SkySlut

This past saturday I was on Zara's memorial dive to spread 1/3 of her ashes at Skydive New England. It was an honor and privilage to be a part of it. Although, it was quite sad to know someone that special pass away because of something that could have been avoided all together here at my home DZ. This was the first such incident here in 18 years...and the first for many of the locals here. In the 2 years that I have been jumping, I have lost 5 good friends from skydiving/BASE jumping. I will miss her greatly even though she wasnt from NE. When I hit a rock while going downwind, in the rain, w/ bare feet and busted my foot...she took time out of her day to come in and see if I needed anything. I had only hung out with her briefly from her first visit and I didnt even know that she had returned. She found me!!! That is the type of person that she was...Very kind, bright, & amazing. Miss you Zara...

Get used to it...I wake up with Aleve in the morning and go to bed with Tylenol PM at night...do yourself a favor and get into a stretching routine every morning and get those back/stomach muscles working and strong. Yoga can work as well.

no I mean I will f*ck anything... -Slut "I'll jump anything!"

i have seen some really stupid stuff under a lot of canopies, but the latest ones...i.e. the crossfire incident at the pondswooping nationals at the ranch, this newest xaos incident in VA, and having seen and known 2 people to "full on bounce" in Deland this winter (which is why Deland actually prohibited crossfires from being jumped there until they were altered by the company or a master rigger). Read this new report about the xaos...it is a very scary article....very similar to the death at the ranch. Coincidence??? Dont know...go ahead and make your choice. -Slut "I'll jump anything!"

I just call them as I see them...I dont get paid to jump PD, but from all the crap I have seen with canopies collapsing and killing & hurting people...you start to realize that its not necessarily part of the sport. You see someone die once...you may think...hey, its part of the sport...but after a while you start to see some coincidences. -Slut "I'll jump anything!"

what do they have in common??? The canopy pilots that fly them tend to get hurt or killed under these canopies due to shoddy design & manufacturing...PD Rules!!! Check out the latest article in this months Skydiving about the Xaos pilot in VA...this is starting to become really sad. Companies are starting to put out some dangerous canopies without doing the proper research, design & testing. Dont even mention the Nova... -Slut "I'll jump anything!"

I am sure that she will remember as much of it as I did on my first tandem... -Slut "I'll jump anything!"

Well, I am back for a bit...I have been living at Skydive New England since I quit my job!!! I have been caoching post-AFF jumpers, my 4-way team won the latest meet, and I am working at the dropzone since. Life is good!!! I have made about 100 jumps since the snow thawed, my new oddysee is in and I just put in a new Stilleto today...yehaa!!! We spread Rich Lancaster's ashes today (died in a main/reserve entanglement @ Carolina Skysports earlier this year)...it was absolutely beautiful!!! Anyways, I am looking to head to Sebastian, Deland, Eloy, Perris or any other shithot dropzone for the winter (quite possibly for good) for a job. If anyone could help me out that would be really cool...thanks! sorry I couldnt write more, but that is the DZ life...too much skydiving and its related activities. Take care, & soft landings... -Slut "I'll jump anything!"

I think it all depends on what your goals are, how many jumps you are committing to, etc. If you want to go to Nationals and take on Freefly Circus or Airizona Airspeed...stick with one discipline and jump your ass off like its your job!!! If you want to be competent in both and have fun, then that can be done too. Its not very hard to do RW once you learn how. Most casual weekend warrior pickup bigways are always going to have issues out the door...you are rarely going to have a perfect bigway and I dont really think that many people expect it to go smoothly (and thats the beauty of it). If you can fly your slot and turn in place than you are ahead of the game for RW. So go onto Freeflying, that is going to take much more time. I would recommend that you go back to RW though...the other day I took a guy out to do some RW that had 900 FF jumps, oh my!!! This guy is one of the better freeflyers I know, but he seemed to have lost his skills because he hasnt used RW since those 900 jumps or so. He was all over the place. My recommendation is do what you want to do, but you gotta use your skills or you can loose them. I didnt really think that you could forget skills, but it seems as though it can happen. -Slut "I'll jump anything!"

No Problemo. Yeah, its pretty good FYI stuff. You may need it someday. -Slut "I'll jump anything!"

That was a pretty cool interview...Keep more of those coming!!!! See if you can get Jack Jefferies... -Slut "I'll jump anything!"

A good time to check on your handles would when you are under your canopy...see where they sit when the harness is being lifted. If you are in a violent spin...your handles are going to be up on your chest because of the G-forces created by the spin. Its a good thing to be aware of... -Slut "I'll jump anything!"

Well, if you got the time...shoot up to SDNE on saturday or sunday. I guarantee you will have a blast!!! Super Otter, kick ass nightlife, BBQ, Beer, etc, etc... -Slut "I'll jump anything!"

Hey Speedracer...are you still going up to Pepperell or are you up to going to Skydive New England??? -Slut "I'll jump anything!"

Dont drink the water...stick with beer or tequila...nothing with ice cubes in it either... -Slut "I'll jump anything!"

Yeah, I think this will help you out a lot...it did me, I felt like such a jackass...I had about 100 quick and clean pack jobs under my belt and then I couldnt even get 1/4 off the canopy in the bag. I got a new rig and everybody was watching me pack this thing while they were checking it out...It was actually quite embarassing until I found this new way...One of my buddies/packers showed it to me. It is a hell of a lot easier...you do it in stages, so instead of cramming the whole thing in...you just do the harder half first and then the rest is a piece of cake. I was so pissed that I got this new rig and that I was going to have so much trouble packing it. It will come to you. Practice. Practice. Practice. -Slut "I'll jump anything!"

Zennie or anyone else for that matter...here is a tip that has helped me with my new gear. Instead of doing the initial S-fold at the line attatchment point and then S-folding the rest of the material back over the initial S-fold and then getting the whole freakin canopy in the bad at once...I have been doing it in stages. I do the top part of the canopy. I S-fold that and then put it in the D-bag first so I still have, what would have been the initial S-fold still laying flat outside the D-bag. I then S-fold the part of the canopy where the lines attatch into the bag. You S-fold it and tuck it right in the middle of the bag. It makes it sooooo much easier to pack. I had been previously packing a 150 used sabre with 500 jumps on it into a 170 d-bag. I just got a 135 sabre with less than 200 jumps and I am putting it in a 135 d-bag. I was having so much trouble for a while until I started doing that. It goes in much cleaner and a hell of a lot easier. Did that make any sense by the way??? Its kinda hard to explain unless you are watching someone do it. It is even pretty weird to do it at first, because you are doing steps backwards and its not how you first learned how to do it. Anyways, give it a try and let me know if it works for you. -Slut "I'll jump anything!"

I agree with Grogs about getting back in the saddle...when I landed that canopy backwards & in someones backyard early in the season...I got immediately on the plane with a different rig so I couldnt even think about what just happened. I only got freaked out later on in the day when I had time to think about the implications of what just could have happened. I ended up just taking it as a learning experience...no harm, no foul. I would just keep trying to learn as much as possible and know that you will be safer if you keep learning. There is Murphy's Law and it works and there isnt much you can do about it. "Skydiving is dangerous, but there are precautions that we can take to make it less dangerous." -Slut "I'll jump anything!"

massive linetwists that put him into a violently spinning mal. I would assume. -Slut "I'll jump anything!"

yeah...that sounds like a tough one...severe line twists with unstowed toggles are an issue that you need to deal with pretty quickly. That could have been caused by a number of things...could have been your body position at deployment. That is what usually causes line twists, but they can also be caused by a bit of a bag lock. So you may want to take a look at your rubber bands/tube stows and how you are stowing your lines. If you get bag lock, that thing can spin around behind you for a bit causing what you had. That happened to me once...scared the hell out of me, but I knew that the linetwists were caused by the baglock because of the way the canopy deployed (I saw the p/c come out, felt the d-bag come off my back and then I started picking up speed) Did you have any odd sights or feelings in the deployment sequence? How else did you stow the lines in the container tray??? That could be a possibility too. Also, what kind of toggles do you have??? It seems as though you were really in a nasty spin to have those bad boys get unstowed...you may want to have a rigger look at them to ensure that they are safe and that you are stowing them properly because if you were jumping a higher performance canopy like a Stiletto or Velocity or something like that...an unstowed toggle will put you into linetwists and a massive spin causing you to cutaway from a once fully functioning canopy. Just some things to think about. I am glad that you pulled through on that...I have had some close calls but no cutaway yet... -Slut "I'll jump anything!"

What kind of mal was it??? I havent had one yet but sometimes its not necessarily your fault. I would just try to figure out exactly what went wrong and make sure that it doesnt happen again. Learn from your mistakes or, if you got the cash hire a packer to pack for you...but even then you may still have a mal. There really is no easy way out of this one, but you were obviously prepared for it so you should be confident that you wouldnt freeze should the need to cutaway arises again. -Slut "I'll jump anything!"

No Problem! -Slut "I'll jump anything!"

Yeah, you can never be too carefull. You wouldnt want to misplace your beer or even worse have someone steal it on you...Heads Up move, skymonkey!!! By the way, I got my new Odyssey and I love it!!! -Slut "I'll jump anything!"

humans are just self-glorified monkeys... -Slut "I'll jump anything!"