mdrejhon

I agree too! And we plan to make it an even bigger party this year!

I tend to agree for the most part, and that's what I do. 99% of the time I'm at non-gay events. And we've taken pains to pretty much advertise our event as simply being Rainbow Boogie, or mention the '100% Hetero Friendly' tagline. Last year, some jumpers at the dropzone ordered 87 'I Can't Think Straight' T-Shirts, without my knowledge, and it got all sold out -- more than half of it to straight jumpers too! Pretty much everyone loved the good-natured 'rainbow' atmosphere. We just played along. All the straight jumpers at Cross Keys said we were the funnest boogie of the year last year, word 'funnest boogie' is being quoted Cross Keys website's Calendar. It's almost as if we were half a 'rainbow themed' boogie, more so than a gay boogie at times. One, that just happened to welcome GLBT on the royal red carpet for us -- it was surprising to us how they accepted and supported us too! That said, people like to be among peers too from time to time. Same reason why POPS exist, or Deaf World Record exist, or Women's World Record, or even a fraternity such as Team Awesome. (Rainbow Skydivers now has a custom fraternity flag too! We'll be putting it up in our corner at the Perris big ways, 6 of us are there.) We even have skydivers in our GLBT skydivers Facebook group ('Rainbow Skydivers' now over 160 members) who met each other (relationship, friendships) at previous Rainbow Boogies -- something that's much harder when you're the only gay guy on a dropzone. It has spawned off a series of mini-reunions (4 to 6 Rainbow Skydivers) at different dropzones throughout the country. Sure, we could designate a "gay meet corner" at any future WFFC or SkyFest. Or we could designate a "Rainbow Skydivers Club Meet" at any dropzone. But we wanted our own boogie, and we let the idea first happen as a reality in 2006! For our 2010 event (August 26-29) Cross Keys is aggressively putting as many skydivers of all kinds (straight too) on the dropzone as possible, too. There is a concurrent 20-way camp (Sponsored by Aerodyne & NSL -- Aerodyne set up a booth at our last boogie), they decided to choose our boogie dates to run this event concurrently with, and also help bring extra planes for the event too. Should help allow a two-Otter mixed big-way too! But, being the world's only "gay skydiving event" (we still use that line, when marketing to the gay market like a gay magazine), we're attracting a fast growing audience -- even, if it is also simultaneously becoming a "rainbow themed skydive event" that just happens to attract everybody who's not uncomfortable about it, not just a large contingent of gay skydivers. Again, we're 100% hetero friendly too.

Now you got me thinking! Early Gay Way World Record formation skydive attempts (in 2006, and 2009), did not have any definition as long as you claimed to be LGBT - meaning, bisexuals are included into the Gay Way. I'll have to begin asking for the "Gay Card"* for verification. We've never had a straight person demand in person to be put on the Gay Way World Record -- but we do have the mixed big way planned after the Gay Way, so I doubt we'll run into this problem...

Yep, Skydive Burnaby has Otter coming shortly, if not already there. Parachute School of Toronto had that 900hp Supervan last year, but I heard that one isn't coming back, I think a different jump ship is. (Have not heard yet) Niagara Skydive Center now has the Navajo, which can bring 10 jumpers up -- it probably will now have more 4-way jumping this year, as they can fling upwards 3 tandems and a 4-way. There's Skydive Toronto Inc., and for a longer drive (2-3 hour), There's Grand Bend Sport Parachuting Center, and Skydive Gananoque. Foreign licenses are recognized at all of these. We do the 180-day repack cycle, and you'll almost certainly have to rent a car. If you're desparate, you may want to join the Facebook pages of the above dropzones, to try to find carpool of other Toronto jumpers.

Unlock done, 4 months to the boogie! The buzz is currently in the Facebook event page and a small bit on our twitter feed, but here's some mini-updates. ...Rainbow Boogie 2009 photo web page ...Facebook group for gay skydivers is located here ...We are expecting to have at least a couple of sponsor booths at the boogie, keep tuned ...We now have a fraternity style "flag banner" on the way, which we will put up at Perris when 6 of us show up for the Perris 50-ways (4 participants, 1 packer, 1 spouse) ...Cross Keys is looking into bringing in a second Twin Otter if the expected attendance keeps growing, we may even become among Cross Key's bigger annual boogies (because of all the enthusiac straight supporters), we are enthusiacally growing the boogie. ...We now currently the organizing skills needed for a 30-way / 40-way mixed gay/straight formation after the 20-way Gay Way World Record. ...We now have a carpool thread in the Discussion section of the Facebook page ...I've been networking. I have come to now know two gay DZO's, several gay AFFI's, gay sons/daughters of DZO's. There are more Rainbow Skydivers 'in the hiding' than expected, that I'm trying to invite out to the event, too. And again, this event is 100% hetero friendly. Lots of the on-site organizing is being done by many enthusiac dropzone jumpers, including these straight girls (warning NSFW photo!)

I remember the famous "Rainbow Boogie" Speaker Corner thread: Why is there a need for a "gay day" for skydiving? Or any other kind of "day"? (Posted by someone Feb 21, 2006, after Rainbow Boogie 2006 announced. It extended, way out, to 23 pages long...!) Rainbow Boogie never was gay-exclusive, but our aim was to unify all the world's gay/les/bi/trans skydivers (and supporters), so at the time we used a "Gay Day" tagline. Over the years, Rainbow Boogie has evolved, so our 3rd event this year doesn't really highlight "gay day" anymore. In fact it ended up a majority of the on-site organizing for 2009 was spontaneously by the enthusiac straight regular jumpers at Skydive Cross Keys, including these straight girls [warning NSFW photo] Even our Facebook Event RSVP page has a tagline: "100% Hetero Friendly".

Don't you mean moving both toggles to the inside of a turn, to counter the asymmetric flare?

I have a friend of mine who uses that and I hear good things about it. To the OP -- lots of good advice in this thread. Go to one of the few 'big boys' dropzones, talk to a few Anvil Brothers comrades for ideas, some of which are linked to in other dropzone posts. Either way, work hard to at least keep some "muscle in the mix" -- even if you can't lose weight, do whatever you can that your body lets you, to at least keep muscle strength to compensate for the extra weight. (I'm sure you already do, but just covering this base, just in case.)

I believe it goes something, approximately along the lines of: Light wingload -- Very strenous to flare, prepare to PLF, but much better than no-flare. That's your student. (Fortunately for students, one-handed asymmetric flare is probably difficult to do unintentionally, since it requires a much larger differential pull on the toggles, to cause a big student canopy to turn.) Typical/medium wingload on square -- Easiest to do a standup landing with a one-hand flare. Canopy is quick-recovering, so unintentional asymmetric flare is not common (but can still happen). That's me. High wingload on elliptical -- Very twitchy, more tricky with control inversion if you're not used to it. The reserve may be much safer for one-arm control, or still-stowed-brakes landing. .... Either way, best to do practice up high to determine if this is something you can successfully do. At least when one is sufficiently experienced, to make their own decision about this situation. (rather unusual emergency, but still common enough to need to know what you'd do in this situation)

I like #5 and #6 the best too. The last one, #6, is probably the most 'forgiving' 30-way, as long as you can successfully keep the 6-way star strong. You may have to launch your 6-way star base as a 4-way first, with two experienced floaters quickly docking in "on the hill", to create the 6-way. This is often more reliable than trying to chunk the 6-way out, but if you find good jumpers that can chunk out a 6-way star, then go for it. Make sure the base is not all the same color -- have a good contrast -- one person of a highly contrasting color, helps greatly in other people figuring out their radial (correct "o'clock" position, i.e. correct angle) ... You've suceeded in creating a formation that would be fairly easy for anybody who has any reasonable experience at 20-ways (including being near the back of an Otter). Now, the next step is we need to make breakoff simpler... Most 30-ways can safely be done in just 2 breakoff waves, so you may wish to design the formation slightly differently so that it's easier to have just 2 breakoff waves than 3 breakoff waves. One example is a staggered whacker. Turn one of the red guys into a stinger. Put the remaining 3 red men off the left leg of the stinger. Put the yellow men off the right leg of the red guy docking on the stinger. The yellow whackers now points in the opposite direction as the red whackers. Now both whackers can easily break off simultaneously in the same breakoff wave. (Alternatively, skip the stinger, and keep the 4 red men where they are, while only moving the yellow men to point in the opposite direction, to take advantage of the breakoff-airspace gap between the red men, but it may be a little crowded if you don't use stingers to push the whackers slightly further away from the base, to allow a safe 2-wave breakoff for a 30-way. My opinion is, use the stingers off a 6-way base, if you choose good jumpers, then it kind of helps strengthen the 6-way star base, especially if you plan to use a 40-way that is similiar to this 30-way) Don't forget to design a breakoff diagram. Many good big ways have a breakoff diagram. Examples are 6000', then 5500', and a 4500' wave. Sometimes outer waves are spaced 500 feet apart, with the final wave spaced 1000' (tell everyone not to overtake the previous wave, and tell everyone in the base to do a very short track). If you reduce the breakoff waves to 2 and still get good easy radial separation for all the outers, then you can gain an extra 3 seconds of skydive to allow the 30-way to build, by having only two breakoff waves, with just a 5500' breakoff wave and a 4500' breakoff wave. Most good 30-ways seem to be structured around a two-stage breakoff. That said, if you're doing a higher-than-usual-altitude skydive or the jumpers are good at big ways, then 3 stages for a 30-way is just fine, but it's useful to design for fewer stages, as it is easier to add extra levels when you expand the record. If you're doing growth of a record, make sure your expanded formation diagrams (30, then 40, then 50, then 60) are very similiar to each other, this often can easily be done by adding additional whacker layers outside the base. (To a certain limit, anyway)

Cellphone battery, as I'm told (and probably a worried spouse?)

Clarification: I was referring to the second image in the second post. Which means, it's #4. (filenames are numbered). Explanation of terminology: Zipper -- the red guys in your #1 are called zippers, because they lock together like a zipper. Zippers can be multiple layers deep. Stinger -- the yellow guys in your #1 are called stingers. It's a pointy end that dock on the very end of a zipper, so that is why it's called a stinger. Loops -- in your other diagram, the yellow guys in #4 are called 5-way loops because it is 5 yellow men at a time. Loops is a line of side-by-side skydivers that are connected on both ends. Whackers -- They are like loops but are connected on only one end. The 400-way World Record www.theworldteam.com used a lot of whackers, because whackers are easier to build than loops, they can safely distort more and still be a successful formation. In a whacker, whackers are easier than loops, because only one person needs to be in an exact location to dock, rather than two persons at the opposite ends of a loop. "I suggest only having three zippers on the first formation, instead of a zipper between every base pair. Then build whackers off the stingers. " In other words: In diagram #1, you have six sets of zippers in the first formation. Remove every other zipper (every other pair of red men), and move them as whackers that dock off the legs of the stingers (yellow men) Now please re-read my post and katecooper's post, with the understanding of this terminology.

Wow, should I contact the big way organiers? I got the personal email addresses of the Perris big way organizers. Please PM me for them, or if you want me to forward a link to your message. Alternate communications channels: - www.p3skydiving.com - manifest [at] skydiveperris [dot] com - jen [at] square1 [dot] com email addy (Jen, helping organize the big ways)

They can still run, using virtualization (Virtual PC and similiar software). More convenient than dual-booting.

Broken shoulder/arm.... Upon tests I did at high altitude a couple years ago, I've decided (for MY personal case) under a non-elliptical square that's not heavily loaded at all, I'll be having one hand on both toggles, controls are inversed that way, pulling left turns right, pulling right turns left. I found I would only have the strength to do a 3/4 flare (it's hard to do with one hand), but that'll be enough to do a standup landing on sufficient windy days, with preparation to PLR the landing. I also tested one-toggle-accidentally-released / one-toggle-still-stowed situation by steering differentially with one toggle, but flare is more dangerous. IIRC, there's a dz.com post someone successfully controlling and landing, flaring with one hand, so seems it has been done before. I think it was a low-timer with dislocated shoulder, but can't remember. Under a small elliptical, it could potentially spin out of control if I tried to unstow a brake one by one, so be careful. And a student may not understand controlling well enough to aim the canopy safely to landing with just one hand, and easily break legs landing at full glide with no flare, rather than unstowed half brakes... So ignore my post please unless it makes total sense.

Hello kemal, The second of the two is better, in my opinion, but it depends on the formation... Although I do not have yet extensive experience at being load organizer of a big way (20-way max), I have been to many big way camps, events, as well as mini-record attempts (Deaf World Record, Gay Way World Record) and have observed successes and failures. I load-organized the last 12-way Gay Way World Record (successfully, with two sub-100 jumpers, and the base never funneled), and will be load organizing the next 20-way Gay Way World Record. (with the assistance of a couple of others) Thus, I have a perspective of what it takes for a zoo-load big way to success. It is important that all jumpers are safe at tracking and canopy in traffic, so test-jump all the lower timers if possible... So the questions really are: - What are the skill levels involved? - How many attempts over how many days? - Is this semi-zoo? - Safety considerations? - Will there be resources/someone with big way skills to tutor the less experienced big way jumpers (i.e. Perris Camp style) during video debrief, or are you sticking to highly experienced big way jumpers? For a typical 30-way jump, let me assume you're doing only one weekend of attempts (2 days), possibly with a slightly zoo-ish audience (some 100-jump wonders who's already proven safe in canopy and tracking, mixed in with some 1000-jump people who mainly did tandems or freefly, mixed in with lots of people with real big way experience) .... If we are aiming for success especially with people who don't regularly jump big ways, there are some considerations that I don't like about your design: - Funnel-resistant base might be necessary if the base doesn't do practice 6-way exits in the days prior to the big way, and you've got a shortened event. For small big ways, the exit should be 4-way linked. Double-gripped (all arms gripping each other's shoulder grips) 4-way star works wonderfully and often recovers even when flipped upsidedown. Funnel proofing the base can save a lot of time, even if you have two experienced floaters merge in for a 6-way. Nothing is more annoying than consecutive base funnels; often done when cramming too many inexperienced jumpers into a too-large base. - Flyway routes to the inside of the formation Although your formation is OK with experienced big way jumpers, your formation does not provide enough room if one of inside people is late. This causes traffic congestion while people wait for others to go into slots. This is why whackers, in spiral and pinwheel formations are popular. They allow, in many cases, people to fly to the inside without slowing down the outer people docking. If a 30-way is your first formation of the day, I suggest a simpler one that has less layers of potential congestion. ...Fallrate optimization Your formation is going to fall slow, as people will be stretched out trying to grip everyone with both arms. That makes people big. That makes formation fall slower. That makes people on the outside go low. Especially if they are not experienced at this. Better use whackers instead. ...Practice/test jumps You may wish to have 2 groups of 15-way or 20-ways test jumping formation, and to help slot people in the larger planned formation. Also to test the skills, and test the reliability of the base. Also to possibly cut...er...move a few people early to the "reseserve team" that jumps concurrently with the big ways, if you're concerned on getting a successful state/world record as quickly as possible in the fewest number of attempts, they can even come back for a re-jump for bigger record after the successful record, possibly. ...Exit optimization Easy-well-designed 30-ways are easier than harder-designed 20-ways, and also 15 people empty more quickly out of two Twin Otters, than 20 people from one Twin Otter. (so for success, don't cram the planes if you don't have to) ... So optimization for all kinds of jumpers is important. Where do you put the least experienced big way jumpers in your 30-way? The more experienced? Do they do best in the base? Can they dock quickly in the middle wave? Will they avoid going low when docking on the outer? Will they block people who are late for the formation? Will the formation fall slow or fast? Do we have enough time to practice and test the formation (i.e. challenge quality), or are we mainly concerned with maximizing success (i.e. successful state record) with a semi-zoo load? - I have to turn a zoo load into a successful 20-way this coming August 28th, and I intend to design several formations that I can use, based on test jumps. We also have a 30-way in contingency, just in case, and I have a more-experienced big way organizer who will work with me on this, if this needs to happen. Wish me luck.

The famous "scam the scammer" ploy inspired by P-P-Powerbook.

Wait until Friday, and ask them for FedEx Saturday delivery. More expensive, less money in scammer's pocket.

Right from the start, I had to learn how to pack a lightly jumped (under 200 jump) Sabre 170 into a container made for a 150. Eventually, I learned how to contain everything without using the bag, and bagging is now the fastest part of my packing procedure. Oh, and definitely drink up on some Gatorade or similiar replenishing drink especially on a hot day, it will help the dizzy stars stay out of your eyesight.

Well, now that the economy is coming back, SkyVenture may want to prepare for upcoming sales. They may have had a dry spell for a year or so. They don't want Skyventure investors to be too embarassed to pitch Skyventure to their investor friends. Even paying $100 to that high school geek who designs kick ass websites, will probably get this moving further along!

Until the tail rotor shaft sucks in a a bunch of fur and gets stuck to the cat. I had to cut a micro heli off of my sister's cat last Christmas I brought a $20 cheapie Air Hogs helicoptor (it may actually be the same brand as the one pictured but mine different shaped ad mostly foam for the base), the cheap foam R/C heli that you can simply suddenly stop midair, and it does not get damaged when it comes crashing to the ground. I accidentally discovered that a friend's cat loved to chase that helicoptor (which was slightly smaller than a robin bird), including leaping up for it. I simply let go of the controls and let the helicoptor die everytime the cat came too close. The cat bats at it for a while, and then steps away, whereupon I right it up on a flat surface and take off again, re-interesting the cat. Also, the plastic blades and motors are pretty weak, that isn't likely to tangle on fur no matter how hard I tried. (unless maybe it was a persian cat) Even when the cat pounced on the helicoptor with full spinning blades, it wasn't deterred as the weak plastic blades stops quite suddenly when swatted at by a paw, so it seems pretty safe, but best to stop the blades just right before the cat touches the heli.

Hey, Is it me, but doesn't anyone think www.skyventure.com needs to refurbish their website? It's mostly a 2004 design, some outdated information, and they probably need to keep things looking professional for their investors...

They should bring noise meters and a photography crew to Skyventure Montreal. Skyventure Montreal is constructed only 30 feet away from a movie theater! I am told you can't hear Skyventure Montreal in the movie theater room. That said, is this a recirculating or a non-recirculating tunnel planned?

I bet your wife is using a boring corporate BlackBerry Curve. They are pretty crappy BlackBerries, I agree with quade here -- Curve's are SO 2005. But newer BlackBerries are more 'so 2008'.

Totally understand -- some people don't want smartphones. BTW, some people purchase BlackBerry with EMAIL TURNED OFF -- (no paid data) -- and use them purely as phones and SMS texting devices. Many kids in high school seem to be doing that, to out-text their classmates. And pay only a few bucks a month of pay-as-you-go, or cheap $15 subscriptions... Apple and RIM are selling roughly similiar amounts of units per month, for different target audiences. They are both great devices. Personally, I wish I could combine the advantages of a BlackBerry with the advantages of an iPhone. They are both slowly converging in each other's territories, though...