pilotdave

The Lutz video and nasty comments

Uh huh. I once got an email saying the format for A&PSM Memos had changed. I had no clue what an A&PSM Memo was. I almost wrote something back about my TPS reports, but didn't know the guy well enough. Well it turns out he's a big office space fan so it woulda been perfect. Our latest thing is needing to keep our cubicles very neat. In the last inspection, I was found to have too many posters... even though almost all of em were of our products. Ugh. Dave

It's very common actually. You pay some insane fee, and you do not waive your right to sue. I've seen it range between $700 and $3000. I'm guessing it has never been paid in the history of skydiving.

A knot can be a measure of speed or a distance. When you're talking speed, 1 knot = 1 nautical mile per hour. When you mean distance, 1 knot = 1 nautical mile. I don't think anyone uses knots to mean distance anymore, but it is a correct usage. Dave

Sounds like the disaster was avoided when you missed the dive loop in the first place. If you were too low to flat turn, imagine how bad a front riser turn woulda been. I also try to do everything as safe as possible, which is why I don't touch my front risers below 1000 feet... yet. I personally don't think I have enough jumps to be messing with that stuff. I'm in no rush to break anything. Slow down so you can swoop when you have enough experience to swoop. Edit: geez I just read your whole profile. Reads just like an incident report. Dave

DOA Threads... sounds like a great name for a jumpsuit company. Dave

Your daughter apparently doesn't spend enough time at the DZ... I've seen younger kids that could teach the FJC. But at least we know she didn't get help from daddy...

Nothing too bad for me... Put myself into a bunch of linetwists at ~1300 2 weekends ago. Had em kicked out by around 700 feet. Luckily the canopy was flying pretty straight the whole time. Never had that happen before. Toggle turn started normal, but then swung me in front of the canopy on my back and twisted up. Once did a 12 nautical mile cross country... well, made it back around 10 miles and picked a back yard to land in. Hit some really nasty turbulence off the trees at around 300 feet which turned me almost 180 degrees suddenly. Did a flat turn back into the wind and landed fine. Immediately got offered a ride back to the DZ, which I thought was gonna be like a 2 minute drive so I didn't bother calling. Ended up being more like a 7 minute drive and temporarily had a state police helicopter searching for me.

I think you must realize that your DZ is not the norm. Many DZs require at least one tandem before AFF 1. I'm not talking about tandem progression. I'm talking about a "tandem ride" before taking the first jump course. Doesn't save a single penny, but rather adds $200 or so to the cost of getting a license. Sure, some students might pass AFF more easily after a tandem and not have to repeat an expensive AFF level, but it won't generally save the student money. I started with AFF1. Ended up failing AFF4 my first time. Cant remember prices, but the AFF4 redo was cheaper than a tandem, and I seriously doubt a tandem or two woulda made any difference in my ability to pass AFF4. Tandems are a great way to get exposed to skydiving. But also not 100% necessary before AFF. Tandem progression might even be a superior teaching method than traditional AFF, but that's not what I'm talking about. I've said it before and I'll say it again: There is a very big financial benefit to a dropzone in requiring a tandem before AFF. Dave

Yeah I've done a couple of those. Tried to kill us both times. Gave me a LOT of confidence in tandems afterwards though. The first was my 135th jump, my first tandem, and the instructor's 7th. He told me to arch on exit like a tandem student, but then once the drogue was out I could do whatever I wanted. So I spent most of the skydive trying to do anything I could to make us go unstable. The istructor just countered every attempt I made to turn and I couldn't make us do anything but fall nice and straight. I was in a tuck, touching my toes for like half the jump. Wish we had video. Second one was a recurrency jump with another instructor after winter. Did the same stuff but this time it was out of the 182. I wasn't paying any attention to altitude and I was trying my hardest to make us spin right at pull time. No problems though! I'd do another tandem any time. I have no problem putting my life into someone elses hands. Do it on a daily basis anyway and any tandem instructor is a better skydiver than me anyway. Dave

Which country is it that has a rule that you need to know the size of your canopies and always need to jump the same rig? I dunno where you jump, but at many dropzones, it isn't possible to jump the same student rig every time. And I don't think I knew what type/size of reserve was in the student rigs I jumped. All I knew is they were sized appropriately for me because my instructors said so. Always knew my main size, but again, only because my instructors told me what main I had. As a student, you don't know what you don't know or should know. You ONLY know what your instructors choose to tell you. I dunno why you feel the need to argue with someone about what they don't know. As for tandems before AFF, well... my first tandem was jump #135. It was tandem #7 for the instructor. That tandem stuff is scary! Dave

Aww geez I wrote a whole thing then went to see for myself. Yeah yeah, there's that right click disabled script but any decent browser can get around that easily enough. I mean he put a direct link to the video right there. It's not hidden away in the html code where it's hard to find. Use a little creativity (or get yourself mozilla firefox) and you can have every one of those videos downloading in a few minutes. Quit yer bitching! And I think all those videos except the Holly one are on my site if you can't figure out how to save them from here. Might as well save sangiro some expensive bandwidth anyway. Dave

I got "named" by rhuurrr in THIS thread. He referred to me as "pilotdave from rec.skydiving." I never actually called myself that. My email address was pilotdave@email.com, although I only used it for rec.skydiving to prevent getting tons of spam at my real email address. (email.com later started charging so I lost the address). Since people had started calling me pilotdave, I figured it would be a good idea to register with that name. Now people call me that in real life and it kinda freaks me out.

That's what I've been skydiving for!

I dunno what everyone is talking about. Recruiting is another word for advertising. Dropzones need to advertise. Tandems are how they stay in business. Any DZ would love to have someone recruiting lots of tandems. I don't think you could make a job out of it, but I bet you could get some free jumps. I bet you'd quickly get tired of it though. 99% of the people you'll meet will fit in 2 categories. There are the people that get all excited and can't wait to do it but then never actually show up, and the people that think you're crazy or stupid and won't hesitate to tell you. At least that's how it went when I was the president of a collegiate skydiving club. It was worth it though to see the smiles on people's faces that actually did do it. Dave

I'm just curious... was there any touching involved? I watched 2 people perform reiki on someone once. All they did was stand over her and hold their hands close to her. They didn't even seem so serious about it... but they believed they were actually doing something. I have no clue if what I saw was standard or if you're describing something completely different. Hope I'm not offending anyone (well, if I do, I'm ok with it

While I was president of a collegiate skydiving club, the university decided to start charging for the use of "tech equipment" at club meetings. We could rent the rooms for free, but we were charged $50 per meeting to use the built-in VCR or computer for a presentation. I always planned for 4 "information sessions" per semester where I'd give a powerpoint presentation and show some videos. That's $400 per year. Now, that was pure profit to the university since the equipment was built into the rooms... a total scam by the university. But my point is, the prices for even the simplest things quickly go out of control and are not affordable to the average college student. I wasn't making a profit by running the skydiving club. Why should I pay $400 a year out of my pocket to do the university a favor and run a club? And don't think the university doesn't use clubs (specifically the skydiving club) to attract prospective students... check THIS out. Dave

Alright, that's it. I put in an order for a pilot demo. I wanna see if it'll open on heading when I pack it. I have no interest in buying a new canopy, so I better not like it!

Wind does not affect the drag on your canopy. It does affect your glide ratio with respect to the ground (not with respect to the air though). I was really surprised that scott miller taught 3/4 brakes as opposed to 1/4 brakes or rear risers. I'm sure it's not true for every canopy, but he suggested trying each way and see what works best, and suggested that 3/4 brakes will be best for most canopies. The explanation is simple. Brakes both slow your horizontal speed and vertical speed. But they slow your vertical speed MORE than your horizontal speed. So in no wind or going with the wind, your glide ratio with respect to the ground will be increased. Going into the wind, your glide ratio with respect the the air is increased, but with respect to the ground is decreased. Just doesn't seem right. I wouldn't have believed it if I had read it on the internet either. Dave

Guess Scott Miller doesn't know that either, cause he teaches that you'll go farther (with the wind) with 3/4 brakes than with risers in his canopy course. You should tell him he's wrong. Dave

I demoed a spectre and sabre2 before deciding what to buy. Things I noticed... Spectre openings, which of course you already know all about, can be looong. I was switching from an F-111 canopy which did not snivel at all, so the openings were pretty shocking to me. The sabre2 opens a little more quickly, but still soft. On heading is a different story... What finally sold me on the sabre2 was the landings. Tons more flare power than the spectre. I got ok landings with the spectre, but in 17 jumps I never quite got the flare timing just right. With the sabre2, I find that it's not very important to get the timing perfect. I can flare high and just keeeeep flaring till my feet touch down nice and soft with almost no forward speed, or I can flare a little lower and quicker, and even pick my feet up if I have to. Then just continue the flare normally. I'm definitely not a swooper so I couldn't tell you any differences there. Now, I don't know if my canopy is out of trim or what the deal might be, but I can't remember the last on heading opening I had. The canopy snivels perfectly straight. And just as I'm saying to myself "ahhh finally an on heading opening," it jerks to one side. Anywhere from a 90 degree turn to almost 360. It doesn't bother me much because I know its coming now. But I don't know how to prevent it. Yesterday I grabbed my rear risers on opening, and as I felt it turn to the right, I yanked on the left riser.... still did a 270 to the right. But it rarely has linetwists, and when it does, it flies straight. Speaking of linetwists, I managed to put myself into linetwists at about 1300 feet yesterday doing a pretty hard toggle turn. Never managed to do that before. Scared the crap outta me... had the twists out by about 700 feet. Luckily it flew pretty straight or I woulda been testing my skyhook. Demo a sabre2. See if you like it. Dave

Yeah, those schools with no extracurricular activities are oh so popular. My school had 300+ university funded clubs. That attracts students, which bring in tuitions, which support academics. Yes, I always hated the fact that I was helping to support some really dumbass clubs (they though we were the dumbass club of course), but it's a really great thing for the school. Dave

I had one at about 50 or 60 jumps. I think it was a combination of a shrunken kill line and an especially tight container (I'm guessing the pin was pulled but the bag wouldn't come out...but I don't know for sure). I pulled the bridle and it opened (after flipping me onto my back) and opened with a bunch of twists. Dave

You didn't mention one of the scarier symptoms of hypoxia... euphoria. That's the one pilots are warned of. If you get dizzy or feel weird, you know you are in trouble and can do something about it. But some people will experience a feeling of well being. When you're flying along up high and the world just seems to be a wonderful place and everything is just so perfect, you might me hypoxic. Dave

Tranfer to the university of maryland, college park. The club there has never sent anyone to nationals, but they do get plenty of university funding (though no funding for jumping specifically). Gotta be creative sometimes... wind tunnel time=ground based safety training. And to those that think there are better uses for the money... at least at Maryland, the money is NOT tax money. It comes from the student activities fee that every student has to pay. It's either gonna go toward skydiving or the Magic the Gathering club. Actually most goes to the Black Student Union and stuff like that. Where do you wanna see it go? Dave