CygnusX-1

That was exactly my point. Just by having the handle come free will not cause the ripcord to fall out. I tried to simulate the motion of the handle in airflow by shaking the rig. That may or may not be a valid test. However in freefall, I propose to you that the D handle is better than a pillow. It is heavier and has less surface area than a pillow handle. Therefore in theory it should be more stable (not move around as much). Think of it this way: How much does your antennae on you car move around while driving down the road? There is very little surface area to the relative wind. Now add a flag - lots of surface area and very little mass. How much does it move now? All the other factors (climb-out, people snagging handles, etc.) are a different matter. Those are reasons why the handle might get dislodged. I'm starting after the handle has been dislodged. Is there a problem or not? I say no, and that (amongst others) is why I chose the design I did. I'll leave the actual testing of the cutaway handle designs in the wind tunnel to those that manufacture rigs. We can't take away all of their fun.

This thread has got me thinking, but first some disclaimers. I do not personally know Bill Booth but I do respect (and admire) what he has done for us in skydiving. But I also don’t follow advice blindly, hence the phrase, “If he says so, that is good enough for me.” I make my own conscious decisions and will live or die by them. I just purchased a new Racer 2k3 with both low profile metal D handles. It surprised me to read that there was some concern about the cutaway handle falling out by its self if it became dislodged so I decided to run a test. I put on my rig as I would normally wear it, removed the cutaway handle from the MLW and measured the amount of cord from the top of the handle to the bottom of the conduit. I then jumped up and down 50 times and measured the distance again. It moved about 1/2 cm (~1/4 in). I then took off the rig and holding it by the shoulder straps shook it violently for 30 seconds. Again it moved another 1/2 cm (1 cm total). What does this tell me? Based on a SAMPLE OF ONE - with a metal handle you don’t need to worry about it falling out due to gravity (the extra mass of the handle) if it becomes dislodged. The handle does move and will eventually work its way free. But it won’t happen right away – at least not on my rig. I unfortunately do not have a pillow cutaway handle to try this same experiment with as a baseline. Maybe someone else could do that and report on what they discover.

I absolutely love my waterbed. I don't think I could get rid of mine. But if you do, (in my opinion) the next best thing is the 'Select Comfort' air matress. But there is no substute for climbing into a warm bed in the winter and a slightly cooler one in the summer.

I did my first off-DZ landing today. Although I only missed the DZ by about 100 m. It still counts, right? We had high winds and I totally misjudged the amout of penetration I would get into the wind on final. I ended up by sliding in between a ditch and a metal building with no harm done besides getting my new rig durty. But I took it home, washed it off, and it looks brand new again. I love parapac.

You are all wrong. The most beautiful car is the F1: http://www.mclarencars.com/content/sections/mainfr/cars.htm

I also didn’t do a stall before I took a canopy control course. I think that is when you should do something like that. You really need to know what is going to happen before you try it and freak out. But since we are talking about stalls here and someone might try this without actually getting any advice from someone, recovering from a stall you want to let up on the toggles SLOWLY. That is, of course, unless you want to go for a ride… My public service announcement for today.

I've done the commercial plane thingy. It read about 3500 feet if memory serves.

Ok, I really wasn't sure of the correct terminology which is why I said the satellite wasn't technically correct. There were only two of us docked in a sidebody configuration. We were orbiting around a third person. There were only three people in the dive. Only the two of us (I believe) were spinning. I hope this helps.

How would you correct for this situation? And please don’t say, just break and reform the formation. That doesn’t help if I’m back in the same situation I was in. I want to know how to overcome the problem without breaking. The best way I can describe it although it is not technically accurate is that we were trying to build a Satellite. Two of us were in the T type formation when we started to spin clockwise. Spinning is not really the right word because we were really orbiting the other member of the formation. I was the one that was not taking grips (if that makes any difference). I’m not sure if I was causing the orbiting/spinning or if I was being pulled by the other person who was attached to me. My question is: What input would I need to do to correct that spin – either it being to stop myself from causing the spin or I needed to overcome the bad body position of the other person? I’m sure those of you that are coaches have had to correct for students bad body positions. What should I have done to stop the spin, because we did not stop until we broke apart? Thanks for your replies. Jim

I wondered about that. When jumping at DeLand, I've noticed that the MSL would read something like -300. I don't really know but if I truely was -300 feet MSL here in Florida, I would probably be under water. Although, I think I would be concerned if I saw the reading change by 40 within a couple of minutes.

You forgot constitutional -- it's my god-given-constitutiional right... Honestly, look it up it's right after:

What's going to pop out when you pull the handle?

I’m not saying riggers can’t do a good job of inspecting, but if I were to purchase a used rig (and the canopy is a PD), I would require the seller to send the canopy back to PD for inspection. It only costs $15 and you get a letter stating the condition of the canopy.

I think it’s called adrenaline. I’ve had sensitive ears for some time. It would bother me even while driving up/down hills. I’m not saying that they hurt or pop. It is more of an annoyance. But, I have never had a problem with skydiving. Probably because the first thing I do under canopy (after checking that everything is ok) is re-equalize the pressure in my ears. Another thing I have noticed that helps is I deliberately try not to clear my ears on the flight to altitude above 10,000 ft.

What about the weight aspect of the reserve? Not knowing anything about fabric, would a 20 Denier fabric be more dense than a 30 Denier? Or is it just like packing volume; will it weigh 10% less? I know you can't comment directly to PD's canopies, but what would you guess? This also makes another question come to mind and I don't think I have heard a definitive answer to. Using this technology, I would assume that you could pair a much larger reserve with a smaller main. Is there any reason you would not want to do this, e.g. dual deployment? I have always thought that there was some reason since most containers supported similar sized main and reserve canopies.

Just to ask a stupid question. Is this game solely an online game? Can you, if you choose to do so, not log on and just play as a single player mode on your machine? All of this talk has intrigued me about WoW, but I'm not sure I really want to spend $15/mo just to play the game - in addition to the $40+ to purchase it. Jim

Sorry, with a subject line of "why skydiving is not a lucrative sport?" I assumed we were talking about mainstream coverage.

Other than the good examples listed before, I think there are a few more good reasons why skydiving has not become popular on a network sports show: 1) Quality of video. There are some good video’s out there, but in this day of HDTV and $10,000 cameras the over-the-counter Sonys that are strapped to someone’s helmet just won’t cut it. 2) Number of cameras. How many times do you watch any sporting event and they only have 1 camera on the action. Granted you could have more than one person filming a team. But now you would end up by having more camera men in the sky or on the plane than you would have competitors. Do you really want to have all of these people out there potentially causing havoc? 3) Time. Name another spectator sport where the total action lasts for only 1 minute. The only one I can think of off the top of my head is ski jumping (and maybe surfing). And I’ve only seen that broadcast during the Olympics. It doesn’t take any thought to watch ski jumping…Oooh they jump far. I think the biggest reason is that you can’t just go out and skydive. Average Joe can’t grab up his family, spend $200 on equipment and go try it. I think skydiving at best could have a following like figure skating. I think most people look at skydiving like I look at figure skating. That looks nice but I couldn’t tell you if somebody screwed up unless they fell. I am perfectly content that skydiving is a niche sport. If there were 10 or 100 times the number of skydivers, along with the good would inevitably be the “bad” population. Those people that would come into skydiving and get hurt or killed and then they or their relatives would try to put DZs or manufacturers out of business. The more people try, sooner or later someone will win. Thank you very much American jury system… Ok, time to get off of my soap-box.

With all of the new toys they are coming out with, why is it that the only one that has bluetooth is the altitrack? Or did I miss something? My biggest complaint is that I have to take my protrack out of my helmet to download it to my computer.

I have both a Neptune and Pro-Track. I have the Neptune as a visual and Pro-Track as an audible in my Oxygn A3. I wear earplugs and with the Pro-Track set to the low volume setting, I don’t have any trouble hearing it while in freefall. I have never tried the Neptune as an audible. The reason being is that I like the way the Pro-Track does its alarms, specifically the final alarm. The Neptune’s final alarm is a flatline tone, while the Pro-Track oscillates between two frequencies. I believe the changing frequency would grab my attention faster than just a single frequency – especially while I may be fighting with a canopy malfunction.

I didn’t mean to imply that downsizing is the only way to get a performance increase. I was more or less stating my observations between my 190 and the 150’s. Downsizing though does give you more kinetic energy, i.e. speed. Another one of my reasons for downsizing is that I want to get more penetration into the wind. I’ve never gone backward while under my 190, but I have on a few occasions turned onto final and come straight down. As for wing loading, I’m not exactly sure since I never weighed myself with the smaller rig on. But guessing it would be around 1.16 to 1.2 : 1. Personally, wing loading means nothing to me. It is just a number you can throw out to either try to impress somebody or in our case give a very rough estimate on how a canopy might perform. I’m more interested in can I control this canopy given my experience/talent and what I expect to do under a specific canopy. To me canopy choice is more of a personal decision. I would not ask “Which canopy should I choose” or “What size should I be jumping”. For me the question is, “What is the difference between this and this.” Let me know what I should expect and how to get out of problems and then let me experience it. I’m not one to just try something and then ‘lets see what happens’. So yes, I have taken a canopy control class. After I get my new rig, one of the first things I’m going to do is take one of Flight-1’s advanced canopy classes and maybe, just maybe, I’ll get some more time to work with Jay Moledzki. But who knows. And AggieDave…wait a minute; skydiving is dangerous?? Damnit why didn’t somebody tell me this before? Now I guess I’ll just have to find another more docile sport. Anybody up for some tiddly-winks? (sp?) No that won’t work, I could choke on those little plastic disks. Oh well, the search continues…

Please do NOT follow this statement verbatim. Generally, instructors will try to get you to land safely. I have also heard stories (first hand account) of directions that would send you into a gully, building, or (pick an) obstacle. You are the one under canopy, not your instructor. Trust your instincts. If you think you are being led somewhere you don’t want to go, don’t do it. This may seem logically obvious, but if it were true these accounts would not have happened.

Off topic, but I couldn't resist. Last year in the county (not country, or state) that I live in there were approx. 125 vehicle fatalities. And this year I think we are up to 5 already. Now let's see, which do you think is more dangerous - driving on the roads or skydiving. (Rhetorical question, please don't answer)

Yes it is, and that is what I'm looking for. I've made a couple of jumps on a 170 and wasn't happy with the performance increase. The 150 gives me the performance increase without being too big of a step down such that it becomes dangerous. I'm also kind of biased toward PD. I don't know, maybe it has something to do with driving past their factory every day to work...

First, this is by no means a recommendation for a specific canopy. It is more of an observation I have made. I am currently in the process on downsizing myself. A couple of weeks ago I spent two back-to-back days jumping first a spectre 150 and then a saber2 150. I only made a very limited number of jumps on either one. Some of what I say could (and probably is) be wrong. Please someone correct me if I am wrong as I also would like to know that. All disclaimers aside, here is what I noticed: 1) Both canopies responded to toggle turns very well. I could not tell you if one had a tighter turn radius than the other one. 2) Flat turns were fairly easy to do without loosing altitude on both canopies. However, I have heard from more experienced jumpers that there is less over-steer on the spectre and therefore you have better control. 3) Toggle pressure seemed less on the spectre than the saber2. I only noticed this while flying in brakes for a long time and my arms didn’t seem to get as tired under the spectre. I’ll update you all on this one after I get my arms back from calibration… 4) Flare on landing seemed to be flatter on the saber2 which may be useful for those of us learning how to not kill ourselves while doing performance landings. 5) I’m not going to go into the obvious aspects which anyone can find out with a little bit (and I do me very little) of research, snatch force, snivel, opening characteristics. I am also in no way qualified to comment on front riser turns or high performance landings on these canopies and therefore shall leave that to someone else. So which did I choose to get? I’m not saying except that it begins with a ‘s’ and ends with a ‘2’. Now if I could only find a used one that is a decent discount from the new cost.