jheadley

I was concerned about canopy flight when I was a student but I found out when I was up there that it's actually quite straight-foward and easy to get to your target and fly the pattern. One advantage of the big student canopies is you have a lot of time to figure it out. Have fun!

dude this is soooo 2003

well, since it's been 30 minutes and nobody has said it yet... The best advice is to ask your instructors.

On the ride to altitude, an AFF instructor put his radio in his jumpsuit pocket and then the zipper broke. He borrowed my hook knife to cut open the pocket. Also, on a sunset cross country jump one person put a can of... soda in his long sleeve shirt sleeve for the canopy descent and then couldn't get it out, so he cut open his shirt under canopy.

I was not there, I only heard about it later so I don't know how well she was trained, but she said that there were holes in the first main so she did not feel comfortable landing it. Jumps around 250.

I'm interested in a job related to skydiving. I've worked as a packer at dropzones, both part time and full time, and while I do want to get my instructional ratings, I definitely don't want to do it for a living, I know how miserable that can be. I think I've actually become more interested in the gear and rigging part of skydiving than the jumping.

Wendy, the EXACT SAME THING happened on a hybrid triathlon about a year ago at my dropzone... Weird, we thought it was just a freak accident. The local rigger blamed the packer and the jumper for not checking his gear. You say you think this happened as the pilot chute was being thrown?

socks, bathroom rug, or shower curtain

Is that a true statement? Because we had that very system @ our DZ and we allowing people the oppurtunity to do an intentional cutaway. They were trained, of course. And one of the people who used it pulled the wrong handles and landed under the real reserve. Tridems are very complicated. 5 handles, 4 three-ring releases attached to only 2 main rings, 3 parachutes all on your back. Imagine the malfunction tree of it. I jumped one (because I actually do want to get my tandem rating, not for fun, although it was sort of fun), and it went fine but honestly I don't think I'd want to jump it again, there are way too many variables. I think bill booth has said many times on here that 3 parachutes is more dangerous than 2. This is pretty much what happened in the incident spatula and I are referring to. The tridem has two sets of cutaway and reserve handles. One high up on the lift web, similar to where it'd be on a tandem rig (they release the first main, and then deploy the spring loaded "second main", and another set lower where it'd be on a regular sport parachute (this releases the second main and deploys the real reserve). The jumper instinctively pulled the lower cutaway handle, which did not release the opened main (it cuts away the middle parachute, the "second main"). Fortunately she was heads up enough to figure out what was going on, so she then pulled the upper cutaway handle, and the lower reserve handle, and landed under the real reserve. It could have turned bad very quickly though.

I like the design of the z1 visor, very strong, but I believe it is not secured very well to your head with just a chin strap. I personally know of two people who have lost them on opening and have heard of several more.

I wear full face when doing everything. I´ve seen people get kicked in the face badly during freefly jumps. My visor ripped off when in a very fast stand, so now I just use the helmet and goggles. I like the jaw and chin protection.

I´ve got 500 on an F111 and I think it´s time for a new one. I´ve recently started getting a strange trap door effect after throwing out, and I´m getting line twists a lot... I think maintaining your pilot chute is very important and often neglected. When I worked as a packer I would always have people tell me I packed pilot chute hesitations, bag locks (that would always clear) and line twists. As soon as they got new pilot chutes, the problems went away completely. I hate how packers get blamed for everything, when 90% of the time it´s not their fault, but that´s another thread topic.

If you want to see a really bad movie, watch Troll 2. "A double decker baloney sandwich!"

If you look at the CYPRES save list you'll see that most (about 75%) of the saves are not from the person being unconscious, but from losing altitude awareness, or not handling a mal properly. My personal thoughts : If AADs had never been invented, I'd still jump, but since they have been, I will take that extra safety backup and use it. I think it'd be silly not to. I know this analogy has been used a million times before, but I've been in a car for probably over 100,000 miles and have never been in an accident, but I still wear my seat belt on every trip. You never know if/when you'll need it. Not wearing a seat belt/ not using an AAD doesn't directly make a car trip/skydive more dangerous, but if something does go wrong, it'd be nice to have. It'd be terrible to go in because you didn't pull and only had your AAD out of your rig for a little while. During the Belize boogie, a guy went in when he was unable to pull, and he usually jumped with an AAD but had taken it out just before so he could do a water jump.

I always pro packed 384's but started flat packing them towards the end of my last packing job. I was much more comfortable flat packing them, knowing exactly where the lines were. Also, it's faster and it doesn't hurt your shoulder. Some TI's claim they open hard but the one guy who I packed for said he didn't notice a difference. Just roll the nose tight and put the slider all the way against the stops.

There is monkey or a reference to a monkey (or some kind of primate) in every Simpsons episode.

Ok I got them, they're about a week old, they sort of look like little sperms now hehe. Still very small but fun to watch. I'll try to get a picture when the get bigger. Best 10 bucks I ever spent.

That website is pretty interesting, I found a place to buy them locally. I think I'll try them out, they sound like neat pets.

congrats dude, I've been watching and admiring your determination and progression for a while on here.

From http://www.perverted-justice.com/?archive=jubjub970 " im_taryn_it_up: well i like trying new stuff jubjub970: like what? im_taryn_it_up: well like whatever im_taryn_it_up: i mean like sushi or skydiving or whatever comes along im_taryn_it_up: or whatever jubjub970: I have skydived. im_taryn_it_up: wow whats that like jubjub970: very exciting... I have jumped three times." Hehe. I've seen a few of their videos of the guys getting caught and it's great. I love their work. Also the "Bait Car" project is pretty cool too. http://www.baitcar.com

The jumper had almost no steering control at all (also no flare, but it was a PD-260) and drifted downwind and landed in a back yard more out of luck than anything else. We learn if it's not there, square, and steerable, then it's a bad parachute. If I were maybe at a dz in the middle of the desert or plains (and I had a PD 260) I might consider landing something like that but at this dz, surrounded by forest, I want something completely steerable.

A guy at my dz had an interesting jump yesterday. He opened up after an uneventful solo to find several step throughs and tangles in his parachute. The risers were twisted, stepped(sp?) through, lines tangled, and the canopy was actually flying backwards. The parachute was square so he actually did not chop it immediately and rode it down to the ground. He has very little control of it, he was able to steer it just a little bit (flying backwards) and landed off, near the dz. When asked why he did not chop it, he said that when he considered cutting away, he was at 2000 feet, below his decision altitude of 2500, so he decided to ride it in. This guy wasn't a student, shockingly he had about 130 jumps and was not very current. It worries me that a lot of people it seems are hesitant or even afraid to execute their emergency procedures. People landing line-overs, fighting spinning line twists down to 1000 feet, etc. I did not catch where he was trained at, but his training must not have been too good. I think this also makes a good point that training doesn't stop after an A license, instructors should make a point to continually teach and review people well after their license. There are probably a lot of people like this guy out there who don't know how to handle a malfunction properly. It was unclear whether the canopy was hooked up incorrectly or just packed incorrectly He claims a packer packed it a few months ago but we're doubtful of that. He and the DZO had a pretty long talk afterwards thankfully.

I can hear it (21), but I have not ruined my ears by listening to loud music. The ticking of clocks, the sound of air going through a ventilation system, and the hum of flourescent lights drives me crazy. Nice avatar pic btw.

What's really sad/scary is that not only do these people have licenses, some also have instructional ratings! I once met a freeflyer who's first belly jumps since getting his A license (~500 jumps) were the evaluation dives at a coach's course. He failed one eval dive (how he actually passed the other one I'll never know) and I said I'd help him do practice jumps to prepare for another one. It's pretty sad when you're pretending to be a student and you have to give hand signals to your coach to stop his backsliding, potato chipping, instability, etc. He ended up getting his coach rating. Fortunately he was one of those people who only wanted it so he could get his tandem rating, so thankfully he'll probably never do a real coach jump. I really respect the freeflyers who understand that being a good skydiver is about flying well in all orientations. I can't stand it when you meet those guys who say belly flying is only for students and old farts. That also goes the other way too. How can you consider yourself a good skydiver if all you can do is belly fly?

I know some riggers who when packing reserves, they will literally inspect every single milimeter and part of the canopy, stitches, bartacks, lines, ripcords, links, grommets, container, etc. I know one who even looks at everything with a magnifying glass. The whole process takes about 2 hours just to inspect it. I also know riggers who will will go through an entire I&R in about 45 minutes, claiming they inspect everything as they're packing it. What are your thoughts on what is an appropriate amout of inspection?