pilotdave

I think predictability is exactly the key. EVERYBODY should fly some sort of predictable pattern. A standard left/right hand pattern doesn't always work for swoopers. But they should have some plan, that they share with each other and everyone else. Separate landing areas just isnt feasable at many dropzones because there isn't room. But the non-swoopers, like me, need to know where the swoopers will be setting up and making their turns. I don't care if it's a rectangle as long as I know where to look for them and where to avoid. Where I jump, I know most swoopers like to swoop along the beer line. So it's easy enough to know to avoid that area if possible. It's very common at airports to have two or three different traffic patterns for different types of aircraft. One for small planes, one for larger planes, and maybe another for helicopters. Just gotta know where to go and where to look out for everyone else. Dave

Depends where it's cut. Below the cat's eye should be cheap. And speaking of that, I forgot to tell my rigger to replace mine when I got my reserve repacked. Freaking velcro on my right glove tore the crap out of mine. Also, depends what gets lost in the cutaway. I priced the spares for my old reflex at something like $3-400 if I lost the freebag and handles. 2 reserve pilot chutes, freebag, decorative pop top cover, and two handles. Not to mention possibly losing the main. Dave

I'm just curious why. Ever had any type of spinning malfunction? A lineover might fly straight, but might not. Ever practiced pulling your hook knife out fast? Ever had any training in identifying which line is causing the lineover? Ever landed on rear risers? Ever practiced your cutaway procedures? Trying to cut the line is just a waste of valuable time, in my opinion. Cutaway procedures are quick, easy, and well practiced. Fiddle with that hook knife for a few seconds and you might suddenly find yourself under 1000 feet with no idea what to do. Bad things happen faster than good things. So why try to cut a line? Save some time and maybe some money if all goes well? Dave

WTF? What kind of advice is that? Buy what you want (based on uneducated assumpions) regardless of anything else? Reverse psychology or just bad advice to a stranger? And saxboy, buying new makes no sense. You could get a used sabre 170 and then a sabre 150 a couple years later for the price of a brand new stilleto. Don't waste your money on something you think you'll want to keep for years. You won't. Dave

My roommate for a couple years in college was color blind. That looks exactly like something he'd have designed. On the bright side, grass stains will probably only show up in the trim tape.... and even then, they might make it look better. Dave

You won't find very many positive responses from skydivers about Skydive Las Vegas because of http://skydivelasvegas.com/experienced_jumpers.html. They also have a LOT of lies and BS throughout that website. It's pretty funny. Their caravan is the fastest climbing jump plane in the country and they are the only dropzone that lands on airport property. Yeah, maybe at THAT airport... Dave

I'm definitely another satisfied bev suit customer. I dunno if the problems mentioned above are specifically related to the majik style suit or what. I've had my Bev competition suit since I was a student, so I have over 400 jumps on mine. I nearly always pack in it too. The lower legs were replaced over 200 jumps ago because I had bev add booties. No problems at all with mine, and I've definitely had some less than perfect landings. As a student, I was dragged a bunch of times. I've been picked up by my grippers on multiple occasions and thrown out of the plane. And I must have 4 or 5 hours of tunnel time, all in that suit. I don't have a huge number of jumps on the booties, but they're still almost like new even though I abuse them (Walk in them a lot, leave em flopping when I take them off, didn't protect them with anything, etc). And the suit is still in great shape. I got a gift certificate for $195 off a new bev suit last winter. I figured I'd wait until later this season to buy a new one. Thought my old suit would be getting worn out and I'd have a better idea of what I might need in a suit than I did when I bought this one as a student. But it's still in such good shape and works so well for me, I can't decide what to get. The only change I know I'll make is getting inside leg grippers. Aside from that, I'm gonna feel pretty silly ordering a pretty much identical suit. But I've gotta do what I've gotta do...

Back up. Resume normal downloading. Sorry bout the delay. Dave

If you can hit the CASA's tail, I'll PAY for the video. Dave

I WANT MY FREE SMOOTHIE! Bobby, go have some malfunctions and get them on video. Need new material. Dave

OMG that's like telling a guy with 50 jumps to buy a velocity. Just BAD advice! RealPlayer SUCKS. You can get like 99% of the avi videos on the site to play if you have a recent version of media player and DivX. A few more require XviD. And then some require oddball codecs which I wouldn't bother with unless you REALLY want to see it. If you've got those and they still won't play, try downloading them to your hard drive and playing them from there. Some computers don't seem to like to stream certain video types. Right click on download and hit "save target as" or something similar. Dave

Here's a start: http://www.diverdriver.com/Aircraft/aircraft.htm Dave

The last time I checked (a few years ago) the national average was more like 75 hours to get a private. But at a part 141 school, if you're flying often, you can do it in far less (legally in as little as 35 hours, realistically somewhere between 40 and 75). At a non-141 school, you won't have things like phase checks, you probably will spend less on books/CDs, and you might not have nearly as much organized ground school. I really only had a few hours of real logged ground school. The rest was either learned from books or just as parts of each lesson, and not paid for separately. At a 141 school, you'll have much stricter requirements for what you learn and when you learn it. I prefer the style of a non-141 school. Kinda works at your pace, not theirs. But chances are you will do it in fewer hours (at probably a higher price per hour) at a 141 school. EDIT: I had 100 hours when I got my private. Soloed with 50. Course I soloed at 16 and got my private at 17, so the hours just sorta built up... Dave

Where'd they put a bunkhouse? I am thinking about making a trip down there in August... we'll see. Dave

http://www.skydivingmovies.com/ver2/pafiledb.php?action=file&id=2432 Dave

Mines mostly royal blue with smoke body contact... http://www.skydivingmovies.com/vector3/wonderhog.jpg. I think the smoke looks great. Dave

Cool. Haven't been to delmarva in a couple years but I see some familiar faces, some new mustaches, a t-shirt I designed, and a nice new big screen tv. Looks like you guys are having fun! Dave

That's a part 141 school I assume? Dave

Hehe, c'mon, you know better than that... you're looking at that picture backwards. The vertical tails ARE in the back. The stabilators were in the front. A plane most definitely WILL weathervane in a sideslip (caused by pilot input OR a crosswind gust). Think about what happens when you kick the rudder and bring it back to neutral. The plane flies slightly sideways for a short time, then weathervanes back into the relative wind. Same thing happens when a gust of wind hits the plane from the side. The plane won't instantaneously change flight paths (relative to the ground) because of inertia. This is simple stability and control. The response of the aircraft in yaw (yaw moment) to a disturbance in sideslip angle. An aircraft with neutral stability in yaw would produce no yaw moment when exposed to a sideslip. That would mean a disturbance in yaw (like the pilot momentarily kicking ae rudder pedal) would produce no tendency for the aircraft to reduce that sideslip. The plane would just continue to fly with a sideslip, slightly skewed (in relation to the relative wind, not the ground). I'm only talking about airflow with respect to the aircraft. Picture a top view of an airplane. Theres a straight line connecting the nose and the tail. Zero sideslip means the relative wind is parallel to that aircraft longitudinal axis. A sideslip is any deviation in the angle between the relative wind and the longitudinal axis. What causes that sideslip doesn't matter. It can be wind from monther nature, pilot input, or a bigass fan. The aircraft reaction will be the same. Dave

Chris, you're talking steady winds. A twin otter has more surface area in the back than the front (because it has a tail). A gust from the left (non-steady wind) will cause it to turn to the left...weathervaning. A better example is if you kick the right rudder pedal then let go, the plane will be sideslipping to the right (ie there will be a crosswind component from the left). The tail, without pilot input, will cause the plane to yaw left, back into the relative wind. If you had a plane with the tail on the front, it would fly just fine until there was any yaw disturbance. A tiny sideslip would cause a yaw moment in the same direction as the yaw, causing further yaw, causing further moment, causing further yaw, etc. The plane would "groundloop" in the air. A canopy would do the same thing IF it really did have a tendency to turn "away" from a sideslip component. It's not about WIND, it's about RELATIVE wind. An unsteady crosswind is just one way a canopy will see a relative wind from an angle other than straight ahead. Turning (by pilot input) is another. Dave

A lot of people are missing chris' point (which I still don't believe, but that's not important). He isn't talking about steady winds. He's talking about gusts. If you are flying north and a gust comes from the west, it will induce a crosswind component over the canopy. It's exactly the same as if the canopy was "skidding" through the air. He believes that, in the situation i just mentioned, a canopy will have the tendency to turn slightly to the east. Another gust from the west will turn it more to the east. Eventually the canopy will be facing east, directly downwind. I just don't think it's true. If it was, I believe the canopy would be unstable in yaw and basically be uncontrollable. If it was true, at least the way I see it, the turn induced by each gust would increase the crosswind component and therefore increase the tendency to turn. The canopy would want to fly backwards. Or more likely the sideslip angle would increase until the canopy depressurized and collapsed. Throw one of those balsa wood glider toys backwards and see what it does. Dave

Wrong. Senior year of college I went there at least 3 times. You were just never working those times. I wanted my smoothie delivered anyway. Dave

What kind of plane? Airliners have fuel dump capabilites to drop weight in an emergency like that. Having a max takeoff weight higher than max landing weight is not uncommon. EDIT: just did a quick google search. The 777 for example has a higher max takeoff weight than max landing weight. Dave

I agree with you... I think. Chris's theory is that a canopy will weathervane "backwards," causing the tail to turn toward the relative wind and the nose away from the relative wind (in a crosswind), right? The opposite of what, well, a weathervane would do which is point into the relative wind. If you literally had a weathervane shaped like a canopy, it would always want to point in the same direction as the wind, not into the wind. I just don't think that's true though. If it was, any crosswind disturbance would tend to cause the canopy to turn away from the wind. It would mean canopies are unstable on the yaw axis. However they are not. When a canopy is disturbed in yaw, it corrects rather than veers off. Otherwise we'd have to constantly correct left or right as we fly along. Imagine a plane with the vertical tail on the front. It could fly straight just fine, but when it yaws just a little, it will want to continue to yaw farther and farther until it's flying backwards. That's the situation chris would be describing if canopies did follow his model. A gust from the left would cause the canopy to yaw right. A yaw to the right increases the crosswind component from the left, increasing the yaw moment to the right, and so on. Dave

Office? Workload?? Wait... you got a new job? But I never got my free smoothie!!! Dave