DZBone

Just my two cents here, as I am also trying to decide between Cobalt and Crossfire, and also considering the Samurai. Of the three canopies, the Cobalt was the only demo I was even able to get. Yes, it came a couple of days after the date we had originally discussed, but it came. So far, I haven't even been able to get Big Sky to return my emails. And there don't seem to be any demo Crossfire 149's where I happen to be. I think that all these companies are struggling to get stuff out as fast as they can, but with popularity comes operational difficulties. These are definitely things to take into account. I mean, if you are having trouble pre-sales, imagine what things would be like post-sales. So far, having Dan here in the forums (and actively addressing questions) is a huge plus. A couple of days delay getting a demo out doesn't seem too bad, although a message on the voice mail about the off days will go a long way (or better yet, having a service to answer calls when no one's around). Carl

Go ahead and manifest us for the first load!

You should probably consider relaxing at home with the family, perhaps reading a good book. I'm sure there are a lot of chores around the house that you have been putting off. Maybe some golf, if you want to get out and get some air... >slap!< Oh, thank you! What the hell was I thinking!??!? SKYDIVE!!!!!!!!!

Why? I've done tons of them there just by manifesting for it. The swoopers do also. They let you out at about 5k on the way up. Carl

Hey, Joe. Welcome! Yeah, life's a bitch, ain't it? Get used to it, the feeling only gets stronger.

How did you arrange this demo? I haven't been able to get Big Air Sportz to return my emails.

The blue-yellow-white looks like it would be sponsored by the Cub Scouts. Does that help, disparaging remarks about some of the options?

OK, this is a really dumb question, but what exactly is a "tension knot"? I have a picture of half-hitch kind of a thing, but I really would like to know for sure.

There is a link when you look at their Forum profile. Near the bottom in the middle.

Hard to say not being the one with his ass in the sling, but I think I would have rode it in. The key factors would be a) can I control it now and thought the flight and b) do I expect anything to change for the worse, given the current conditions. Sounds like it was controllable, and unlikely to get worse. Carl

Nice one, kid. That's the way to land 'em. Better to be dusty, sore and a little embarrassed than broken, mad and also dusty! Carl

I went through a string of these when I started jumping again. I was just being dumb about how I stowed the brakes, and about half the time one of them would half-hitch. I found that a large amount of cursing helped, along with tugging and holding the other riser to avoid turning too much. gman, one thing to try (up high) is maneuvering with rear risers. Unless you are flying something too radical, you should be able to control the canopy with rear risers alone. It takes some practice, but should you lose a brake line down low some day, you'll be glad you spent the time on it. By the way, when do you get your license so we can make some jumps together?

There is controversy over this event as to whether he forgot or not, but he did leave the plane without his rig. He was a videographer with quite a bit of experience, as I recall.

From what I've heard, that's exactly the weights he wore for some tests.

This is the best summation of this frequently-asked-question I have seen. Keep in mind that almost all of the finest skydivers in the world have gone through one or the other of these. A few hundred jumps from now, it won't matter which you did, imho.

High-altitude floating balls of GOO?

OK, this is random and nit-picky, but... The url for the "Forums" link in the dark blue bar on some, but not all, pages is http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forums/forum.pl?Cat=, while the url for the "Main Index" in the forums is http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forums/wwwthreads.pl?Cat=. They both work, although the former one shows "Administration duties" in the title bar and in the "Who's Online" section.

This may be a school of red herrings, but it may help explain some of the odd login problems people are having. These are all things I have observed using Mozilla 0.9.3 on RH Linux 7.1. It seems like there are several different cookies that are used by dz.com to "remember" login information, but "Username" and "Password" seem to be the main ones. There is another (persistent) one called sid that may also be involved. Anyway, at one point I had multiple copies of Username and Password (3 each), each with a different path associated with them (this is from memory, as I have since deleted them, but I think they were "/", "/cgi-bin/forums" and "/cgi-bin/forums/forum.pl"). Also, each of the Password entries were different (all mangled). I have never changed my password. There were also cookies under both "dropzone.com" and "www.dropzone.com". OK, so I deleted all the cookies I could find for "dropzone.com" and "www.dropzone.com", and turned on "warn me before accepting cookies" to see what was going on. Unfortunately, Mozilla doesn't give all the information about each cookie like NS used to, but in any case... When you log into the main front page, it sets Username and Password, however, the Password is not mangled. If you then go to the forums, it looks like you are logged in partially, as the unread counts of each forum are correct, but the "Login" and "New User" links are active. If you click on "Login", it sets cookies again, and this time Password is mangled. From here, things seem to work OK. So, for what it's worth, there are a few things that are going on that may be causing trouble: 1. Old-skool cookies are left behind? I only guess this based on what I saw before I erased them all, and what new ones were added. This may be confising some browsers and/or the server scripts, if the wrong cookies are being read for data. 2. Different cookies for "dropzone.com" and "www.dropzone.com". This may also get things confused. It appears that the www prefix is wired into some of the pages, so if one browses to "dropzone.com", and the cookies are set for this domain, but then the pages link to "www.dropzone.com" which may also cause cookie confusion. 3. Mangled vs. Unmangled Password. My guess is that this would cause some confusion in the server scripts. How do they know what format it is in? It seems like some of the code either can deal with it, doesn't care, or ignores the Password cookie (uses "sid"?). Like I say, a lot of this is from memory, and there are assumptions and leaps of logic here. Also, I am no expert on how various browsers and servers interpret ambiguous cookies, etc., but there may be something helpful here for diagnosing the ills. Carl

Interesting, tam. I've never heard of this problem, but you are definitely doing something wrong. Generally, once you exit the plane, you would naturally move toward the world under the influence of a force called "gravity". Now all massive bodies attract each other by this force, but because the world is so incredibly massive, it is usually the overwhelming attractor in any airspace you would be jumping in, at least at a USPA-santioned dz. Where are you exactly? If you are on the moon, or in the gravitational field of some other massive body smaller than Earth, this could explain what is going on. Either that or you are in a highly viscous atmosphere of some sort. Are you sure that you are skydiving and not SCUBA diving? Anyway, assuming the batteries on your radio haven't given out, your instructors should be able to assist you. In any case, if you do make it down, I would consider adding weights before your next jump! Carl P.S. This is going to make meeting your freefall time requirements for your 'A' license a snap!

fred, it sounds like you had quite a day! That's the drug taking effect. Go with it. It's gets better every time! Good to see you have your priorities straight!

Sounds like a major bummer. Do this. Print out a copy of your post and put it in an envelope marked "Do Not Open Until 2005". I assure you that reading it then will give you a huge laugh, when you are one of the skygods hanging around watching cocky new students come in spouting off and landing in the wrong place. In the meantime, remember that each skydive is a wonderful experience that most people never have a chance to enjoy. It's just that some are more wonderful than others. Sounds so intreguing. Did you have to travel under the cover of darkness, and communicate by bird calls? Did local underground operatives hide you from the authorities while you made your way there?

spec, some of these aircraft must have presented some interesting challenges, to say the least. I'm thinking that the stall speeds on some of the larger commercial aircraft would be high enough that the exits would be quite dangerous. Also, some of the configurations of the exits would make it difficult to avoid striking wings and stablizers, especially for the smaller business jets. And how were the doors configured? I would think that opening the door on a 747 would take some extraordinary skill and strength! Were these standard configurations, or specially modified spook jobs? Do tell. By the way, are you DB Cooper?

Wouldn't it be a contradiction to have a planned cheer for a team named Capricious? You should just capriciously yell out whatever strikes your fancy at the time!

Whaddya mean? Those bruises were gorgeous! I vote for line dump. A quick change of rubber bands should be pretty easy, and telling. Someone should also go up with him and watch the deployment. That will help determine if there is indeed line dump, whether he has body position issues, how his fingers are getting caught in the risers , etc. Even better, get high-speed video of a few deployments. Carl

Oh, one other thing that might make a difference is going to "www.dropzone.com", rather than just "dropzone.com". Some pages do this automatically, but the cookies that keep track of this stuff care about the difference.