they're students, they're supposed to make dumb mistakes. Once her reserve was out, as far as I can tell, it was a done deal. It was a reserve malfunction. An equipment failure. Very rare, but apparently they do happen and maybe some people learned from this. I don't think she made skydiving look bad at all. She made it look great, but dangerous. THAT'S THE TRUTH. You want MORE people showing up at your DZ thinking skydiving is perfectly safe and it's ok to do without insurance because nobody ever gets hurt doing it? Come on... you're asking for more accidents like this one... Dave

Skydiving has always looked bad. Accidents are expected by the public. Everybody knows somebody that lost an uncle in a skydiving accident in the 70s. She didn't make it look bad. She had an accident. It really happened. She's not making anything up or exaggerating. On the other hand, she has said on national TV multiple times that even after her horrible accident (which was due to a real live reserve malfunction) that she can't wait to skydive again. She makes it sound like its SO great that she'd do it again in a heartbeat even after all she's been through. How many people will see that and say "damn, I've GOT to try it!" Then they do a little research, discover tandem skydiving, and you've got a new student that's gonna buy a t-shirt and video. You'll lose a few, you'll gain a few. But I don't believe any of this will have any major effect. Skydiving will be pretty much shut down in much of the US by winter only to reopen long after this story is forgotten. Dave

Check out http://www.pwc.ca/en/3_0/3_0_1/3_0_1_2_2.asp for info about every version of the PT6A. There are a LOT of versions. Dave

Just do it. We all know who the trolls are. Get rid of them. It would make the dropzone.com experience more enjoyable for the rest of us. Dave

In the US, skydivers are governed by themselves, through the USPA. This self-regulation is recognized by the FAA. Sure, it's optional. But if more skydivers chose not to follow the USPA's guidelines, the FAA may choose to step in and make our BSRs into FARs. There's nothing stopping them from doing that now, other than the lack of a need to do it, since it would cost a whole lot of money. Imagine if the BSRs were FARs, and skydiving licenses were handed out by the FAA. You could lose your licesne or have it suspended for dumb shit like pulling low. We're very lucky right now that the consequences for our mistakes that don't physically hurt us is pretty minimal. Let's try to keep it that way. Dave

37:7:0 37: the weekend high temperature. Almost 40 is like almost summer. 7 jumps, all 4-ways, all the same exact jump with different people, except for one. Not much creativity going on this time of year. And a big HA HA to the florida people that couldn't jump this weekend. Just don't have screwed up weather while I'm down there in january, ok?? Dave

Eh, airport is getting a new owner. We're safe for at least a few years we think, but after that, who knows. New owner has some plans we're not sure we fit into, even though he says we do. Doesn't all add up. Dave

Don't forget canopy control and emergency procedures and exits and all that. But anyway, only one way to find out...go try! Dave

In the 30s on the ground... dunno what it was at altitude, but jumping was fun! I love landing in the snow. Dave

Ok, I've had my bev competition suit since I was a student. Won a $195 off gift certificate last december and haven't used it yet. It expires at the end of the month, so it's time to order! I thought I knew what I wanted, but now I'm questioning myself. First of all, I'm deciding between the comp suit and the majik style comp suit. As far as I can tell from the order form, the only differences are that the upper arms don't have spandex on the back, and the additional options of mega booties, coolmax lining, and different grippers. Anything I'm missing? What's the reason for the change to the arms? Is it beneficial? Make the suit any harder to put on or take off cause of less stretch in the arms? How bad an idea are mega booties for a small person? Everybody seems to love them, but I don't know if they'd just act like speed brakes on my legs. How bout regular sized pleated booties? How about fat or square grippers? I don't do any hardcore 4-way. They beneficial for bigways? How much can I expect them to slow my fallrate? Thanks! Dave

Whether or not its a good idea to display a lot of information is another story, but the Titan is supposedly going to be "open source." People will be able to design software for it to do all kinds of things. We'll have to wait and see how things work out. Dave

Yeah, that just doesn't sound right to me. Mine was also designed for a 135 main (I think... a 135 fits perfectly). I barely squeezed an F111 150 main into it. A sabre2 190 wouldn't even come close to fitting in mine. Even with a 150, mine clearly looked overstuffed. I'd often have dbag corners hanging out on the sides of the main flap. Can't imagine what it would have looked like with a ZP 190. Mine was especially bad because the dbag was oversized, but still, I can't see a 190 going into a reflex made for a 135. Dave

Reflex sizing chart: http://www.tridenthc.com/ReflexSizes.htm A 190 main and 126 reserve didn't sound even close to right to me. My reflex holds a 120 reserve and MAYBE a ZP 150 main but it'd be a VERY tight squeeze. Dave

I've gotta agree with superfletch a few posts up. How can we say what she needs to do differently next time if we don't know what she did this time? I don't know how much quizzing she did or how much instruction or practice she got before the jump. Obviously any student needs to be taught the right things before every jump. But they can't be taught EVERYTHING. I don't remember learning what to do if my reserve is spinning before I did AFF 1. Maybe she was taught it and just panicked. Maybe she wasn't taught it at all. Were you? Are most students? Does it even matter? Dave