jheadley

Some places will take the copy, some will not. I know, it's annoying. I just had that problem this summer. I carried my passport in a pouch around my neck, UNDER my shirt. I felt that was secure.

I know the main parachute is not certified and therefore doesn't need to be inspected (I wouldn't do it either unless specifically asked) but I just thought that the risers, d-bag, and pilot chute were technically a part of the container, and would need to be inspected like the rest of the container.

See if Oren Kalb is there, he's my favorite organizer. Roy Haper is good too, or if you're really getting desperate, you could hold hands and dance around with Mike Wolfe . The RW people usually hang out on the deck under the Bomb Squad flag.

Aren't the risers and d-bag and pilot chute technically part of the container, and therefore have to be inspected and deemed airworthy like the rest of the container? I'm not a rigger (but plan to go to dewolfe's course in january) but I know if I were doing an I&R, I'd want to see everything since there a lot of people out there who have really worn out risers (especially the white loop), dbags, bridles, and pilot chutes. Also the rig owner may not even connect the risers back correctly, I've caught that twice by people who I thought would have known better. I'd rather do it myself.

At one dz I packed at, they were pro-packing EZ-384's and kept getting a lot of lineovers, so they switched to flat packing and still got lineovers. They now pro pack them, and still get a lot of lineovers. I'd say the lineover rate was about 1 in 80, but the TMs could clear it 2 out of 3 times. They were just shitty packers though. At another, we were pro packing 384's and were getting lineovers maybe one in 400 jumps. The DZ I pack at now uses SET 400's and I believe they've had 4 tandem mals in the past 6000 jumps. They are pro-packed. All the tandem packers pack very very well. I think using the method of folding the sides of the canopy into the center to keep the lines in the center helps a lot. I sure wouldn't want to try to flat pack those new slippery SET 400's though.

I do think it is a very good idea for someone learning how to pack to stick with one method and one method only until they have a very firm understanding. I don't mean that it should be regulated at all, I just mean that on an individual basis. I tell people I teach "Everyone does the same thing (more or less), they just all do it in a slightly different order or way" Even simple things I've seen, like one person showing someone how to flake, and they start at the AB flake and work down, and another person starting at the CD flake and working up, is enough to really confuse the hell out of someone learning.

I just got back from seeing saw III. I think I need to go pray... I'd love to have seen the writer's brainstorming sessions. All they do is just try to think up the most fucked up ways one could possibly die. I though it was much more sickening and intense than the first two.

It seems to me like there are plenty of instructors, there just aren't many instructors who WANT to take people under their wing for free. It seems like the #1 incentive for becoming an instructor in this day is the money. At one dz I worked at, all training and advice came at a price. When I started telling the instructors I like to teach people how to pack and coach for free, some of them got very mad at me. I don't even do coach jumps anymore since DZs don't even allow me to do them for free. The "put back in" part of the sport is dead. And the USPA wonders why the number of people in this sport declines every year.

I have an odyssey and nothing has ever come open in freefall, in any orientation. It is a C yoke though so like SM1 said that could be why. Everything just fits very nicely. With the older Javelins, and the student javelins, the main flap and riser flaps do come open a lot. I don't know about the really small ones, I haven't noticed a problem on those. I actually really like the dimensions of everything on the TJNK more than any other size. I believe a lot of why the reserve flap and riser covers come open on javelins is because of the way the reserve is packed, and it's size. I've always thought the Javelin main flap (properly sized) felt a lot more secure than the other way that's on Vectors, Wings, etc.. There's actually a picture in this month's parachutist of a guy with a Vector 3 with his main flap open. It sort of seems to me like the upward closing flap may be better protection in freefall from the wind, but it seems like they sort of "stick out" a little bit, and the flatter, wider, low profile javelin style protects more from being knocked or bumped in the plane. /opinion

So trans-fat is the bad ingredient now? I thought it was those evil evil carbs! Or before that trend, the saturated fat, or before that trend... etc. etc.

Get some demos. PD's demo program is the best. I sent a demo request on Monday and had it on my doorstep on Thursday. Thanks Kim!

This is all true but SAS also will just show a typcally slower speed all around. 114mph SAS seems to be sort of the "normal" speed for my RW dives, but then when I switch it to TAS or look at it in Jump-Track, it's much higher. Right now I'm looking at a graph and it says that at 7,000 feet AGL (don't know MSL, but it was at Dublin), 120mph TAS (The "Normal" speed for RW) would be 113mph SAS. So if you set it to TAS, you'll always hear that one guy who always goes low complain about how the skydive "got slower" throughout the skydive, or if you set it to SAS, you'll just hear how the entire skydive was slow. I think people put way too much emphasis on fall rate numbers in their little computers. I know one guy who says that a good 4 way has to move at exactly 122 mph. You hear people ask other people what their fall rate is. I think "slow, medium or fast" is enough of an answer, but I can't help but smile when people say things like "About 117 or 118" since there are obviously so many variables to that. I typically set my pro track to SAS, but if I ever actually do look at a jump's fall rate (which is rare), I'll switch between SAS and TAS and take both into consideration.

I saw it and thought it was very good. Leo is becoming a great actor the older he gets. I did think the ending was ridiculous. When I saw it, all I could think of was the crime drama spoof on South Park, where they basically had the exact same ending (everyone double-crossing and killing everyone else), but with the last guy standing also killing himself.

I heard Scott Miller once say that in theory, there really is no such thing as "underloading". PD has no minimum wing loading for their canopies (except the velo). The chart says "VLC" which means Varies with Landing Conditions. In completely dead still air, evenly an extremely lightly loaded canopy would fly fine. It'd have very very slow airspeed, but it would work. But the wind is almost never dead still. With an extremely lightly loaded parachute, it would have very little forward speed, so it would be harder to penetrate a headwind, making landing accuracy very difficult. Also, in turbulent conditions, it's "better" to have a higher wing loading, which would give more internal cell pressurization and it would be more resistant to collapse. Although some people will debate that. So basically light wingloadings are perfectly fine, but you may want to stay on the ground more often than a person under a higher wingloading when winds get higher or bumpy. This is part of the reason why students (jumping lightly loaded canopies) have a wind limit.

That's exactly what my dad did, and my mom still has the gumball ring.

I want to do a balloon jump partly because I actually enjoy off landings. They can become fun adventures. The last time I landed off, I got a ride back to the DZ by a blonde woman in a corvette.

My college roomate said that alcohol just makes you apathetic. It doesn't make the opposite sex look any better, it just lowers your standards enough so you don't care what they look like. You don't actually "pass out", you just don't care where you go to sleep. And when drunk posting, it's not that you can't spell correctly if you tried, you just don't care enough to fix your mistakes. Pretty true if you think about it.

Sort of reminds me of this...

I have a stutter and have always been self conscious of it and shy. Getting my coach rating was a pretty good feeling of accomplishment, although I still get embarassed when I stutter when teaching students who I don't know. I want to get into video but having to do the stupid interviews with tandem students puts me off from that. Also I really want to get my AFF rating but a guy told me the other day that with a stutter I will never be able to talk someone down on radio. That was probably the first time in my life I ever felt like it was a real disability.

In the past few years, I'd estimate 80-90% of the AFF graduates from Adrenaline Air Sports have been from the VT club.

I've been experimenting with braked landings recently. I've got a Sabre 2 150 loaded at about 1.4. I can hold half brakes all the way to ~10 feet, and then finish the rest of the flare in a quick stroke and still have a relatively soft stand up landing. I was really surprised when I did it at how much flare the canopy still has. I like this and plan to practice it more since there is no "swoop" to the landing like at full glide. Also, if flying in brakes into a moderate to strong wind, it'll reduce your relative glide, allowing for a steeper approach into a tight landing area. Both these things, a steeper relative glide, and no plane out, will help a lot when landing off in a tight spot. You can swoop 200 feet across the ground and stomp a disk as you go by, and call it "accurate", but that's not going to help you when you have to land in a back yard that's surrounded by 50 foot tall trees. All of this is my opinion from personal experience. I do not know if it'd be any easier or harder under a different canopy.

Get a good one. I've bought two cheap ones, one broke after a few uses, the other was broken right out of the box.

A lighter works pretty well... But the magnesium blocks do work very well. Get a jigsaw blade to put around the little chain, so you'll never be without a blade. It already has a hole in it. Instead of striking the flint, make a long scratch down the entire length. Also, dryer lint makes the best tinder.