CygnusX-1

Don't you mean a quill (and an ink bottle)?

Zero - and still have not done one.

I finally made up my mind so I had to add myself to the list... 2fat2fly AllisonH Avalonwings Bch7773 BigBug BigM BillyVance (maybe) Blueskyserenity Bolas Bubbles (selbbub78) Carbonezone ccowden Chaoskitty CrazyRick crutch CSpenceFly CygnusX-1 DaGimp & PornKitty DownwindDave DZChadz dzmemories flskydiver FlyDoc fmmobley Goofyjumper Hambone HeyNoSeriously hisgoofyness Hushpuppy icevideot Icon134 (still maybe...) Mad Ifallfast Jeannier JeepDiver Jeiber JENNR8R Jerrald JesSke Julie jumpchikk jumper03 jumpingbean001 jumpjunkie2004 k_marr08 LadyBug Lauraliscious LittleSkyCrab LoveBug matt1215 McDuck + his Cora MicDuran Mirage62 Missg8tor + Chris Meng Mouse MOUTH and hubby mwabd1 namgrunt nannerbanner ncfitzge nutz oozzee PapaSke Peregrinerose Pitts twins p-nut n lucky Psychobob and Psychopatty Pyke Rastaricanair RedBug Revillusion RevJim selbbub78 skinnyshrek Skydave Skydivingchad Skymama smud79 Speedygonzales Stitch T Team Dirty Sanchez teamjenn1 Thanatos340 The Falling Gators TinMan TMaricle55 TMPattersonJr (maybe) Turtle Whodamiss and Freelyflyn71 wildcard451 + dick in a box woodpecker yardhippie

Smartest thing I've read so far today. Good job!

1) Ok, I understand now the reference to the cat. (Although disappointed that we cannot get a side argument going about the fate of the cat.) Let me explain my thoughts a little bit differently. Almost every day I get up and put on a pair of briefs. I’ll let you decide which days I’m not wearing them. Anyway, back to my point. Throughout the day I do not think about the fact that I am wearing them. It does not alter the way I act. But yet I’m wearing them. Binary situation with no real change in the outcome. I have placed underwear on my body and at the same time I’m not aware of it. How many times today have you though about the fact that you are either wearing underwear or not? Does wearing underwear or not make any difference in the way we jump? Ok I know I took this a little bit further then everybody wants to know. To put it another way: from the time of exit until the time to deploy, I am not aware that I have an Optima. I’m not aware that I have a helmet on. I’m not aware that I have a rig on. And I’m not aware that I have a camera on. My main and pretty much only focus is on the jump. How do I get to the next point? Where is everybody else and what are they doing? Is there anything I need to do to make this jump successful. Everything else is just tools and/or things to keep me safe. I don’t actively think about them in the skydive. Whether I think about them subconsciously or not I can’t tell you. But I don’t see any difference in my performance between the times when I have my camera on and when I have it off. But that is just me. I cannot speak for anybody else. Jim

No I wasn't. But I don't see how this has anything to do with flying camera. My personal belief is that it really doesn't matter what the observer sees. The fact of the matter is that the cat is already dead. Why? Placing a cat in such a small box - mind you it probably should be lead not steel as to not introduce any outside radiation from penetrating the box and affecting the outcome - the cat would have used up all of its available oxygen and suffocated. Therefore, it does not matter what the Geiger counter sensed or didn't.

I couldn't disagree more. But as with most things in life, it all has to do with the person. Everyone is different. At jump 204, I strapped a camera to my helmet. Not for the purpose of jumping camera, but just to try it out. I think that this is a key aspect. I do not jump camera. I'm a jumper with a camera on my head. That has been about 150 jumps ago and I have only done one dedicated "camera" jump. The rest of the time, I turn it on at the door and forget about it. It gets what it gets. To those who think that all I get is sky/ground, then you have never sighted a camera. Granted, the action is hardly ever in the sweet spot of the screen. But I don't try to put it there either. It has just been fun to "see what I see" later. I have no desire to change that aspect either. I would rather be "doing" the jump than filming others doing the jump. The key is that you really don't care what you video. The moment you start caring - even subconsciously - then your flying will change. What is nice is that when everything goes to hell, and I want to put something on video I can. To the OP, I think that the 200 jump min is a carryover to when most if not all cameras were big and bulky. With the advent of smaller and smaller cameras, the snag points are becoming less likely. I also know you have to have a snag-free mount. I've seen people claiming to have 50 jumps with a camera on their helmet and think "Why? You can't even fly." Shit, there is a lot I need work on at 350. Basic minimum requirements are just that though. Someone had to pick a minimum jump number for this. Like I said before, it is all what we as skydivers decide to do with our time in the air that really counts. The way I see it, as long as you are not being a danger to yourself or others, it doesn't matter what you do. Please feel free to disagree with me all you want.

With what you are looking for, I would then have to say that the firebolt would be a maybe. It has some of what you are looking for and some of what you are not. I will list what I think are the pros and cons and you can decide if you wish to demo it or not. Pros: The openings are very similar to a Spectre. They are long, soft and easy to stay on heading. It is pretty immune to body position. I know this because I have given mine some of the worst body positions while trying to video the openings and it does no more than (sometimes) take you for a “ride”. It does not spin up! Riser pressure (to me) seems light, but I have no real frame of reference. The only thing I can tell you is that I can easily do 360 front riser turns without feeling like the risers are trying to rip out of my hands. It is a 9 cell. Cons: The forward flight characteristics are somewhat what I remember like the Spectre. What I mean is that the angle of attack is steeper than I wish it were. I have not had a problem making it back from a long spot, but you will need to use rears/toggles to extend the glide. Also your landing pattern will be shorter than others flying Sabers would be. From my perspective, this canopy does have a short recovery arc. Whenever I stop a turn it immediately stops the dive and starts to swing back over my head. However, once you pick up speed it seems to swoop forever before returning to normal flight. You decide whether this is a good or bad thing. Resale value may be less than other brands since it is not as popular as those made from the bigger canopy manufacturers. That is only an issue if you plan on selling it, though. Neither a Pro nor Con: It is elliptical (fully tapered). If you tell it to turn, it will turn – and fast. If you are prone to pulling on toggles (wildly) during landing or in the case of an emergency, this is not the canopy for you. It will turn and dive very quickly. I personally love this, but others may not. Disclaimer: All of my observations have been at altitude as I have yet to put one “high performance” landing on this canopy. I also have very limited experience trying these maneuvers on other canopies. When I went through the demo mode, this one had more of the aspects I was looking for in a canopy and few of the ones I didn’t. You need to decide what is right for you. Jim Ok, I’m done with my gear review.

I’m curious what about an elliptical you are concerned with. And please describe “more flight characteristic”. I ask because I would say demo my canopy (the firebolt), but I do not want to recommend it if you are looking for something that this canopy cannot provide. In my personal completely biased opinion, the firebolt is a great canopy to transition from a semi-elliptical to an elliptical. It also has lighter riser pressure – but what do I know, I only have 300-some odd jumps and most on this canopy.

As far as an audible goes, the one thing that the Protrack does that the Neptune does not do is give a "siren" (changing frequency) type of third warning. I believe that the Neptune just flat-lines. My personal preferance is the siren type of signal as I think that would catch my attention faster than just a flatline. I also prefer the frequency range of the protrack and wish that they had not changed it for the optima.

1) Because it is just plain fun to bitch. 2) You wouldn't want us to throw out the batteries while they are still good. That is like throwing good money down the drain. I mean getting those last 5 jumps in before the batteries die would save (what?) 25 cents (USD). 3) And most importantly - just think about all of the little electrons. If you throw out the batteries early, you abandon thousands if not millions of electrons which are stuck on the negative plate of the battery. They will never get the chance to party with all of the cute protons on the other side of the battery. Come on, you would not want that to happen, right!

That's was. I just talked with Nancy yesterday (in person at DeLand). My suit that I ordered 6 weeks ago still has a lead time of 3-4 months.

So, where is this all-female dropzone which you speak about???

The real problem is NOT the lawyers. The real problem is the juries. If it was not for the juries awarding "lottery" judgments, then there would not be any money for the lawyers. If the lawyer does not make any money, then they will not take the frivolous cases. The problem arises because there are too many [insert politically correct word here for stupid] people out there that think that just because something bad happens, they are entitled to a large sum of money. It all boils down to greed. No one anymore is willing to say, "Hey, shit happens." Move on with your life. People don't realize that there is a cost to making these judgments. It usually ends up being higher prices for goods and services or restrictions on what we can/can't do. Until we have a fundamental change in our society, I guess this is what we have to deal with all in the name of safety/security.

How does my (paper) log book know if it was me or someone else doing the jump that I wrote about?

I've even gotten spam on an email account that I have never used and never told anybody about. It is also not a common address that someone could guess (random set of numbers/letters). Figure that one out. BTW, I set it up just for this reason. I was curious if I would start getting span on a bogus account.

Shouldn't you be speaking in French, not English?

Skydive DeLand has them in stock (last time I checked). It may be a little bit of a drive, but if you want one - that's where...

I heard DeLand is thinking about doing them this weekend (9/2-4/06) weather permitting of course...

Pockets are always nice to have. You don't need to use them only for a hook knife. Some suggestions are: Money - for cab fare or phone calls back to the DZ if you land off. Ear plugs - if you decide to wear them. Condoms - if you ever decide to get freaky in the air...

I want one - I want one - I want one - I want one I'm glad that it has more memory than just one jump. Their website always said "the last jump" whenever it talked about storing detailed data. I was like WTF - what good is a one jump logbook? I'm sure that by the time they release it to the rest of us unlucky souls it will have downloading capability. I want one - I want one - I want one - I want one

It seems to be only a ONE jump (detailed) logbook, though. Their website also doesn't say whether you can download this info to jumptrack or whatever software program you may have. We will have to see what they finally decide to come out with. It is just a matter of code writing and available memory to add additional features to it.

That is exactly my point. I have never jumped out of a cessna but have from a porter. I'm pretty sure that both of these aircraft have a seat configuration less than 20. I for one won't be the 20th person to squeeze into either of these aircraft. I'm sure with these smaller aircraft jumping from them is covered some other place (maybe part 135). I'm too lazy to go searching for the real answer anyway - as I personally don't care. This is one of the reasons why I personally don't like the way the USPA license exams are organized. For the average skydiver, does knowing this fact make you a better skydiver? How about hot loading (or whatever it's called) fuel on a plane? Now I know I have not been involved in skydiving that long. But not once has the DZO pointed to me (or any skydiver getting ready to board) and told me to fuel the jump plane. I don't expect or desire anybody to respond to these issues. I really don't want to hijack this thread. I bring these points up as just something to think about.

But aren't you exempt from Part 119 if your aircraft has a seat configuration less than 20 seats or payload capacity less than 6000 lbs? The way I read this is that you can drop any distance as long as you don't have 20 seats (etc). I could be missing something since this is only a portion of part 119.

I wish I had door fear again. That is one of the reasons I kept going in skydiving. I loved that feeling of apprehension as I walked (or whatever) toward an open door. Now that is gone and I miss it.