JDBoston

True, but hopefully you should be close enough to the formation when you recognize someone is tracking under you, that if you stop tracking immediately, the person below you will still track for a couple more seconds before they deploy, and will thus not be directly under you. I think you are right that this approach could potentially cause a problem if you pull with someone else directly below you and not tracking any more. If for some reason you are far enough from the formation that this is a possibility, I would say you should probably get a little bit off the line of their track before pulling, so you at least are not DIRECTLY above them. Interested to hear what people think. Joe

I was in a similar situation a while ago on a 9-way hybrid that funneled and I ended up one or two hundred feet or so high around breakoff - I tracked off and saw a guy tracking under me. I changed course to go between him and the guy to his left, and ended up opening on level with the guy who had been under me. As luck would have it, he had a spinning opening and was heading for me, but we both saw each other and risered away to the right. I was lucky he was an experienced and very heads-up guy. I had a similar situation on a 5-way sit jump a couple weeks later and ended up pulling lower than usual due to sucking it down between the two people I tracked between, trying to avoid opening on level with them because we were kind of close. Next time I am in that situation (someone tracking under me), I will stop tracking, wave, and pull immediately. Any viewpoints on this from the really experienced folks out there? Joe

I think if you forget to cock your pilot chute you're kind of stupid, or at least VERY spaced-out. I'm sure plenty of experienced people have done it, but I'm not really sure how, as an uncocked pilot chute (on my canopy, anyway) leaves at least 6" of kill line visible inside the D-bag, which is right in front of my face as I'm trying to put the canopy in the bag. To say nothing of what the collapsed pilot chute looks like. It seems logically like it should be about as hard to do as Pro-Packing with a collapsed slider. Oh well, I guess sometimes shit happens anyway. How often do people really leave pilot chutes uncocked?? Joe

I found the same thing, but for $15 or so they made me a new handle that is much easier to keep a grip on - shaped like this (looking at it from above): XXXXXX XXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXXX Joe

Like many other people here, I never had the pleasure of meeting Roger, but it's clear from this thread how many lives he touched. My deepest condolences to his family and friends, especially Rook, who I met for the first time and jumped with just last weekend, and who is a great guy. It's a very sad day. Joe

Hell man, sounds like she may have more to lose than you. Maybe she was sloshed too and worried about how YOU'RE going to handle it... but if it happens again, to quote Tom Cruise in Risky Business, "sometimes you just gotta say 'what the fuck.'" Live a little! Joe

You

2. Floating pud almost always a reserve ride. ---------------------------------------------------- This depends on your rig design. On my rig, the bridle comes out right in the center by the pin, and if you can't find it after missing the handle, then you just didn't spend the 5 minutes on the ground learning how... it's not at all hard to deal with. Joe

$3.75.... Oops sorry that wasn't nice. I think it's about 1 USD: 2 AU ... ? Joe

Here's my answer: leave everything wide open, so it will be as comfortable as possible for the participants, and perverts like me will have the best chance of hearing/seeing as much as possible. That is, unless the people involved are really nasty. Joe

Luckily the weathermen usually don't know shit... despite the lousy forecasts, we managed to put up 19 Otter loads in the last 2 days at Jumptown and I was on 11 of them... But I think a lot of people watched the weather channel and decided not to make the trip out Oh well, more room for me to stretch my legs in the plane. Joe

Criminal investigator jobs. Joe

Any jumpers out there who are current or recent holders of GS-1811 jobs (any agency)? I'm thinking of a career change and need to pick some brains. If you're out there, please PM me. Thanks, Joe

I just read on the Web that Will Forshay was one of the victims in a small plane crash yesterday in Ohio: http://www.boston.com/dailynews/099/nation/Crashes_of_two_of_company_s_pl:.shtml Very sad news, I assume it's the same Will. 37 years old, same hometown as his address on the Lemmings website. Joe

Struggle struggle thump, man!!!! Joe

I have a pullout and have had 2 floating puds. Like he says, they are not the end of the world. The first one cost me a reserve ride because I was too much of a jackass to stay down on the ground for 5 minutes before jumping my brand new rig and drill what to do in the event I lost the pud. Wouldn't you know it. The second one cost me about 300' of altitude and that's it, because I knew what to do. Still, I had some mods made to my rig to make that stuff less likely. Bulkier pud, not the skinny little stock Racer pud, and moved the pud pockets up higher on the container so the pin pulls with a shorter arm stroke (this was an issue for me as well because my arms were kind of short for my torso length. No I'm not a freak the rig is just kind of long on me. Anyway it's all good now. Unless you're a skysurfer or your suit has wings I wouldn't imagine it matters too much which one you go with. Joe

Like Denis Leary says, pot doesn't lead to hard drugs... it leads to carpentry. "Look, man, I made a bong out of my head!" Joe

If you designed one like that, I would imagine its tendency would be to go upside-down and not inflate at all... Joe

Jump with people? Hell no! Listen, all you have to do is get a tennis ball, fill it with lead shot.... Joe

Yup... the solution we're trying, besides a bigger handle, is moving the handle pockets up on the back of the rig so the top one is just under the right flap. That makes the distance between handle and pin a couple inches shorter, so I can pull it more efficiently with a straight-arm motion instead of having to torque my body by pulling out to the side. That is what I had to do before, as my arms were not long enough to pull the pin (pre-modification) simply by extending downward. That contributed somewhat to those two exciting incidents. Joe

We were doing Otter loads at Orange in December... I didn't go at all in January but I'm sure they got a few up then as well. Joe

I live in Central Square/Cambridgeport. Drop me a line if you're around and want to grab a beer. There are a couple of neat little haunts that have opened up in recent years, and of course, there's always The Thirsty Ear. Central Square is definitely gentrifying a bit, though it still has lots of discount stores. And I hope the Big Dig is never completed, because if it is I think Boston's entire economy will collapse. Joe

Very sorry to hear that. My condolences to his friends and family. Seems like snowmobiling is one of those deceptively dangerous activities. I'd guess an average of 1-2 people a week die up here in New England during the winter months. Subject for another thread maybe. Joe

Good point. Of course, the most jumps I've ever done in a day is 4 or 5, so it could be that I'm just a lazy-ass and that's why I don't need as much endurance. In all honesty I think the % split is going to be different for every single person, based on their personal barriers/abilities and the type of skydiving they do. It is kind of a broad question. Joe

Now that's a damn good quote. I think I'm gonna use that some time. For me, I feel skydiving is about 65% mental, 30% balance & body awareness, and 5% strength & endurance. I just started doing yoga again, and I think it's very similar to skydiving in some ways. You have a lot of control in each activity over how much of a workout you actually get - in yoga, you're trying to get MORE of a workout by doing things exactly right, whereas in packing, for example, you're trying to get less of a workout by using gravity and leverage to your advantage, so the requirement for actual strength is reduced. Both require awareness of your body and a certain kind of "flow." I'm also in pretty good shape most of the time, so I may be less likely than some other people to perceive things as strenuous. I've found that concentration/focus & breathing are pretty key in both activities too - though these come back to balance. So in terms of physical activity, I think of skydiving as kind of like yoga. Except I don't get drunk after yoga class. Joe