bob.dino

Technically: exit weight in pounds divided by size of the canopy in square feet. All other things being equal, increasing the wingloading will make the canopy fly the same path faster and stall at a higher speed.

It's quite common in some countries - you see it quite often in the UK, for example. Not sure why it's not common here...

The new generation of L&B products have a few issues, but their customer service doesn't. It's among the best I've encountered in any industry, anywhere.

Booze and casual sex.

Can you say "Whinging Pom"? .

You know what's irritating? When you see a thread, read the initial post and go "ooh, I can contribute to this!", then realize that everyone else has already answered the questions posed. Damn.

Not if it's Spectra. However, it's a Vengeance 135 we're talking about, isn't it? I'm fairly sure Vengeances come with Vectran rather than Spectra lines. Vectran doesn't really go out of trim. It does wear and break though... ...and for the record, I reline around the 450-500 jump mark. Others with more experience than I can tell you exactly how to check if Vectran lines are new or not, but personally I'd look at the lower brake lines, where they will be rubbing through the riser ring. It should be pretty obvious if the lines have 6 or 600 jumps on them.

Travel expands your mind by - - taking you out of your comfort zone, forcing you to adapt to whatever comes along - exposing you to different cultures (food, music, daily life) - allowing you to experience places of awesome beauty and/or historical significance - meeting people who are completely different than you are... and realizing that they really aren't all that different from you after all You can't get any of that out of a book or a video. Well said.

1- Different countries teach different survival skills at different stages 2- Very few students remember everything they've been told.

Maybe from the perspective of government & governing body support that's true, but you guys have a huge ecosystem of sport jumpers that help fund professional competition jumpers that no-one else has. In Australia, the APF (USPA equiv) will support the National teams based on how well they do at the Nationals compared to the best in the world. The last 8-way team got a training camp paid for, registrations, and (I think) hotels at the Gera World Meet. Government support was nonexistent. Other sponsorship was nonexistent. Everyone bought their own gear, paid their own way, and the dropzone gave them a couple of bucks off lift tickets. Do Airspeed personally pay the rate charged to other teams for their training jumps? Do they have to buy their own jumpsuits & rigs?

I wonder if that's the system that was brought out to Australia last year? Seemed to work well.

Yeah, that's scary looking.

I've never dealt with Sunrise, but I've always had good customer service experiences with Velocity Sports Equipment (I like their risers).

The new Volkswagen TDI engines are pretty good. Prius if you want to be 'seen' to be being responsible.

It's a bloody long airport, so you'd get a decent workout running from one end to the other. Really nice desk staff too. I was on a flight from Osaka to Sydney routed through Incheon. The flight crew at the airline went on strike, so the staff got me a seat on their direct competitor's aircraft. I even got into Sydney 10min earlier than originally planned. Can you imagine United going "Sorry, we've got a cabin crew strike. We've booked you on an American Airlines flight that'll get you in at the same time. Your luggage has been checked through - I've just talked to the man that's loaded it onto your aircraft. Sincerest apologies for the inconvenience"? I now like that airport.

I can't speak for jumping, but there's load for tourists to do in Thailand. Chiang Mai, up North, is a great place to learn to cook Thai properly or to take a 2-5 day guided trek through the hills. I went with the Banana Guesthouse crew. Excellent time. Bangkok is smelly, noisy, and everyone is trying to rip you off. Or so I found . Down South there's loads of pretty islands, both in the Gulf of Thailand and in the Indian Ocean. Phuket and Ko Samui are probably the two biggest places for lying on beaches, doing some scuba, and drinking too much. I've never been to Indonesia, though Bali is a huge tourist destination for drunk Aussies.

It's common for canopies to start opening worse as the line set ages. Not normally that hard though . Ask your rigger to check the trim and see if the canopy needs a reline.

Generalizing horribly: rectangular parachutes will turn slower for a given amount of toggle input than mildly tapered ("semi-elliptical") parachutes. The planform of a canopy is what a canopy looks like if you look at it from directly above. We have common terms for different configurations - square, semi-elliptical, and elliptical. To make things fun, none of those descriptions is technically accurate . A square parachute is actually rectangular, and semi- and fully-ellipitcal parachutes are actually tapered. Terminology aside, the planform of a canopy is only one aspect of many in determining how a parachute performs. For example, the differences you're experiencing between the Navigator and the Sabre2 are down to more than just the planform. The Navigator is designed for students - it's supposed to be docile, forgiving, and hard to hurt yourself on. The Sabre2 is designed for sports jumpers, so it's more responsive and a little less forgiving. Many factors, including line length, airfoil shape, line trim, and more influence this. Parachute design is as much art as it is science. If you want to know more about how & why parachutes fly, and how to fly them better, I'd highly recommend picking up a copy of Brian Germain's book The Parachute and Its Pilot. It's available from most skydiving stores, and from http://www.bigairsportz.com.

Most European countries, along with others like Australia, have comparable or stricter regulation than the USA. For example, the Netherlands has wingloading vs. number of jumps restrictions. Other countries may have little or no regulation.

There's a hole in the search index for most of the first half of 2006. There's a thread in Bugs & Error Reports about it. If it bothers you, add your voice to those asking for the issue to be rectified.

How about putting a marker instead of a pea pit. Maybe something as simple as cutting the grass a little finer and in the opposite direction would make an obvious target without the expense?

Good core strength, good flexibility, reasonable cardio fitness. Anything that can increase your proprioception. Yoga can help with the core strength, flexibility, and proprioception. Swimming, running, or whatever you like can help the strength and cardio fitness. Just pick something you enjoy doing

Autoset: this may prevent you from using the Dainese armour as a student in a skydiving environment. My opinion, as a non-instructor, is that you'd be better served practicing your PLRs.

I finish my flare. Yep. That's the answer.