TALONSKY

This is an interesting question. Are all pitbulls instictivly agreesive dogs? I use to think so. I have a German shepard pitbull mix and I can say she is a totally loving animal that would only hurt someone that was trying to hurt her owners. She is extremely loving and gental natured. My wife and I had agreed never to get a pit bull do to the stereo typing with them, My wife ended up getting a puppy from a shelter and did not throughly look at the paper work in it was the fact that it was a pitbull mix. We thought we would give her a shot and now I can say the only thing that makes a bad dog is a bad owner. Kirk

This is just my personal opinion but I would not under load any canopy with a partially formed nose such as the Crossfire. I would believe they a\have a minimum loading in part to pressurize the nose. Once again this is just my opinion and that is all Kirk

Are you sure they are not making them anymore? As of 6 months ago you could still buy a Sidewinder 2 through Square one. It is my understanding that Skysystems will still make them but only for Squareone right now. The price I was quoted 6 months ago was $495.00 for one. Kirk

Sorry to hear about your injury and the way it went down. You may find the DZO reluctant to really have their employees trained and have a plan in place. The reason would be they would be openning themselves up to more liablity issues if by one of the DZO's employees does something wrong in an emergancy.

The first thing that comes to mind is if you were conscience did you communicate with her about your ankle being hurt prior to her pulling your cutaway handle? If you were conscience and was not communicating with her that you would prefer to be left alone, then in all reality it really is not her fault. Any DZ cannot guarantee that their personal will be the first to an emergency and if a fellow skydiver gets there first, due to proximity of the accident to them. The DZ cannot brief and hold everyone accountable in who is at the DZ and happens to be first on the seen of an emergency.

I would use the local DZ rigger for the exchange. Talk to the DZ see if they will act as the intermedary on the exchange. If yes, have the canopy sent to the DZ, there they can inspect them and let the other party look at it but will not release them until you contact them. I have used this method on a few exchanges. Oh yeah, after the local DZ's agree to help let the other party call them and talk to them. Kirk

That would be a quite amazing step. How are you going to log 6 hours of freefall time by then? Kirk

There are a couple of things you can do to determine a price. I have heard take a $1 per every jump on it off. The fact that it has an F111 bottom skin will also subtract from the price. I would think for the f-111 bottom skin take off a $300-$400 So looking a Square one web site the retail for $1440 so I would say somewhere between $840 and $740. This is just my opinion so take it for what it is worth. Also more than setting a value is what would someone pay for it. I have personally had canopies that went both ways one I put 150 jumps on and sold it for the price I bought it for, another I paid $800 for it and put 50 jumps on it added $130 set of risers and had to dump it for $650 to get it to move. Kirk

You may try a PM to Hooknswoop or Skycat, I believe hooknswoop is the one that came up with the mod and does them. Kirk

http://www.jumpergirl.com/rigging/safire.html Well it looks like that website is down. Here is the thread I got it from: http://www.dropzone.com/forum/Skydiving_C1/Gear_and_Rigging_F6/Safire1_With_Mod_Opening_problems_P461706 Kirk

Just a note about the pain med shot. I had my back go out a couple of years ago and went to the hospital (as with you they were not alot of help but they offered a shot). The shot cost $340.00 and it was an additional $70.00 fee for administering it. These cost were not covered by my insurance. If I had known it was that much I just would have gotten a couple bottles of wine for $15.00. So from now on if a doctor ask me if I want a shot my first question is how much is that shot going to cost? Kirk

I think one of the thing that really should be considered when looking to buy a suit is what kind of suits do the other wingsuit flyers have at your DZ. I know from my experience that trying to fly my S3 with someone that is not flying a Classic efficiently is really a pain. I did a six way with 3 Classics 1 GTI and 2 S3 and the body position I had to use to fly with them was rather unique and hard to find. I had to fly with my arm wings punched out for fall rate and my legs bent and almost 90° at the knee in order to kill the forward speed. The other S3 found almost the same body position. I personally would like to buy a V1 next year for the longer freefall time and distance but I think it would be a total pain to try to fly on next to anything other than an S3 or another V1 Kirk

[Hey I can drop that much on a day of skydiving so I guess to each his own! Very true. Somehow I think you would get a whole lot more excitment from a day of skydiving verses 10 table dances. When I was 16 I use to spend my entire $180.00 pay checks into the juice bars for nude table dances so now I just see it as a waist of money. Kirk

The one thing I have never really understood about the strip club seen is how can one guy drop $200 plus in a night on one girl and just get the legit lap dances (oh yeah and do that once a week). I use to date a stripper for four years and I never figure that one out. Kirk

Wow, I guess here in Oregon we are pretty liberal than. We have lots and I mean lots of alcohol bars that have full nude dancing. I heard somewhere that Portland, OR we have the highest strip club per capita than anywhere else. Kirk

I have always washed my suits (Tony suits, Firefly, birdman) on cold and hung dried them. I have never had any shrink on me. Kirk

So far in all my dealings buying used gear through this web site, I have always had great luck with the gear condition. I mean most of the gear has looked like it has less jumps than stated. Only once has a canopy appeared to have about 100 more jumps than stated but I personally look at posted jump numbers as a plus 50 jumps minus none. To date I have bought 5 canopies, three helmets, 3 frap hats, 1 camera suit and a Pro Trak from these classified adds. Kirk

I would not think that once every 3 seconds would be that great for skydiving. It may work well for CRW but I would not trust it for freefall. I know the Sunnto Vector samples three time a second if altitude is changing rapidly. I would suggest saving your money and buying a Neptune. I find the problem with the Sunnto is that it is mounted on your wrist so floppy sleaves will cover it up. Where as a regular alti is on your hand. Kirk

It does not have your camera listed but it may get you pretty close. I used it to modify a Canon OWL. Be careful and epoxy the wire down before soidering them. My first try I melted the copper on the circuit board off. http://www.jesseshuntingpage.com/site/homebrew-cams.html Kirk

Its hard rock with a clasical touch. The reason it is so good is the band is incredible. You should check out some of the stuff they did prior to becoming Trans Siberian Orchestra. They were the band Savatage the albums "Dead winter Dead", and "Handful of rain" are incredible. Kirk

It is my understanding that with the Safire 1, there are two different types. The ones that open and have a ton of flare (these are generally ones built in Europe but some american built do fly well also). The other type are the ones that opened hard and did not have alot of flare( these were generally built in America). I had a Europe built one loaded 1.55 to one and loved it. I had great openings and nice swoops. also some other info on the Safire 1,s I e-mailed Icarus and explained that this had been talked about here and if they could give me a reply that I could post so here is Icarus's reply The Safire-1 and the Omega are measured differently to PD canopies. As a rough guide a Safire-1 or Omega is about the same size as the next size down - eg A Safire 149 is about a 135. A Safire 119 is about a 109. Use an equation of 8%. The Safire-2 and Omni (Omni supercedes Omega) are measured the same as PD. All other Icarus Canopies are measured the same as PD. The reason for the difference is due to Precision measuring their canopies differently. Icarus have always measured the same as PD however when we originally commenced in the USA, Precision were building parachutes for us under license and were doing it using their size equations and not Icarus/PD's. We have therefore had to wait to supercede these models to change the size equation. Only the Safire and Omega were affected. Blue skies Simon Icarus Canopies USA: 1S671 Bender Lane, West Chicago, IL 60185, USA Ph. (630) 562-2735, Fax (630) 231-4430 Europe: P.I. El Ramassar, c/ Vallés, s/n O8520, Les Franqueses, Barcelona, SPAIN. Ph. (34) 938 496 432, Fax (34) 938 497 971 www.icaruscanopies.com

Pros to the flat top pro are that it can accommodate nearly any kind of still and video setup. I think it is a great product and very versatile. The only con is the cost. I can say that going from a sidewinder to a Flat Top Pro is a quite the step (although I do not know I would want to do any other step). I have flown a sidewinder for over 100 jumps now and love it. I just switched to a Flat Top Pro and my first few jump I definitely felt the difference. I am by no means a expert on this subject, I have only a handfull of jumps on my Flat Top Pro but I had to make the same decision on what to get. Kirk

I am not sure if this will help but on my FTP, I made my own box for my PC105. I attached it to the top and the PC105 is attached using the 1/4-20 on the bottom of it. Kirk

One of the best ways I know to really get your freefall time doing wingsuit jumps, is from video. I lost my Pro Trac about a year ago and have been using my video as a very accurate way to tell my total freefall time. Kirk

Is it? I've found at least 5 threads about this. But there are still two different opinions (and a lot of speeches). I've found a quoted letter from Icarus telling that Safire1 built by Precision is smaller. But I've also found somebody from Icarus telling that canopy size was not measured differently, and Safire1 139 is a 139 and not a 129 (planform factors were not taken into account). However, if it is, it explains why my old Safire1-139 performed a little better than brand new Pilot 132... To clarify all original Safire's and Omega's are 7% smaller than their stated size when comparing them to PD products. Kirk