sfzombie13

i just looked at your profile to see if i could figure out which dz has that landing area. if it is accurate, and you are in grove city, i would recommend skydive pa. haven't jumped there yet, but folks at my dz have and love the people there. i called to check on training for a friend once and when i told them where i jumped, they told me to say hi to some people. if that is the dz you are avoiding due to a small landing area, forget about that. i found a picture of ours, but it from a different height and hard to compare the two. i marked out the landing area in yellow, but most of it is also a grass runway. the little white dot in the middle of one yellow line is the hangar, 40'x40' for reference and the runway takes up the whole space at 2600'. the trees on the river side are in the way of the prevailing winds, so most of the time you get cross wind landings, and some sketchy rotors sometimes. that's what got me, a good gust. all i did was pick up my feet and i almost made it over the rail, but i absorbed the impact and didn't get hurt at all. the thing you have to remember about landing is not just how big the landing area is, but also how many "outs" you have if you can't make it back. at mine, there aren't very many good outs, the best one is across the river. at skydive pa, there are a few good ones close to the landing area from the looks of the picture. if you live in grove city pa, you would do good to learn from them. having said that, i don't personally know them, but if the folks at my dz like them they should be good.

i started jumping at tri state skydivers at lawrence county oh airport in '97. they closed and split up, tri state went to the airport outside ashland ky and larry lemaster ran it for a few years. wv skydivers went to robert newlon field and is my home dz now. not sure when they opened, sometime around '04 maybe? tri state is closed and has been for a while.

if it were me in your situation, i would do the iad up to at least the 2d or 3d freefall jump, 10 second delay. if you're getting it quickly, stay there and finish. if it takes you a bit to get stable, like it did for me and a couple of others at my dz, go to the aff and they'll probably start you at cat c or d, maybe b, depending on what you've gotten done so far. if that all happens and you get through with no repeats, you should have 12-16 jumps (not too sure about the aff dive flows). that leaves you some coached jumps or jumping with a d license holder until you get your license. of course this is all speculation. i have never seen you jump, nor do i know where you are, let alone if they will even do this. i do know that learning to skydive with a tight landing area is better in the long run, provided you don't get hurt first. ours is about 2600' x 300' (the size of the grass strip with about 100' on each side of it) with a river, trees, powerlines, and lots of buildings surrounding it. they had to have a waiver to train students, and a training tandem is required first. every now and then we have a student hit the fence. i did once when a gust blew me way off course at about 200' on final. almost made it over, but i had to do a plf off the top rail. i made the mistake of doing a lot of jumps as the extra seat on a tandem load out of a 182 and lost some of my formation skills i wasn't very good at in the first place. be careful and don't do that. also, when they teach you how to plf, practice that a lot more often than they make you, since it will save you from an injury at some point. they taught us plfs in airborne school for the first week. in a first jump course, it usually lasts for a half hour or so. i'm not gonna say much about it, since you don't need to learn how to skydive on the internet. the main thing is to roll and keep your feet and knees together, they don't have to look pretty. i wrote an article on plfs here. don't over think it, listen to your instructors, and prepare for a plf every time you land (that way, if you're going slow enough you stand up, if not, no injuries) and you'll be fine. welcome to the family.

also more effective at a cessna dz since one jumpmaster (coach in some cases, instructor in others) can put out three students on a load, rather than one on one for aff. my opinion, and only an opinion, is that iad is better than static line. it gets the same thing done without the need for the static lines. i have jumped in all three programs for comparison (not intentionally, just the way it worked out).

but as op has put the question, it is a much different loading that is presented if the same jumper is using the canopies op has suggested. from the few conversations i have followed regarding hard openings, i am certain there are many more variables and that we may never get the full data set to explain them.

when i was s student (22 years), i took a job in omaha that flew me out for three weeks at a time and i was making good money so i decided to finish my license there. i did a recurrency jump at my dz, took my logbook to weeping waters, and told them i wanted to jump. they looked at my logbook and put me through my ep's, and made sure i knew what i was doing and i did the next jump with them. i can't recall exactly since it was '06, but i think they even called my dz to check. it was great except for one thing: the dz was huge! must've been hundreds of acres of flat land all around the damned landing area. i was very much used to locating the dz by using the river and hills, then looking for an open spot. that really sucks ass when it's all a huge open spot. i also did a couple of student jumps at raeford, but that was afterwards, so i knew what to expect. of course, when you learn how to skydive in a landing area the size of most d license landing areas, you're good almost anywhere you go. our landing area now is about 2700' x 500', with almost every obstacle you can name surrounding it; trees, hills, river, powerlines, railroad tracks, buildings. strictly from my experiences years ago, i would not recommend going to another dz as a student until after you are cleared for self supervision. as others are saying, you may find cliques (clicks?) on each dz, in fact you will, but it isn't that bad (strictly from my personal experiences at a couple of other dz visits with a license). of course, it never hurts that i walk into a dz with a case of beer the first time. if you don't drink, bring a case of water or other beverage.

don't we try to keep the planes in the air and on the ground? it's not like balls of sodium. they're safer than lithium batteries. also, with a 4 second recharge time and 10000 cycles i think i would risk it and just keep the plane dry on the inside, something we should also be doing if i understand correctly.

i wonder if the newly designed sodium batteries would work here. apparently, the new cathode design allows for 10,000 recharges while retaining 91% capacity. i don't know a lot about sodium batteries other than they are unstable, but this should fix that part. granted, it is just a proof of concept and was done at 122* f, but it shows promise. it also said something about a 3.6 second recharge time, but not sure what size battery that was.

what does that do, when you watch a movie? it supports said movie. i am sure that you, like most of the rest of us, know that movies rarely get things right, and if you think they do, you've missed a lot of things and need to re-examine your threshold for accuracy. first off, i am not supporting this idiot in any way, shape, or form, so i will not watch the movie. second, i am not criticizing the movie or the book, i simply posted links to others doing that, folks who actually saw it, read it, and are professionals at reviewing said items. i also threw in some supporting background showing how this is not the first time it has happened, nor will it be the last time some well meaning outsiders try to tell me what is wrong with the my home. they will also mostly be wrong, but it will also, just as it does every other time, cause a lot of folks to become interested in saving us, and hopefully not start any more bullshit programs to extract value from the region without doing anything else to help. look up what happened here with the mined minds program to see how they continue to just come here to make money, then leave with nothing but empty promises and failed dreams. it gets really discouraging and frustrating. then to see another one profit from bullshit to make himself look good really pisses one off. so, no, i will not watch this stupid movie, and neither should anyone else. THAT, i can safely say without watching or reading. enjoy the day.

i don't hate it as much as am sick and tired of outsiders coming into my home and writing about how it is without getting it right. i have talked to several folks who have seen it and read many reviews of it. these things do great damage to the area by misrepresenting what is going on. this guy wrote a story that is causing lots of folks to notice, but they are noticing what he said, not what is actually going on. policy is made by these folks to "help" us, and when it is based on false assumptions to start with, how much "help" do you think it actually does? like the drug problem we have. not only do we have big pharma dumping dangerous, addictive, drugs on us, we had a big pharma influence on the same doctors spouting off how we need to "manage pain" and be "pain free", then folks bought it and we ended up with a drug addicted population that is now strung out on heroin since the "legal" drugs mostly disappeared. oh, and let's not forget the dirty politics rampant in wv since the illegal formation of the state. our attorney general, an outsider from nj who couldn't get elected there, but had a lot of money, came down and took the job by sucking up to some power with his money and connections. his wife is employed by big pharma and get this, he actually made decisions and policy in favor of said big pharma. hell, they sued the epa to stop them from regulating clean air and water. i could go on all day about how much damage books and movies like this are doing to my home, but i think you get the idea. i actually thought i could do some good, but damned if i wasn't wrong. must've been under the influence of hope and ideals, not the reality we are stuck with. i'm just gonna go back out to the country and make things. you may end up seeing one of them one day. i have this sweet idea for a helmet with the camera mounted inside so there are no snag points. carbon fiber and impact rated. hopefully, for under $200.

i don't think there are any cars out there that can go that long without maintenance (spark plugs, oil change tires, wipers), but haven't looked at electric ones but they still require wipers and tires. i know that there is no way you can go that long without an oil change without doing some damage. i also worked at toyota for a while and can tell you without a doubt there is not much precision going on with some of those vehicles. i refuse to buy a toyota made in the us because of my time there, subaru all the way from now on. we took a great japanese product and ruined the quality with putting americans in charge. they were great for the first few years when the japanese were running upper level management, but then they let americans have some of those jobs, and the quality went to shit when they did. warranty work is factored into the price.

timski is right, and even more so when you posted the details. there is no way anyone should change a proven method for one outlier, especially an outlier that will not affect a student, since the equipment was non-standard. glad i haven't learned anything out there. that is just insane to me.

i would say that most of the time, you won't be changing you r eps as much as reacting differently to emergencies. you do that with experience i'm told, as i only have 120 odd jumps. for example, if you pull and nothing comes out, you may look over your shoulder or smack your container before deciding to go silver. maybe a better example would be going straight silver for a horseshoe. the experience will give you a second to realize what it is and you may want to keep your main connected. now, it should go without saying but i will anyway for safety, you should decide this on the ground and not in the air.

you should read this review of the book/movie and how wrong the dude got almost everything. i've heard so much negative about it that i cannot in good faith watch or read it. the review does mention one good thing: the guy didn't get it so wrong, what he did was take his own experience and apply it to all, even though his experience was the outlier and he made it seem to be the norm. that is the biggest screwup, and now, everyone thinks it represents my home. not even close, not to at least 80% of appalachia. you even noticed it yourself, that's how your family avoided abject poverty, it was not nearly so common as he makes it seem.

practicing sewing skills seems like such a waste. it needs cleaned up and jumped some more. after a thorough inspection of course. mold is not a good thing in this situation from what i hear.

damn, i wish the rest of the internet would act like we do here. i recall the old irc rooms in the late '80s were mostly like this, depending on where you went. maybe because we were offline more than online and knew what happened when you acted like an ass in person. when we can safely travel again, come on down (if the dz is still there) and have a stearman jump and a beer. pitch a tent for free by the hangar or rent a camper spot.

thanx for those suggestions, they will be used. it would be really helpful to know why they are doing this all of a sudden, 10 years into a 30 year lease. or more accurately, who they're doing it for. i would hate to go to the folks who benefit from this and ask for help. kind of like tipping off the enemy. at least there's time to think and plan now.

in the first post, there is a part that says, " Carl Bailey has had Attorneys working hard, but the County Commission has just scheduled an Emergency Agenda at the Cabell County Commission Meeting on Tuesday November 24th at 10:00 am". you may have missed that part, but it was, and is still, there. sorry for being defensive, but given that all of the info was there for everyone to see, i assumed (my bad there) that you were being a prick, and rather than be nice, i responded in kind, also my bad. as for the petition, since it is an airport that also has a drop zone, i would think that any interested party, such as those who fly and land there or go down to jump out of planes would have their input welcome as well. not to mention the fact that having a camp ground means there are also others who visit for nothing more than to relax and bring money to the economy. maybe it will all work out, but now we wait til february and see. at least that gives us time to prepare more thoroughly. happy thanksgiving.

commission couldn't agree an a lot of things, put it off until february to give carl's lawyers a chance to work out another deal.

look dude, if he was trying to sell it he wouldn't have hired lawyers to fight it. it was an abandoned piece of land with some buildings on it about 10 or so years ago, he leased it and made improvements to the property including the campground and restaurant, then the dz. it does not receive faa funding at all, and i suggested that may be the easiest way to stop it. signing a petition is free, and so is any advice anyone wants to give me, besides calling uspa that is, such as the advice about calling the aopa (they had done that already also but i appreciate the advice). oh, and by the way, had you read my first post, you would absolutely see that nobody is trying to do anything other than save the airport (the dz actually, but it comes as a package deal). hell, i just put a roof on the hangar in may. looks like my last sentence was deemed a personal attack, so it got taken out. probably a good thing, and i will try very hard not to do that again. let me try again with that final thought. i didn't start any petition, just saw it already started and posted a link when asking for help. i will take any advice anyone may have, provided it is actually advice and helpful. i will end with this bit of advice for the person commenting above: given that there was enough information in the original post to show that they are very much trying to save it and not sell it, in the future it would be more helpful to keep a comment like that to yourself. it does nothing to help anyone, nor does it provide any useful information. maybe i am just defensive on this particular subject.

that's what the fourth satellite is for. they take the timestamp and calculate the difference between known reference points of the others. one of the links has a really in depth explanation i am halfway through. i just saw this pop up and checked. fascinating stuff and has motivated me to finish up my altimeter, although using just the barometer and the pi.

i too wondered and looked it up. i found this post on quorum to be quite informative. the reason i looked was that i had heard the gps is an accurate altimeter. it seems that it is, as long as it gets a fix on four satellites. the fourth is the one that gives the time and allows the receiver to adjust depending on the differences in timing. of course i didn't stop looking and found a much better source of info here.

seriously doubt it, took forever to get a cabellas in wv. it is a great place to jump, campground is sweet. they have a bluegrass festival every year in august, and a 4th of july party/festival. nothing more on the information front, except they don't get faa funds, my suggestion was to get some quickly, which would nip this in the bud. my take is that someone wants the property for something and has some friends in high places. wv politics is dirty and these damned crooks they keep putting in office are shameful. looks like i will be driving about 4 hours to a dz next year.

going to see when i go down later, i may call ahead to see if he wants to take the stearman out. i don't know anything other than what i posted here. i figured getting signatures on a petition couldn't hurt to start with. they did talk to the uspa, just found that out a few minutes ago. it's a private field, not sure if the faa has anything to do with it or not, never came up before.

i have not heard yet, just saw this on facebook a bit ago. probably has to do with it being a prime piece of riverfront property that some politician wants. or some politician has a friend who wants it. i will be going down today, so will post all the details i find. whatever it is, it can't be good, or have a good reason, otherwise they wouldn't have worked in secret and set the meeting for this week, the emergency meeting. i know how i would've handled it 25 years ago, but i'm not that person anymore.