pilotdave

Sounds like it's working great. You're not leaving the ground, and it's recognizing that. If you're nervous about using it, give it to another jumper to try or wear a second altimeter and try it on a solo. Dave

Ok, whats the shallowest angle you can actually fly in atmonauti? In other words, how many degrees below the horizon can you actually get your trajectory to point, not just the angle of your body? Dave

Do you think maybe somebody learned something about installing aerodyne soft links because he posted his concern? Isn't that a good enough reason to post it publicly instead of just telling the manufacturer? I am all for personal responsibility. But at the same time, we should understand that sometimes human error can be designed out. When people make the same mistake over and over again, maybe a manufacturer could make that mistake impossible. I'm not saying aerodyne needs to go redesign their soft links... i was just defending what tdog had said in his first post. Just because a person has to fail to follow the directions to end up with a problem doesn't mean that there isn't a problem. Dave

Ha...well, i hacked my way in a little farther... Disappointing so far... Link 1 Link 2 Why am I wasting my time? Dave

I'm thinking you're right about the jumpsuit company... either that, or its some kinda ad for safety day... Here's what I got from the code... danger and emergencies and more importantly tragic consequences if any fabric is on people panic is on the horizon Anyone get the same words? That one "fabric" seems important.

Bonehead's site is a good place to start: http://www.boneheadcomposites.com/helmparts.htm#lenses

Wish they'd just make that top plate wider. Why not just go the full width of the helmet? This looks cool, but a still camera mounted on top is still going to have a gap under the sides. Kinda defeats the purpose of a flush-mounted quick release. Other than that, looks pretty cool. I wonder if they'll design the removable boxes too... Dave

How's that different from tracking exactly? I've done tracking dives with my arms out front, like superman. Won't work for a good flat track, but on a steeper tracking dive it works fine. I was able to grab a ribbon on the leader's foot. The whole "we make our bodies into an airfoil, so we generate lift" is a very flawed concept. At the right angle of attack, your body can make some amount of lift in damn near any shape. Your airfoil idea sort of falls apart when you admit that you don't fall at the same angle your body makes with the horizon, but you actually fall considerably steeper (giving you a positive angle of attack). Even a positive camber airfoil can generate lift when a plane is flying upside down... just takes some extra angle of attack. Dave

Of course. I don't ask PD to inspect my slinks after installing them. That's my job (along with my riggers). But it's PD's job to make the best, most idiot-proof product possible. I know, back in your day you had to walk to altitude, both ways, in the snow. And you didn't have chest straps, you just held on tight. And you liked it! But hey, instead of just defending the manufacturers of imperfect gear, why not encourage them to do even better? I don't blame aerodyne because someone hooked up their links incorrectly. But that doesn't mean aerodyne shouldn't try to eliminate one way a stupid person could mess up. It's called progress!

The best way to mitigate a hazard is to eliminate it, even if it's human-induced. Relying on people to RTM is the worst way. I don't completely disagree with you. This is skydiving, not golf. But if you can eliminate the possibility of a mistake, you're better off. Dave

You'll never know your limits if you don't push them a little bit. You jumped, you know what those winds looked like on the ground, you know what they felt like in the air. Now you can make an informed decision next time. I think you'll start finding that other jumpers are going to hesitate telling you if it's ok to jump or not. That's easy to do for students, but really hard to do for more experienced jumpers... nobody wants to take that responsibility. So, now you've got one more data point to help you make up your own mind. Dave

Probably a solo... don't really remember. At the end of the day that I did my 20th jump (actually up to 23rd), I asked an instructor what else I had to do to get a license. He told me I just had to take the written test. So I took it and got my license... so basically I didn't know I was getting my license when I did the big A-license jump.

In his defense, he did say the 10 degrees represents the pitchmonauti angle of the atmonaut, not the flightmonauti path. The diagrams all show 0 angle of attackmonauti, but that's just for artistic purposes and in reality they always have some positive angle of attack. So they do use "relative gravitational wind" like tracknauts, freeflynauts, and RWnauts, but they pretend not to, but only in all of their diagrams. Marco admitted the truthmonauti above.

You already know the answer to that question - Of course they can I saw a good quote the other day. Something like "The best camera designed by engineers is a canon. The best camera designed by photographers is a nikon." To me the decision just came down to size, weight, and ease of use for skydiving. Nothing competes with the canon digital rebel series for that. ...But there are other reasons why canon has a ~46% market share vs Nikon's 14%. (Just stirring the pot ) Dave

You'll have a lot more fun in skydiving when you realize that every DZ has its ups and downs (hey, that was almost a pun!). New England is full of great dropzones. Travel around and decide for yourself about each DZ. You'll hear "not so good things" about every dropzone... when you're somewhere else.

I've always dreamed of spending a month at Gold Coast Skydiving. Just kidding. I'd go to any of the usual suspects that's open all week and has stuff going on. Dave

How about those guys that make those pesky skydiving related websites?! Do you really think those things you listed are bad? Without those people, we wouldn't have... ummm... anything we have. Sounds like you're bashing innovators. Do you have some examples of the types of people/concepts/products you're talking about? EDIT: Doug, when did we get a couch in manifest?? That's where I'll be hanging out! Dave

I must be doing something wrong... never seen an err99 on my XT/XTi. Hope I didn't just jinx myself...

http://www.skydivingmovies.com/ver2/pafiledb.php?action=file&id=3591 Dave

That's just semantics. Lift is the force created perpendicular to the direction of motion. Planes generate lift by deflecting air too. There's no difference between pushing on air and pulling on it. Lift is lift, no matter how it's generated. Dave

That'd be the guy I bought my Reflex from! He had one catapult save, and at least one more improperly packed reserve pilot chute found after the first incident. I didn't know why he was such a big fan of the catapult system until I found the true story on rec.skydiving. Are racer reserve pilot chutes packed the same way? Dave

He's actually a senior rigger. He's great though. Lots of Vortex rigs around here because of him. His unfinished website is http://www.parachutesystemsusa.com. I like it cause I took most of the pictures that are on it.

I believe that's only true if you use a mono switch. A stereo switch will focus and snap the picture when you press it. My XTi does not continuously focus while plugged in. The advantage of the mono switch is that the camera should focus more quickly (since it's always focusing), but the cost is battery life. Stereo switch works fine for me. Dave

I've had one rigger refuse to pack my reflex. Other than that, no problems finding riggers. Ask around at your dropzone who people use for their repacks... especially any reflex owners you can find, or racer owners. But chances are you won't have a problem. Reflexes aren't bad rigs... only issue I have had with mine was a rigger that didn't get the pop top seated well, so reserve pilot chute fabric started sticking out (which got me kicked off a plane). Other than that, never had any flaps come open or anything like that, that I know of. Dave

I really have nothing against atmonauti. I mean, it looks like fun. That's what really matters, right? I still don't understand your diagrams. The first one shows a typical lift coefficient curve for a cambered airfoil. It shows that you get maximum lift at some high angle of attack. Then right below it, you show an atmonaut flying along at 0 angle of attack, which generates very little lift even for a nice airfoil, let alone a guy making hand gestures and sticking a foot above his head. This leads me to believe that a good flat track must generate more lift than atmonauti. Why doesn't your diagram show what you're trying to actually explain? To be clear, let me define angle of attack as I mean it. It is the angle formed by a line that passes through the jumper's body from head to feet (chord line) and a line parallel to the relative wind. Clearly your diagrams all show an angle of attack of 0. Ok, diagram 2 is the one that confuses me a little. You again show a couple atmonauts flying along at 0 angle of attack. The red line indicates the trajectory, and the black lines indicate the angle of the jumper with respect to the horizon. Right? Do you see where I'm getting confused? What am I supposed to get out of the diagram? Is the red line supposed to be continuous? I mean, does it indicate the trajectory in relation to the atmonaut's angle of flight? So the difference between the red and black lines is the angle of attack? I'm guessing not... because that wouldn't make sense. So are you showing the angles the atmonaut's body makes with respect to the horizon, or the trajectories atmonauts can fly at with respect to the horizon? See what I'm saying? The diagram is ambiguous. Are you suggesting that an atmonaut can fly at a trajectory of just 10 degrees below the horizon (a glide ratio nearly 6:1)? Or is that just the angle his body makes, but he really falls steeper (ie at a high angle of attack). It all sounds too good to be true. Do you blame me for being skeptical?