mattjw916

I currently fly a Sabre2 190 for the moment... since the disclaimers have been covered already I will interject that I like the 190 a lot better than the 210 since the toggle pressure was lower and the canopy carried more speed on final and planed out better for me when loaded at ~1.07 I did not like the way the Sabre2 210 flew and felt when loaded lightly since I am about 205 out the door. Like most people say, if you keep you first canopy between 1 & 1.1 w/l you should/could/would be okay. According to some people I should be dead already (of course they have never actually seen me under canopy) and others say I could go down to a 170 loaded at ~1.2 since I fly my canopy well and exercise good judgement. There is no right answer to this question so listen most carefully to the people who have actually seen you fly and have instructor ratings or specialize in canopy piloting. Don't be afraid to ask lots of questions... but don't be surprised if you get answers that are all over the place like you mentioned earlier. NSCR-2376, SCR-15080

Moderators are here to refocus the threads... get over yourself... NSCR-2376, SCR-15080

If you didn't have a good answer then why did you post in the thread??? Instead of critisizing others, why don't you just post your opinion and move on... I thought xavenger had a worthy point in that a lot of people are neglecting the most important aspect of the skydive... like uh... the landing!!! Hence the high numbers of injuries/fatalties related to poor decisions under canopy above and beyond what is reported at the almighty DZ.com... which are many to say the least. RW is cool and all but if you constantly divot up the landing area you won't be able to actually skydive since you are constantly injured. But I guess that is okay for all the tunnel rats out there. NSCR-2376, SCR-15080

dude, if you think that was bad... check this one out!!! http://www.skydivingmovies.com/ver2/pafiledb.php?action=file&id=1199 NSCR-2376, SCR-15080

When did you know it was time to get out? I got tired of doing shit work like pulling weeds and picking up other people's cigarette butts in addition to the fact that being HIMAD in ADA limits the places you can be assigned to. (Ft Bliss, Korea, Germany, repeat...) How did you handle the transition? I sold my truck, paid off all my bills first and left basically debt free and walked on to a job that netted me a 350% pay raise the day I ETS'd. What were the difficult parts of leaving/entering the real world? Easy parts? It was hard not shouting "hoo-ah!!!" all the time and singing cadence when I went jogging but I got over it. Would you go back in, given the chance? Nope, I did my duty and served my country for almost a decade... now it is time for someone else to step up and do the same. NSCR-2376, SCR-15080

wow, someone agreed with me for once... NSCR-2376, SCR-15080

If I was local to a windtunnel I would use it occasionally. But since I would have to travel about ~900 miles to get to one I would vote for more jumps. It is amazing to me how overemphasized tunnel training is getting. Personally I think overdosing on tunnel as a newbie skydiver is akin to taking a high-performance driving school when you only have a learner's permit. Sure you can get some benefit from the experience but not as much as if you wait until you have a better grasp of the sport as a whole. It amazes me at how many highly skilled RW-ers out there I see tumbling across the desert after biffing their landings... I would guess many of them have more tunnel time in minutes than actual skydives. That said, I appreciate the advantage the tunnel can give you in that you can work on freefall skills in a safe, controlled environment. NSCR-2376, SCR-15080

At Eloy you start working off the items on the "A" license card during the whole ASP ---> AZTC progression. I was handed my "A" license proficiency card before my first AFF jump during ground school. While the instruction at Eloy is pricey for coach jumps you really get what you pay for IMHO. Also, you do 12 coached jumps after 3 solos immediately following the completion of ASP/AFF which is many more than some of the other DZs I have jumped at. I wouldn't hesitate to jump with someone that learned at Eloy, while on the other hand I have met people from other DZs with almost 100 jumps couldn't dock, track, or control their fall rate to save their life. (pardon the pun). While their instruction method may be considered "old" by some people's standards, they really do give you the skill necessary to build the foundation of a safe and fun skydiving progression from student status to RW or whatever else floats your boat. Just my $0.02... and I, and many others, really don't care if a certain person with ~3300 jumps agrees or not. NSCR-2376, SCR-15080

0:8: A 4-way hybrid with 1 stinger and video orbiting... A 6-way hybrid with 2 stingers that turned into a 3 way hybrid after it started to get ugly... one of the most fun jumps yet, even though I had to land in the parking lot. NSCR-2376, SCR-15080

I had an altimeter on both tandems... I was supposed to pull on the first but I was uh... distracted... second tandem was a lot more educational and did not include the sensory-overload package. NSCR-2376, SCR-15080

??? huh??? What do you mean by that? Would you care to elaborate, you have piqued my interest. NSCR-2376, SCR-15080

I think there are about a dozen threads about why you shouldn't leap before you check the spot... NSCR-2376, SCR-15080

If you don't like the spot, don't get out... no one is forced out of the plane. NSCR-2376, SCR-15080

Yeah, but their fat ass could tumble down some stairs and take me out... There are plenty of roads out there you can willfully exceed the speed limit on without endangering anyone but yourself... I hit 160+ in my BMW not too long ago on I10 in Arizona. That is well within reach of a modified Honda CBR1100XX, an RC51, or older CBR1000... reports about motorcycle incidents are equally as lacking in facts as are the reports about skydiving incidents. Plus the dude timing the run could have been slackin' on the stopwatch or dyslexic or something... cheers.

So if you see an obese person having a heart-attack are you not going to call the paramedics either since he chose to not to exercise or eat right his entire life??? Have some compassion dude, someday it may be your ass in the dirt that resulted from a momentary lapse in good judgement, everyone has one occasionally. NSCR-2376, SCR-15080

Just another example of how hyper-critical some people are at DZs... it's not like you would die if you jumped without your Cypres on, no one should bet their life on it working anyway. Try passing along the knowledge you have with a smile, it goes a lot further than, "WTF, DIDN'T YOU LEARN THIS IN AFF!!!" or whatever. I had a kind packer/rigger explain the operation of the Cypres at some point during my AFF progression when I asked how it works since they always seemed to be turned on already by the time I grabbed a student rig to jump with. NSCR-2376, SCR-15080

Damn, and I thought my 175 in a 65 and 125+ in a 45 on a military installation were bad... Youthful exuberance, I remember it well. At least I was a licensed/trained high-performance rider though. (Still wasn't smart in retrospect.) Getting caught doing it is possibly even more retarded than doing it in the first place. NSCR-2376, SCR-15080

Eloy... for all the reasons that have been mentioned already... best dropzone I have been to/jumped at by far. (and I have been to more than a couple). You will rarely, if ever, have to wait to get on a load and they are usually flying an otter and a skyvan on the weekends, gotta love those tailgate exits. NSCR-2376, SCR-15080

That is awesome... I'd tip the TM an extra $5 to do that if any of my "I ain't scared" friends would ever haul their butts to the DZ and do a tandem. NSCR-2376, SCR-15080

I am also a big fan of PD Slinks... Oh wait, I forgot I don't have enough jumps to offer an opinion... NSCR-2376, SCR-15080

Eloy has a 2-day dozen for $212... which works out to $17.67 per jump and you won't get bumped off loads for tandems and pretty much can jump your brains out non-stop. They occasionally have $15 jump days as well... NSCR-2376, SCR-15080

lol... I'm glad you did that up high... NSCR-2376, SCR-15080

Just work on a nice flat, on heading, track for your solos. Since most group dives end in tracking away it is a very important skill to practice, and you don't really need someone there to watch you do it everytime to get good at it. When I don't have people to jump with I work on back flying, back tracking, and sitflying. I also work on getting stable and flying the relative wind on the hill... if you think about it there are plenty of things to do when you are soloing. Just remember not to track up or down the flight-line. NSCR-2376, SCR-15080

could be... NSCR-2376, SCR-15080

I stand by my comment... if you want to meet people who have thousands of jumps w/no tunnel... come on out to AZ. You only work on one aspect of the dive in the tunnel. Just like ANY sport, the only way to get good at something is to do it, I agree the tunnel will help but it is not a requirement to be a good skydiver. My opinion regarding this will not change regardless of how many trailing zeroes my jump number has. NSCR-2376, SCR-15080