tdog

Not saying you are wrong or anything... But using the power of Google I found Jim Jannard stated Oakley in 1975 making grips for dirt bikes, with $300... He named the company after his dog (a guy I have to respect then)... When he realized his brand identity sucked because the riders were covering the grips with their hands while on TV, he decided to make goggles for them to wear because he could but his name on the strap which would be seen as it wraps around the helmet... Next came the glasses, because he was not happy with the goggles market share.... Now the NYSE symbol for the now publicly traded Oakley is OO... I searched google for "Jim Jannard skydive" and got 2 hits... (6 if you count the five from the same site) - and none of these hits link the founder to our sport... Knowing the great marketing power of Oakley, I don't doubt they could keep Jim Jannard's skydiving past an uber secret if they wanted to - but - that is impressive if they did... Don't you think at least one college kid profile or news journal about Oakley would mention the word skydive if he was a skydiver??? Anyway - anyone know Jim? Perhaps some people at Oakley on the top management skydive??? Editorial note: Knowing the marketing power of Oakley, if there was skydivers on the board of directors, don't you think they would have squashed Gatorz, which seem to be worn by at least 25% of every skydiving load, and found a way to get marketshare in our sport???

To the two "do it regularly" votes... Painful as it sounds?

I would teach you for free... But my openings are somewhat random, so you may wanna find someone else... I think if you said "please", "thank you", and showed appreciation in any way that makes sense, most skydivers would teach you how to pack for free... Maybe give the guy a free jump if he really worked hard teaching you... EDIT: A packer at our DZ had a packing class at night once - $5 per person to cover his repacking of the student rig after we were done.....

Actually, now that I read your post more carefully and think about it... If your photos are on a webserver on this mini-network, all you need is a web compliant terminal that has a built in web browser... Windows Server with the terminal server licences is going to be expensive... This terminal http://www.rcubed.com/equipdlts.php?item_code=WINT&man_pn=902040-07 has a built in browser...

We use the WYSE Winterm terminals at our office... I have a terminal server and a bunch of the WYSE dumb terminals... Nothing to support at the terminal - if it breaks, replace in 20 seconds... I get them refirbed from: http://www.rcubed.com/equipdlts.php?item_code=WINT&man_pn=901998-01 You will need GOOD network connectivity between the points because the images are going to be sent over the wire from the server... I have 256 megabits between my house and office and it works ok... At the office on a 100base-T network, it is very snappy... Now - if you are going to use old PC hardware, you can boot off of a floppy/CD Rom any RDP client...

I have 450 jumps last year on a Pilot... The lines are still in good condition and in trim, except for the lower brake lines which have been damaged by the toggles/loops on the risers...

I was walking down the mall and out of the corner of my eye in the Oakley store I saw an employee wearing the vests attached to this post... If only Bill Booth would have known that he would invent the 3-ring technology all skydivers use these days - but also a fashion statement for upper class trendy Oakley wearers.... Too bad Oakley had their rings custom made and stamped with the Oakley logo - otherwise the cash into the skydiving gear manufacturing economy would have helped manufactures who inspired the fashion statement... What other skydiving technology will end up in fashion? Has anyone else seen other technology showing up at the mall???

I was very impressed with the instructors who evaluated me to be a coach, and the instructors who evaluated me to be an AFF-I... I learned a lot from them. The ratings were worth every penny in what I learned from my instructors. However, I also evaluated a few coach candidates who were pencil whipped thru a 4 hour coach course from a course director I would not recommend anymore, and after I gave them automatic unstats (fail) for a few things, I noticed a trend... I asked the candidates if they even knew what "whole part whole" and other basic USPA adopted teaching concepts were from their class, since after all they were auto-unsats if not followed... When I realized they were not taught this, I went back, taught them what I learned, and they did MUCH better, not just following book guidelines, but teaching me (as a pretend student) the concepts in a way I understood - proving that some of the USPA teaching concepts are worth a damn.

Dan (GQJumper) and I hired Neil from Airspeed last Christmas, and with Liz, we flew every 4way random and block in the pool in Eloy... We started with 1 and ended at the end... Took a few tunnel hours to dial them all in... I was glad the tunnel was built round, because being the front of the two-way in 22, my nose was going "ca-thunk, ca-thunk, ca-thunk" as it rubbed the glass wall during the spin... Well, actually I did not touch the glass, but I was inches away and it felt like my nose was swooping a high speed canopy over a Plexiglas pond with Neil on the back end... The round chamber really is nice, I wish all the tunnels were that way, hint, hint, hint...

I want to visit your DZ... That is a cool policy and cool attitude!!!!

Sup, Travis! Was that Peter's - and wasn't his so badly destroyed it goes into the cut me up and use me as a packing tarp, pile? "Not heard" Well, I jump one now and I have good things to say and have told you good things, so you lied. Just kidding...

I think that spending time at altitude going around a lot looking for a hole in the clouds had a lot to do with it too... This thread has a lot of dehydration comments, but that is only part of it... A lot of go arounds have sharp turns in the plane, which with the G forces, causes people to breathe more shallow. That combined with people hunched over on their knees by the door ready to leave and moving around a lot... All that adds up from my personal experience when I have felt hypoxia. I know any go around at our DZ (18,000 MSL jump run) is going to effect me after personal experience. I am normally able to control it with awareness and lots of deep breaths, keeping my torso straight, and not moving a lot... However we do have O2 on board and people do ask for it. I have had the dehydration idea in the back of my mind for a while now, and the last few FJC I have taught I have brought in bottled water and sit it in the center of the classroom in a cooler and instruct the students to drink a lot... I don't know if it works, but I also know none of my FJC students have complained of hypoxia since I started it... The jury needs more time to deliberate... Question Bill... Pat dumped you out... Do you think you would have been a-ok to do it yourself? What would you have done if he gave you the AFF style pull sign? I ask this because I talked with one of my medical friends about a year ago. I asked him about O2 in the blood - from his surgery experience. He told me that it takes about a minute after he adjusts O2 on the patent's intake before it starts to change the O2 in the blood noticeably on the machines... So, from his experience, I pretty much came to the conclusion that if you were super hypoxic and left the plane, you could experience it until pull time... Bill, thanks for the post... If it could happen to you, it could happen to any one of us... Tell Pat that Travis says hi, he was my first coach, and we still talk a lot.

If your DZ is a dealer, and you will promise to buy your gear thru them, you should be able to say, "I want to buy a Pilot or XXX and a container from you. I am going to put in my container order now for an XXX sized 9 cell, but I want to demo a few first. Can I get a demo canopy and put it in one of your containers?" If you are buying used - find a friend at the DZ who has a rig about the same sized as you need for the demo... I have jumped a lot of friend's rigs.

I put 400 jumps last year on a Pilot and found it to be a nice canopy... 400 jumps... 25+ wingsuit - rest fun jumps, AFF instructor jumps, coach jumps, 4 way or larger group jumps, etc... 3 major line twists (like 6 times or more) 2 hard openings (where marks were left where the harness attaches at different points) 0 malfunctions - although one of the line twists could have been very easily. 1 Landing out where others in my group made it back 3 Landing in where others in my group did not. Tame wing loading 1.2 ish Ask your instructor who bashes the Pilot - how many jumps he has on his...

Just adds a lot of surface area near your feet... If you don't balance it out, you go in different directions than you are used to. Also, gives your feet more power so smaller movements do more. Uneven feet will cause a twisty track where without booties you might get away with more sloppiness. Now - walking the net in a tunnel with booties is even more fun the first time you try it when you get used to no booties.

If you do nothing AFF specific in the tunnel, you still will learn what you need to learn to make your AFF go great. If you learn to fall straight and relax, your AFF instructors can add the easy AFF stuff once you get to the DZ... Don't worry about it, just fly and have fun. Tell the tunnel instuctors you just want to get really comfortable flying and you want to be a skydiver...

The USPA changed the requirements for people who can jump with students cleared for self supervision... You no longer need a coach rating - just a D and you can do a 4way with up to two students... I voiced my disagreement with our Regional Director - and our DZ does not allow non instructors to jump with students... But the claim was, it would cause more students to stick in the sport... I agree - the coach jumps post AFF, pre-A, can add up to a lot of money - and the coaches often are not giving as much learning in freefall than they perhaps could... And our DZ charges more for the gear rental than the slot - making jumps super expensive for the average joe. Students get various levels of TLC thru AFF, then can be, in poorly run situations, left for 18 jumps to fend for themselves on getting coaching and TLC... If DZOs truly cared about bringing new jumpers into the sport - they could: 1) Pay experienced guys with coach ratings or better to jump with the students... No cash, just offer the slot free on the plane... How many times do you see an otter with an open slot? 2) Give 5 free slots to all students who get their "A" on loads that otherwise have open slots... Again - most guys will jump as much as the bank allows, so these free slots will not take revenue out of the register because the skydivers will pay for as many slots as they can afford or can budget in addition to the free slots. 3) Encourage instructors and other skydivers to keep the students in the sport. Just yesterday I taught 9 people in a first jump course, then jumped with a few and watched my peers jump with the rest... Knowing this thread - I looked at each student as they did their introduction at the beginning of the class - and asked myself, "which 0.5 of these 9 will stick around long enough to get their A" - knowing the statistic is 1 in 20 at our DZ.... I have no incentive to keep these students in the sport - other than know if they do another level I might get to jump with them and get my AFF pay... I personally do my best to keep them in the sport - by showing "best of videos" and spending 20 minutes introducing the sport - showing them my wingsuit and photos of me flying - videos of awesome freefly - etc, and asking them, which discipline interests them the most... This seemed to really work yesterday to get them excited... I truly want them to stick around - so I also give my cell phone and e-mail address out and ask them to call me... Now... If the DZO really wanted me to get these guys to be long term skydivers (BTW - we do have a great DZO who does care about skydivers so I am being devils advocate here not bashing our DZ, but the system in general) - he would pay me based upon how many earned their "A" instead of how many showed up for level 1... Think about that... A First Jump teacher and AFF level 1 instructor who share $150+ for every student of theirs who earns their "A" - or 1% of every slot the skydiver buys for the rest of their skydiving career, or something creative like that... Now, you would have instructors who would be motivated to keep the students jumping - and instead of asking for tips "gratuity not expected, but always appreciated" - they would be offering the beer to the skydivers who celebrated their "firsts" and would continue to monitor their students as mentors beyond the "A", and beyond the "B"... But - I believe that many DZOs don't really care about experienced skydivers. AFFs and Tandems pay the bills, the skydivers just round out the rest of the slots on the plane. Now - with how many AFF level 1s we do each weekend - if the FJC teachers could keep 30% more in the sport for a year to do 50 jumps - we could get our DZO 226 more otter loads, or $119,554 in gross revenue a year... If they stuck around for two years - the second year we could get 500 more otter loads and $240,000 in revenue in the second year.... Does that make sense all of a sudden to a DZO - or would they just see it as less room on the planes for the tandems??? Again, not bashing any one DZ - just throwing out ideas for the system in general...

I know someone who is very stable with his meds and has returned to skydiving... I think, once your doctor clears you to drive a car (because I assume that is equally dangerous to have a seizure in) - then you can consider returning to this sport. Not to say you should rush anything, or trust an AAD with docile canopies or anything, but - I don't think you should hang your rig up if you love skydiving until the fat lady sings - as long as you keep your head on your shoulders and know the risks and manage them well and wait for doctors to sign off on the stability of the meds...

There will be a hole where the sound comes from... Put some gaffers tape over the hole - that should make it much less loud... See if that is better for your helmet/ear configuration...

the SquareX demo program is much better than the typical options out there. It would have been great to have something like it. I purchased a rig out of state from Square1... I visited Perris for a Performance Plus training camp - and they hooked me up for a few different demo options for like 20 different jumps - so I could try some stuff out... I can't speak highly enough of Square1, seriously... The amount of support they gave me was like the Lexus dealer giving my Mom a loaner for her auto, dropping it off at the house and picking up her car, when her car needed it's first oil change. You don't normally find that kind of luxury in this sport... Not to hijack this thread or anything... And even with the changes, you can go online to Square1 and get an instant quote via e-mail on any PD canopy...

I am not to 1000 yet - however, I look back sometimes three jumps ago and think, I learned a lot... Why make it 100!

It appears I am playing AFF instructor on Sunday - but maybe after dinner or late afternoon... Whatcha doing the 4th or Monday? Any other Colorado folk out there are welcome too...

When I first got my F4 - $4.50 would fill her up... I just spent $15 the last time I went to the station... Wow, how things changed in a few years...

You did not say simon says.

Now that would make sense... When I got my CBR600F4 - I had about 1 motorcycle training class and 1 hour of driving my friends F3 in a parking lot and side streets in experience... So, I purchased it on recommendations, and because I liked my friends F3 and the F4 turned out to be much better... Thank god the first 500 miles I had to keep the RPMs down, because that is how I learned to ride. And - I pretty much was told by the dealer that test rides were not part of their MO on sport bikes when I asked... So, now that I have about twenty thousand miles under my belt, I guess I might be a little more trustworthy to ask for a test drive. What are your experiences in test riding bikes??? Do they normally have a loaner on the floor that people can take for an hour or so - or what? I just never have seen anyone test ride a bike from all my trips to the dealers...