pilotdave

I'll try that next weekend. I think my legstrap hardware slips a little bit, and might not be perfectly even, which probably makes the problem worse. Although I had similar openings on my Reflex which didn't have that problem. Dave

Exactly why it will never change. I don't think that's why. I think its because the average jumper doesn't know what the issues are or how to do something about them. So few USPA members vote in elections because they don't know why they should vote for one candidate over another. Some jumpers even think the GM program is a good thing for them. Heck, maybe it is, but I can't figure out why. You're saying you don't jump anymore so you don't have to hold back. Why not run in the next election to be a national director? You'd get the dz.com vote for sure. Ok, if you don't wanna be around DZs, I'm sure you don't wanna work for USPA. But why don't you tell us what SHOULD be changed so that we can vote for the first guy to tell us he'll try to make those changes? Dave

I probably have somewhere around 70 jumps on my Sabre2 135 (loaded around 1.05 or 1.1, depending on whether or not i'm wearing my weights

In theory it takes about a 2500 ft/min descent at under 1000 feet to set off a student cypres. That's much faster than anyone should be descending in a traffic pattern. So either this pilot was really in a hurry to get down, or the thing fired when it shouldn't have. Dave

...or as a flight instructor taught me years ago, "bite the carrot." Everyone eats carrots from the pointy end first right? Dave

I flew into baltimore last january with my (cypres equipped) rig. The DC area has some of the tightest security in the country. Nobody said a word to me at either end of the flight or the return trip to CT. I have no idea if the screener was so well trained that he knew he was looking at a parachute and knew it was allowed, or if he was so untrained he didn't have any clue I had anything "strange" in my bag. Either way, I had given myself about an extra hour just in case there were any problems. Ended up taking less time than if I had left my keys in my pocket walking through the metal detector. Dave

I'd put it in a bag. Just raises fewer eyebrows that way. Have your documents ready but don't tell anyone you've got a parachute in there unless they ask. Dave

Seems to be fixed on my end. I'll let ya know if it does anything weird later. Dave

...Or at least they pledge to comply and pay their dues... Dave

It's all in how you choose to use it. I've never gotten a single piece of spam in mine. Course I've never gotten any real email either except for a couple test messages a long time ago to see if it works. Dave

Isn't it kinda dark in there? Every radar room I've been in has been very dark. And why do ya pack before jumping and not after?

Here's what I get at work. (sorry about the quality... don't have any decent software here). IE6, win2000. A little more detail... When I initially load the site, this is what I get. But if I hit refresh, it goes to normal and stays that way. But if I even just type in dropzone.com and load the page that way again, it goes back to how the screenshot looks. Dave

http://www.skydivingmovies.com/ver2/pafiledb.php?action=file&id=1566 is the same video I think. Download speed will be a bit slow but it's there. Dave

Don't like microsoft cause their products have features you don't want to pay for? I have a solution... download em and don't pay! Then you get to use all the features you want and pay for none!

http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=1121576#1121576 I'm hoping we can get the speed back a bit higher, but we'll probably never see the unlimited speeds we had up to last week. I used to be able to get over a meg per second from work. The 4 kb/sec I was getting today is pretty much unusable for files over a couple megs. Buying Matt (the web host) jump tickets won't guarantee a lift of the bandwidth cap, but it sure can't hurt!

Do much jumping in class B airspace?

I liked OCC's Comanche bike. One of my coworkers pissed off the motorcycle world when he forced Paul Jr. to wear a helmet when he rode down the runway with the Comanche helicopter flying over. He said they got some incredible footage doing a bunch of runs down the runway but the show only used a few seconds of it. Good thing they filmed that when they did... it's a museum piece now. Dave

Hehe, I checked the FAA database... it really is registered as a glider. I'm guessing that's what they did originally for the gliding test flights and the database just hasn't been updated yet or something. Dave

You can see what a canopy attached by only one riser looks like in THIS video. Dave

This flight doesn't count for the X-prize. They need to carry 3 people to make it "official." It'll happen soon enough... Dave

They were nice enough to remove the link a couple minutes ago anyway. Dave

Cash donations would be nice, but I think it would be much cooler for him to show up at the DZ with jumps on his account. As I said, a few donations don't make a dent in paying the bills, but a free jump is a free jump! ...and to canuck... Nobody OWES anything of course, but the people that upload cool videos have definitely done their part. The site would be pretty boring without any videos on it.

Wow... just realized how big that site must be. The 33 meg file was downloaded approximately 9000 times since yesterday. The next most downloaded file has a TOTAL of about 1900 downloads. That'll keep it at the top of the popularity list for a while! Dave

Skydivingmovies.com users might find the site especially slow for a while. Someone put a link directly to a file (bypassing the login system) on a large non-skydiving website. Bandwidth use went through the roof, so the speed of the entire site had to be cut DRASTICALLY. For those that don't know, hosting for skydivingmovies.com is provided free of charge by a dropzone.com member named Matt Crocker. This hosting is not cheap. And the site makes absolutely no money for anybody. Hosting is far too expensive to even try to cover costs with ads. So why does Matt do it? So WE can enjoy all those skydiving videos. That's all there is to it. The reality is that the site depends on Matt's hosting. If he ever decides to pull the plug (which I wouldn't blame him for!), the site will be gone (for real this time). Even at the reduced speed, the bandwidth the site is currently using costs Matt about 10 jumps per month. The site has over 3500 registered users at the moment. If just a few people bought Matt a jump or two, it wouldn't help pay for the site, but it sure would help keep him motivated to provide the hosting. I also just found out Matt has a baby on the way. Those don't come cheap either! Buy the guy some jumps! So if you'd like to buy him a jump, you've got a couple options. He does most of his jumping at Jumptown, in Orange, MA (800-890-JUMP). Or he could come down and jump with me at Connecticut Parachutists, 860, 871-0021. Call one (or both) of them up and tell them you want to buy a jump for Matt Crocker! Dave

That's all I wanted to hear. Dave