pilotdave

Some canopies are definitely easier to land than others. That's what made me choose to buy a sabre2. I found it to be much less sensitive to flare imperfections than the other canopy I was considering, the spectre. If I flare too high, I just hold it and flare allll the way down and land nice and soft. If I flare low, I can flare a little quicker and even pick my feet up. I just do whatever it takes to fly the canopy right to the ground. On my old PD 9-cell or the spectre, I found I had to get the flare height just right every time or my landing would suck. Don't know if you can get your hands on a big sabre2 (higher wingloading wont make it easier to land), but to me, the landings were like night and day from anything else i had jumped. Dave

I'm no mirage fan, but they are clearly reputable rigs. Your rig doesn't fit quite right... it's not the end of the world. I can't believe you're considering going and buying another brand new rig. Suck it up, pay for the resize (or scream at them on the phone till they agree to do it for free), or get a belly band if people say that'll work. In 100 more jumps, when you have figured out how much mirages and voodoos suck (), sell it and buy what you want at that point. Ok voodoos probably dont suck but they are so incredibly ugly. Take a close look at a voodoo if oyu haven't had the chance. They just look like crap. The "cat's eye" or whatever you wanna call it looks like it was just slapped on. Looks stupid to me. I mean, who cares about functionality, right?

Para-ski has been around longer than modern canopies. I'm sure the slopes have gotten steeper though. Dave

I used to jump at a DZ that charged full price for a hop n' pop ($20 or so). I think there was a small discount once when we did a full load of hop n' pops from 3000. Dave

Here's one: http://www.skydivingmovies.com/ver2/pafiledb.php?action=file&id=142. Wasn't there an article about para-skiing in a recent parachutist? I know I was reading about it somewhere... Dave

Only thing I can say about your ad is get a real domain and a website at least. Hotmail looks so incredibly unprofessional and untrustworthy. Plus, you're asking for everyone to send you an email. That's work for them AND you. Get a website on there at the very least so people only have to type in the address and find all the information. Saves you from having to reply to each person too. Oh, and spamming is just a bad idea in general. Especially with attached pictures. You'd be asking for trouble. Dave

Supply and demand. The non-STI Z1s are a bit cheaper. Dunno why they charge extra for a hole...

Neptune fits into the internal pockets too.... not as convenient to play with it in the plane, but I can get it out to change the alarms or look at the logbook on the ride up. Took a little while to get the hole in the liner for the pocket to stretch a little to get it in and out easily, but after a few days it got easy. Dave

I have a picture phone. It can be nice to be able to snap a quick shot, but the quality is low (basically unusable indoors) and the picture is zoomed out so far you need to be no more than a few feet from what you're taking a picture of or it'll be tiny. Unless they improve a LOT by the time i replace my phone, i wont be getting another. Dave

Just a thought... wouldn't it be a little easier and cheaper to umm... just use a regular handheld camera for that?

Do we need to get into a discussion of phugoid and short period modes here? Dave

I think you'd need waaaay too many cameras to catch all the possible action. And you'd probably need multiple camera angles of any area to really understand what happened. I mean to see any detail you'd need to be zoomed way in. But to cover the sky you'd want wide angle lenses. Just doesn't seam feasible to me. Dave

Yep, lesson learned. But the alarm definitely didn't go off... I didn't just miss it. I use the internal pockets in my Z1. So loud in there I have to make sure the speaker is facing away from my ear when I put it in the helmet. Did a tracking dive the previous jump and heard both alarms without any problem. On almost all of my jumps since I bought the neptune, I set breakoff at 4000 and pull alarm at 3500.... 500 feet higher than I plan to pull to give me time to stop tracking, wave off, and pull. Since they come only about 3 or 4 seconds apart, it would usually be obvious if the alarm didnt go off. But I'll definitely be looking at my altimeter more carefully from now on. Dave

I scared the crap out of myself using my neptune last weekend... twice actually. First time was a night jump. I remembered reading in the manual that the backlight would turn on in freefall (if its enabled) and stay on till landing. But I had no way of testing it. Didn't have the manual with me to confirm what I thought I remembered reading either. So off I went on a 2-way RW night jump. We left the plane docked, and got stable quickly. I checked my altimeter. Completely dark and unreadable. Crap. Pointed at my altimeter and tried to see the other guy's, but he let go and started a 360. So what the heck, I did my 360 and we redocked. Figured I'd try to hold on next time and read his altimeter till breakoff. But to my surprise, mine was lit up and working great. Stayed on till touchdown. Whew! Plenty bright but not blinding, and easily readable in freefall and under canopy. I love it. Second scare was a 9-way using the neptune as an audible. Breakoff alarm sounded at 5000 (where it was supposed to). Tracked away... and tracked... and tracked... and tracked I knew it was going to be a longer than usual track because the breakoff was higher than I'm used to, but it didn't feel right. Finally felt really low and checked my altimeter... 2000 feet. Pulled right away. Neptune says deployment (it seems to show the bottom of the opening) as 1200 feet. Flatline went off as I sniveled through 1800. Some of the older jumpers dont consider 2000 low, but 1000 feet lower than planned is low no matter what. No idea why the pull alarm never went off, but that was the first problem I've had with my neptune. I'll be checking my visual a lot more carefully when I track from now on. Other than that, I'm loving the neptune. Dave

Yep, exactly!

The USPA link doesn't have any place to put a zip code and search for the nearest DZs (that I can find). And it of course only shows USPA DZs, not all of them. The dropzone.com list is more complete. It's not a bad idea for a feature. The nearest DZ might be in another state. Dave

I think most people decide based on what's easily available to them. Won't find CRW, accuracy, style, freestyle, etc at most DZs. So then there's RW and freeflying. Some DZs do one more than the other. RW can't be done alone. Freeflying can. That's how a lot of newer jumpers get into it. But if your DZ has a lot of people doing RW that want to jump with you, then it's easy to get into. But I guess the best answer is to try out what you can and see what you like best. Do you wanna look like a clown or a superhero? (freeflyer or RW) Dave

No, the difference between glide ratio and penetration is basically that glide ratio is in relation to the airmass and penetration is in relation to the ground. In other words, a canopy could have a glide ratio of 5:1 (5 feet forward for every foot it descends) but still be going backwards. In other words, it's penetrating 5 feet through the air for every foot it drops, but the wind is pushing it backwards over the ground. Penetration has more to do with airspeed... how much distance over the ground the canopy will cover when flying into the wind. In extreme cases, a canopy could have a lot of penetration but a poor glide ratio, or vice versa. The space shuttle is probably a good example of that case. Falls out of the sky like a rock, but has tons of airspeed to cover a huge distance. A sailplane could have a 40:1 glide ratio but at such a low speed it can't cover much ground. But somewhere in the middle, a regular canopy that has a good glide ratio is going to go farther in no wind than a canopy with a poor glide ratio. So in no wind, glide ratio is pretty much the same as penetration. I remember when I was jumping a lightly loaded F-111 canopy and a friend of mine had a smaller ZP canopy right next to me. We had a long spot and were trying to make it back. His canopy had better penetration than mine... so he passed me. But I had a better glide ratio, so I was able to clear a treeline and land on the DZ. He had to make an off landing. Now if we were on the other side of the airport trying to fly into the wind to get back, he'd have a better shot of making it than I would have. Dave

A couple posts by Bill Booth that won't answer the question for you, but are pretty informative about why the soft handle was invented in the first place for the cutaway handle... http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=145540#145540 http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=141603#141603 Dave

Final exam tonight for my marketing class. Actually sitting through some marketing presentations by classmates will be harder than the exam. The prof already said the exam will be "one step above 'bring your crayons.'" Then it's summer vacation till September! Woohoo! Only if I didn't have to work... Dave

Theres a link right at the top of the bonfire. Dave

The quote from PD I assume you're referring to: "Many jumpers do not expect a seven-cell canopy to glide as far as a comparable nine-cell, but at full glide the Spectre actually has a slightly flatter glide angle than some nine-cell canopies, including both the original Sabre and the Sabre2." From the Spectre flight characteristics PDF file: http://www.performancedesigns.com/docs/Spectre-Flight-Char.pdf Dave

1000' is about right to start my pattern (assuming I'm not too far out to begin with) with my Sabre2 135. I find by the time I'm ready to turn base, unless it's a really windy day, I'm usually right around 500 feet. But usually I don't pay too much attention to my altimeter once I've entered the pattern. I really only noticed how well 1000' works last friday doing night jumps. Judging altitude was very difficult visually, so I was relying on my altimeter. Started the pattern at 1000, turned base at 500, and final, well, whenever I was lined up. Worked pretty good both times. Once overshot the peas by a few feet and then undershot by a few feet. When I first downsized from a PD 150, I thought 1000 was going to be too low to start a pattern. I'd float all day under the old canopy, and suddenly I found that if I wasn't paying attention to altitude carefully, I'd naturally want to start my pattern too low. Dave

Mine's a vector 3M, not a micron, but close enough... packed with socks though. Don't have access to any pics of it since it was packed for real. Dave

Sounds like you fall pretty fast and don't need weights then. Some people aren't so lucky.