shall555

Well, at least that's one thing I did right with my Sabre 2 order. Ordered it with dacron lines ! You'll know me.. I'll be the one springing up and down like a yo-yo during opening ... but smiling. shall

Ooo! Oooo!

Met her.. dangit!

Much easier to find the ideal girl, THEN turn her into a skydiver. Oh yeah.. *That'll* happen ! >chuckle

Oh. You need to include "unlikely", "preposterous" and "gimme a break" in your Google search. Also, Alsatian references are hard to find on the internet. They had the whole country carpeted laster year...

Could be the Alsatian Fleurnerflau 901. It was powered by a Vorglefetzner 92 HP radial. It was notable for having been the first Alsatian plane to exceed 200 feet AGL. It was popular with the local farmers, as it could hold a pilot and four passengers or 5 sheep and a randy farmboy. Most are in barns, these days. Curiously, their floors are covered with a thick mat of wool and latex shavings. Interesting jump plane, though...

I know this is not what you had in mind, but: geez, you're in North Carolina. There's got to be some good barbecue around there somewhere !

This is good information, ZigZag. My question is: why is this canopy seemingly so picky ? I can understand one of these tiny, elliptical, cross-braced jets being touchy, but a Sabre 2 ? They're billed as being good intermediate canopies and I've read that they're used on student rigs, some places. I just wonder about the questions I raised here http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=1755579;sb=post_latest_reply;so=ASC;forum_view=forum_view_collapsed;;page=unread#unread As someone who just shelled out some serious bux for a new one of these, I am a bit concerned with all this. I had based my purchase on the glowing reviews in the gear review section here at dz.com. Ah well! shall

I just loooove this.. Just ordered a custom Sabre 2 and then all this discussion pops up about debilitating openings. Sheesh. The only hard opening ( really, really hard ) I ever had was on a Mini-Thunderbow ( look it up ). It felt like I bent double in the harness and it hurt so bad I almost yakked while under canopy. I was out of action for about a week. What I'd like to know about the Sabre 2s that are reported to have opened hard: 1) What is the canopy's era ? I understand there were some subtle line/trim changes made between the Sabre 2's introduction and "today". 2) Packing method ? Pro pack ? what ? 3) Line material ? Age of the lineset ? 4) Trim ? Was the thing checked and in-trim after the teeth-rattler ? 5) Age of the canopy ? 6) Slider area & canopy area ? Just the basics. I figure, without all this detail, a small handful of really bad openings can't be analyzed. I'm not even considering hard/bad openings that occurred without a third party watching the jumper affected: body position, was the jumper coming out of a track, etc. So, I remain, ever hopeful that I didn't buy a sky-bludgeon... shall

Good topic ! 1) Announce an airshow to a crowd of thousands 2) Get my private pilot license 3) Solo an open-cockpit biplane 4) Fly a Pitts Special 5) Skydiving, in general 6) Thrill huge crowds ( okay, *hundreds* ) with demo jumps 7) Visit Great Britain 8) Visit France 9) Run my own photography studio 10) Fly a helicopter 11) can't / won't talk about some of the rest shall Edit: added one item

Very nice. Remember: Green side up. Brown side down. See blue, turn over.

Why, Pumpkin Heights, Arkansas, of course. It's the week of the Snail Festival there. Lots of boiled okra sandwiches and sauerkraut soup. Mmm!

Hey, great ! Landing in water is such a strange/fun experience. Congrats on the B ! shall

I still hear the theme from the ancient "Masters of the Sky" every time I exit ! It's sick, I know. But that movie absolutely kept me fired up during my early student days. "Take a ride with me upon the wind..." and so forth. Gotta love it ! shall

:2:0 Gut veekend ! Simulated being a static-line student for an up-and-coming JM here. Made another hop 'n pop, after being initiated into some sort of arcane, sliding-hand, fist-bumping handshake by the other folks in the plane. Man, I love spending my weekend days like this... shall

Body position is only one possible cause. I'd suggest that things like packing technique, the brand of canopy ( some have a reputation for attention-getting openings ), harness tightness and your speed at deployment time are more likely. Packing technique: make sure that the slider's up against the grommets and make sure the deployment bag closing bands are the correct size/type. Harness: make sure you don't travel to the end of a loose harness during opening ! Cinch the legstraps and chest strap tight. Speed at deployment: make sure, if you've tracked away (and have altitude ) that you slow down before you deploy. "Flare" like crazy, wave off and pull. Learned about that last one the hard way, one time . Cheers ! shall

Oh. I'd forgotten about the Alamo

Thanks for all the great info, you guys. I'll probably move up my planned purchase of a newer, state-of-the art reserve.

Back in '80 or '81, Martin Caidin decided he wanted to set up a "wingwalk" on his Ju-52 trimotor for Ripley's Believe it or Not. A bunch of Gainesville-local skydivers helped him set it up. I arranged for mountain climbing-style rope to be used to make a truss that the folks out on the wing could hang onto. Anyway, he wanted to make a practice run with about eight of us ( the goal was to get 19 out there for the "record" ). See http://www.facesproject.org/dz/images/04_ripleys.jpg So, we loaded up, went up to about 7,500 well west of Keystone Heights airport, then turned in toward it for jump run. We climbed out. I was last or second to last, standing on the rear of the left wing root. There was a handy metal bar to hang on to and it was an nice ride up amongst the usual Florida puffy cumulus. Then, while we were still 5-7 miles from the airport, Caidin turned on the smoke generators (used for airshows) -- the "emergency jump" signal. We sort of groaned and looked at each other and then leapt off the wing one by one. After opening, we saw we were over lovely Florida swampland. One narrow two-lane road snaked east through the swamp. Luckily, we all landed along the road. We caught rides from the locals back to the airport and all was good. The "emergency" ? Caidin felt the vibration from the disturbed air over the wing and didn't want to push the 50-year old antique plane too hard until he'd had time to analyze it -- and make sure the sheet metal wasn't coming off ! shall

The (very) used rig I recently bought has a Paraflite Cirrus reserve in it. I'm sure it's fine , but I'm the kind of sick individual that really likes to know the details. I checked Paraflite's site, and the canopy is not listed anywhere there that I could find. Can anyone tell me something about 'em ? I'd like to hear anything from "Great reserve.. worked for me! " to "OMG, get rid of that.. " or whatever. Technical specs would be greatly appreciated. thanks, shall

That's terrific ! You're in the Southwest, right ? Think about Ouray, Colorado. It's a secluded little town surrounded by these towering rock cliffs. There are natural hot springs and lots of little B&Bs. Cheers, Rosa ! shall

This was back in age of steam. You know, round parachutes, sage green gear and spotting actually meant something. We were going to do a little four-way dive from 12,500. It was cold, sort of cloudy and windy -- November, I think. Carl was going to climb out and hang from the strut. I was going to be out last. As Carl was side-stepping out toward the end of the strut, I heard someone yell, "Carl! Go!" I looked up in time to see Carl, with risers, lines and sleeve strung back horizontally from his shoulders. He had time to glance back in with a sort of quizzical expression on his face, then he got yanked back off the step. Luckily, he didn't hit anything on the way back. But he was open at 12.5, with a ParaCommander and a stiff breeze blowing from the west. At our little island DZ, we had water on both the east and the west sides ! The rest of us went ahead and jumped ( hey, it's sky! ). Carl "spiraled" until his arms were sore under that PC, and finally landed about 10 feet into the surf line on the beach! Now *that's* an out landing ! shall

Gahhh! I should've thought of that ! So simple!

Get one of the ones with the picture on the *front*. I bought one with the picture on the back one time and, man, it got dull just looking at all the connectors!

:2:0 Just a coupla fun jumps in the desert sun! I've now been coming 'round to the dropzone long enough that the DZ dog, Whuffo, remembers me. Life is good ! shall