NWFlyer

Similarly, I've seen an Infinity that had weight pockets sewn into the back pad. "There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." -P.J. O'Rourke

Let's see: Remote location (check). Epic amounts of dust (check). Great parties (check). Good jumping (check). Cool people (check). Lots of non-jumping fun to be had (check). Yep, you can't miss Lost Prairie. "There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." -P.J. O'Rourke

whatcha talkin bout willis??? I am just disagreeing with NWflyer and pointing out her lack of reasonable thinking because it is so fun to disagree with somebody who will no matter what you say disagree with you. Not sure I'd call a different approach to "risk analysis" a lack of reasonable thinking. Could just be that I don't have mad skillz and prefer to treat every skydive as the one that might kill or maim me. "There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." -P.J. O'Rourke

Your logic sounds remarkably like that of the teenagers who think they can't possibly get pregnant because they only had sex one time. "There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." -P.J. O'Rourke

Only acceptable answer actually, I was going to go with "whose permission does she need, anyway?" "There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." -P.J. O'Rourke

My work internet filter figured that out for me. But I would have rather had the NSFW warning on there so that I don't have that inappropriate usage attempt tracked for me. "There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." -P.J. O'Rourke

absolutely that's what it looks like - he only seemed to blame the packers for the loop coming unstowed, not for his poor grab It's why when I leave my rig with a packer, I generally leave it with the toggles and the excess already stowed, the way I like it. Lessens the chance of it not being the way I like it when it opens. "There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." -P.J. O'Rourke

Whipped cream for both 100 & 500. 100th "There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." -P.J. O'Rourke

I think enough people have met Mark in person to know he actually exists. Yet no one has ever met YOU... Very suspicious... Speak for yourself. "There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." -P.J. O'Rourke

This. Sounds like the unit might have some issues. And yes, there are at least two different versions of the Jump Track software (there may be more). I know because I bought a used Alti-Track from a friend and it had an older version of the software (and hardware) that wasn't compatible with my Windows 7 machine. L&B sent me the updated software & hardware. I recently had some issues with my Alti-Track (digital logger was working perfectly, but the altimeter needle was getting stuck) and sent the unit off to Denmark for service. Just got back a new (or refurbished, I honestly can't tell) unit. Send 'em an email - they'll take good care of you. http://www.l-and-b.dk/ "There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." -P.J. O'Rourke

Stockholm syndrome? "There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." -P.J. O'Rourke

42. "There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." -P.J. O'Rourke

Look at it this way. They're signaling that they may be organizations you don't want to work for. "There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." -P.J. O'Rourke

Apparently it's not just an east coast thing or a Wally World thing. Taken today at the Oakland, CA Whole Foods. I didn't shuck mine, though. I want to grill it in the husk. Mmmm.... "There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." -P.J. O'Rourke

I answered your text. "There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." -P.J. O'Rourke

This recent thread has some good ideas: http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=4326567 And I would also add if they want to come at the beginning of August, to check out the Lost Prairie Boogie in Montana. www.meadowpeakskydiving.com "There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." -P.J. O'Rourke

*golfclap* "There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." -P.J. O'Rourke

If you like the Pilot, the Pulse from PD has similar flight characteristics and comes in sizes up to 260. "There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." -P.J. O'Rourke

I'm biased towards brighter canopies that are high-contrast with the environment they're in. The ones that are heavily blue don't accomplish that. I did 300 jumps on a black canopy with red ribs; had a lot of people tell me they had trouble seeing me, especially in low light situations. My current canopies - one has seven yellow cells and two orange; the other has seven orange, one navy, one white. They're pretty visible and don't match any of my other gear. I care much more about being seen than I do being matchy-matchy. "There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." -P.J. O'Rourke

Do you wear your helmet all the way to altitude? I use a G2 and I've found that I am much less likely to get fogging if I wear the helmet only until belts off, then take it off till just before jump run when I'm doing my final jump prep. Once I put the helmet on, I also keep the visor open till the last practical moment prior to exit (which of course will vary depending on where I am on exit). By following that practice, I will generally only get a small amount of fogging after opening, if I get any at all (and since I prefer to open my visor for the canopy ride, it's not really an issue). It's more likely when it's colder; less so in the summer. Of course, I generally jump in very dry climates; you may be getting different results in more humid climates. "There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." -P.J. O'Rourke

3.5K of the 90's is about 5.5k of 2010 After following these forms for a few years I understand what you mean, but why is this so? Why has the current perception of "low" gotten higher? Do canopys open slower nowadays? Are newer jumpers less skilled at quickly getting stable? Is it current training that discourages low (2k-3k) altitude exit skills? Are folks dying more from low altitude exits? Is it use of AAD's? I was trained with the early AFF methods that required at least one low exit to graduate and I went on to do many low exits just for fun or for safety reasons (the plane was on fire at the time) I was not unusualy skilled, bold or scared either, it seems it was just more common to do jump and dumps then. More students trained AFF than static line. More snivel in canopies mean people open higher. Wider AAD use, combined w/ snivel means that more people open higher. I'd also add more people "growing up" on turbine DZs where hop & pops are rarely done because of cost/traffic. When the cost differential between a hop & pop is just a couple bucks, the appeal of a hop & pop becomes much lower. I started my skydiving career in the northwest and there were days when you took what you got weather-wise, and often that was 3K or so. So I got used to it. Pricing was pegged to altitude ($X to get on the plane and $X/1000 feet) so a hop & pop made more sense cost-wise. Since I moved to great weather turbine land (also known as California) I think I've only done six hop and pops - 5 for a canopy course, and one when I was putting students out on their hop & pops. "There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." -P.J. O'Rourke

http://skydivecity.com/index.php "There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." -P.J. O'Rourke

Could be the relative size of their market. Kroops are marketed to other sports that have a greater number of participants, where some of the others may be skydiving-specific. Spreading fixed costs over a smaller volume = higher prices. "There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." -P.J. O'Rourke

I've been in the sport for nearly 8 years (so, a lot longer than most people, but still a "tourist" by long-time skydiver standards), and I reevaluate it all the time. I don't think I'm unique. So far, reward has won out over risk, but someday it might not. That might be because some circumstance changes in my life and I'm no longer willing to take on the additional risk. It might be because I have an injury / health issue (I include aging in that) and my risk becomes greater because of that. It might be because of changes in the sport itself that would cause the "you could do everything right and still die" risk level to increase beyond an acceptable level. It could be because I just wake up one day and say "I'm done." "There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." -P.J. O'Rourke

And that's exactly what we're trying to do. Good. But I hope you're picking up from other posts in this thread that there are a lot of ways you can die in this sport other than from malfunctions. In fact, if you look at the recent statistics (modern gear) you'll note that very few of them are due to malfunctions; a well-chosen and well-maintained system is highly reliable when used properly. (Heck, when you think about it, they're actually pretty reliable when used improperly, e.g., out-of-sequence emergency procedures, performing EPs lower than they should, etc.). How are people dying/getting injured? Spend some time on the fatality database here and look for the themes*. They're dying by turning low to the ground or into an obstacle. That can be on a lightly-loaded, conservative canopy, or on a highly-loaded, high-performance canopies. They're dying through canopy collisions. That's one of those that may be your fault ... and it may not be. Either way, you could be dead. They're dying in jump plane accidents. That's one of those where you only have so much control - if you know that a dropzone follows industry standard maintenance procedures, and that the pilots are properly trained and experienced, what happens after that is largely beyond your control (of course, jumper stupidity can contribute to or worsen an incident, but for the most part, jump plane crashes aren't due to anything a jumper or jumpers did). They're dying because they don't pull or don't pull in time. Those are becoming increasingly rare as AAD use becomes more common, but they do still happen. Some of these are medically related, but some are jumper error. In most cases we really don't know. There's other categories that have a few here and a few there (freefall collisions, medical issues, suicide, drowning, etc.) but those are less common. *It's not a complete database; that probably doesn't exist anywhere, but it's pretty darn good and will give you enough information to assess. The other thing to do is to try to get a hold of old Parachutist issues that include the annual incident analysis (I believe it's usually in the April issue). "There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." -P.J. O'Rourke