apoil

Some notes from around the world: In Australia, beer is owed - for Every malfunction - for every license earned (they have A-F) - for anything really stupid that you do (of course this would never fly in America or beer would be owed on practically every jump) - for your first 4,5,6,7,8,9,10-way - but oddly, not for every "00" jump. - you are expected to put on a keg for 1000 - they call it a "carton" not a "case" and there are 30 cans or "stubbies" (bottles) in a carton. In Scandinavia beer is bought "viking style" Someone will typically run through the DZ, case in hand and scream "CASE!" wherupon the entire DZ will pile on the case like it's a rugby ball. Actually coming out of this fracas, beer in hand is quite a challenge. They claim this ritual is the leading cause of injury in the sport. In Asia if you tell people they owe beer for something they look at you and smile and think to themselves about what a crazy westerner you are. Then the matter is promptly forgotten. If you go ahead and buy them beer, they'll sit with one all night maybe taking polite sips from it if they respect you. If you have enough people to put proper pressure on them, they will drink out of social obligation and puke later.

Not that America is necessarily the greatest country in every respect, but I can't help but notice the number of British skydivers who spend all their time on US dropzones. Americans killing each other with guns? What exactly is the problem with that? I should think you'd be happy. Racism? Oh yeah, there's none of that in Britain because you've got the entrenched class system making sure no black people ever advance. Yeah there's racism in America, but a Black person can actually become a millionaire (and he doesn't even have to be a sports star or musician to do it). How many Black millionaires are there in britain? How many of them would be allowed to join your moneyed elite even if they wanted to?

I'm not sure if anyone else noticed this or cares, but when I log into the main screen, the bar with the "navlinks" "Home,News,Calendar,Forums,Safety,Dropzones,Gear,Classifieds,Auctions" is practically invisible, because my links are shown in their default colors. The code tries to present these with "Class=NAVLINK" however that class is not defined in the stylesheet being used for this page: styles/stylesheet.css Other pages with the same bar use a different stylesheet that does define the NAVLINK class so the links look right in a light color against the dark background. I configured my filter (proxomitron) to change this around, but I thought you should know. It's not universal because perhaps some folks don't notice, or have a different default link presentation. Great job on the site.

An honest question and I'm now my judgement is being called into question. Of course I know why they are there. However, I dont jump a canopy prone to severe line twists so removing them was a temporary option I considered before soliciting more information. But how can you say that a stiff curve in the risers wont affect riser function? What if I just go ahead and make one of your risers a centimeter shorter? They became curved after only 100 or so pack jobs. This doesn't strike me as the best overall design.

The nitro, I believe, compensates for the added drag of more lines by making the lines themselves shorter. This combined with the low aspect ratio of the canopy (compared to high performance ellipticals) makes it look a little oddly shaped above your head. I've heard that the Nitro, Crossfire, and Cobalt are all based on a similar airfoil concept, although I'm sure cobaltdan will tell us that the Cobalt is completely unique. I'm wondering, specifically if the Crossfire and Cobalt are also low aspect ratio compared to Stilletos and Extremes.

> "I used to know a girl...She had two pirced nipples and a black tattoo"-Everclear You know, as annoying as it is to read that at the end of every single one of your posts, you could at the very least spell it correctly.

A friend of mine jumps a Nitro 108. It is a very strange canopy indeed, but definitely in the high performance range. The stabilizercells are bizarre and the direct lines look really odd with so many connections at the riser. It utilizes coarser zp fabric similar to the triathlon so it's easier to pack when it's new. One point on the Aramid lines. I have heard that this material was rejected in the past for parachute lines because it has poor resistance to UV radiation and abrasion. Does anyone know what has changed?

So what is that the curve in the tubing puts a curve in the risers. They wont lay flat when I pack. Their effective length can become different depending on how the curved tube is turned in the housing. There's no guarantee that the tension when under canopy will be able to straighten out the risers. That can't be good.

The Riser Inserts to protect the ends of the cutaway cables on the new Javelins are made of plastic tubing. They mention that a good thing about this is that if they are bent they wont kink up the way hard metal ones would. However, just as I feared, since you have to bend them into a curve when you stow the risers, this curve, after 150 or so pack jobs has become permanent. I'm thinking this can't be good at all. You can see the noticable bend in the risers when they are not under tension. I've now removed the inserts. I'm wondering what other thoughts there are about this system.

As long as you shave everything below the neckline it makes no difference what color the top of your head is. Who's going to look there anyway?

Worst problem so far is finding the damn replacement batteries. L&B are aware of their limited availability even in full service electronics and hardware shops. They are still manufactured, it just seems like no other devices use them. Anyway, I too have experienced battery life FAR shorter than the manual suggests. Living in a very warm climate mayb be contributory. I do put it in ECO mode, but I'm lucky to get even a year (100-200 jumps) out of a set. You mentioned manually switching it off? How do you do that? Is that a feature of the later models? I just leave it alone in ECO mode and it switches off after 15 hours or something.

Your canopy definitely does stall. All canopies stall. What it probably isn't doing is collapsing. A stall is an aerodynamic occurance. When your canopy runs out of flare, it goes into a stall and begins to sink, it is no longer flying the same way, even if your descent speed is survivable. Not all canopies will collapse after a stall. I've never had one that did, not that I'm particularly anxious to try it.

You guys are funny. You say it is there, and serves a purpose so don't remove it, but you don't give a shred of thought to the consequences of cascading it into the other three, as if that is ok, and removing it would be a terrible thing. The point of it being decoupled is that it isn't SET on deployment. When you cascade it it IS set. To me that's a big difference. Not necessarily bad, but of equal concern to the removal. It will effect possibly the opening, and certainly the amount of stress on that line during opening. And under light wing loading's it's probably an ok solution. But removing it was equally ok, under light wing loadings. The concern there isn't opening forces, it's turning and flaring, and they were not affected by removing the line.

I removed it on the advice of a rigger. Yes it's there for the opening sequence, but it's decoupled from the others to REDUCE the shock in the center cell during opening (this was also explained to me by a very knowledgable rigger when I purchased the canopy) It's because the bigger sabres often have bigger guys loading them and the center cells take the shock harder. So by making them looser it lessense the stress on that line and the attachment point. So by removing it entirely, you are only *helping* the opening. The only question is on the other end, with the steering and flaring, and like I said, if you are lightly loading it (1.1 or less) it will not have a noticeable effect.

If you aren't loading it very heavily, you can just remove the damn thing. I was under my sabre 190 at about 1.1 and I just pulled it off, leaving the cascade of three on each side. It had no affect on the flying or landing characteristics.

WTF are you talking about regarding the Safire? "Flare Sucks unless you hook it" I've read tons of reviews, and jumped them plenty. No one has ever mentioned this. They flare just fine. They are great medium performance range canopies. Sure they wont surf like a stilleto or an extreme, but if you fly them straight in they flare just fine.