mdrejhon

Breaking news... Today, June 2, At E3 2009, Nintendo announced the Wii Sports Resort (the sequel to Wii Sports), (link) "He showed a skydiving game where you control your skydiving Mii by just angling the Wii Remote." (link) "The game begins with skydiving, and uses the MotionPlus-enabled Wiimote to control the player, which shows how well a Pilotwings game would work on the system" (link) "Skydiving drops players' Miis from an airplane high above the Wii Sports Resort island, allowing them to rotate and twist their Wii remotes to pose and attach to other synchronized skydivers" This apparently is a RW skydiving videogame, see screenshot below -- it's very promising for a 'cartoony' skydiving game, even though it is pure arcade-ified action. Notice that although the skydiving Mii's aren't wearing helmets (they must be D licensed!?) the 2-way freefall formation in the attached screenshot looks body-accurate and the rigs look kind of plausible (i.e. based on real rigs, not based on Looney Tunes ACME rigs). Hopefully the actual action in the game, while simplified, is actually "realistic" enough that I can recommend this game to whuffos and I can tell them ("yep, you can actually do everything in this game, in real life skydiving!") ... I hope to try out this game when it hits the market, and maybe it'll prove up to its billing. (more screenshots - link)

One idea is, is to request a canopy course, after your freefall progression is completed, or ask for a couple of "I'd love to practice my landings in zero wind more" repeat student jumps. Although nobody except the instructors/witnesses can say what went wrong -- one can bring up that historically there is often a huge temptation to touch feet down before the flare's completed. One aims to flare so that you fly level with the ground; often a very slightly harder flare is necessary on certain larger canopies on zero-wind days to plane it out (flat horizontal glide) above the ground long enough to coast horizontally until it's slow enough for you to run out. It's always fast at the beginning of the glide but slows down as you glide some more over ground. This technique, may not necessarily apply to your canopy (especially if it's F111) and actually be dangerous, so hear your instructors out before you try anything new. Different gear (ZP versis F111) also makes it easier, but you did stand up your landings earlier, which means it should be possible to stand up a zero wind, the flare timing is just simply trickier for a new jumper. The point remains, is that flaring timing and length with the same gear is often different depending on wind and atmospheric conditions and it can often be confusing at first until you nail it.

That's one dedicated wife -- doing her best to keep him alive!

I road a ride similiar to the Skycoaster at the same park (as this Terminal Velocity ride) sometime in 1996, cemented my decision to try a tandem in 1997. (Eight years later, I became a student.) I suspect that a few of these 'extreme' rides, did bring a few skydivers into the fray... Now they're just, em, tame rides...

He has one tandem cutaway. Let me guess... Not his packjob? If so, that's one damn good packer! Actually... Scratch that, he's a damn good packer anyway, even if he packed that tandem cutaway.

Are you referring to the same landing, or two separate landings? Unless you meant a sort of a rolling slide (like the one that happened to me when I tripped over a big block of dried mud)

An observation. Reading up some history on the black civil rights movements with all the fiery rhetoric and debate back in those days. Now even today's opposition to gay marriage is pretty tame/muted in comparision. Even speaker's corner is totally tame. It really put things into perspective!

Agreed. But as you can see, it does not always happen -- see original poster. I'm not saying to make it an excuse to allow compressed exit delays, but in the real world, it unfortunately happens. A basket of multiple safety layers including what you say, AND also for some throw in some additional safey layers like tracking 90 degrees, also help to incrementally improve the safety, even if the exit delay was good. Not everyone holds themselves back from doing 10 seconds of max track, and especially students often need to be able to practice this. It also goes without saying that any loads with relatively new formation jumpers or students -- sidesliding freeflyers or extra tracking after a 2-way, etc -- there's an incentive to add extra layers of safety where possible, including the 90 degree rule, in the event that earlier layers of safety rules (like those you suggest) break down... Confluence of factors often happen: Freeflyers first instead, or newer skydivers, or extended tracks in small groups, or not tracking 90 degrees, or load full of small groups meaning lots of accumulated exit delays incresing pressure to exit faster, etc. It's very rare when all of these factors happen simultaneously, but it may be precisely what happened to the original poster -- from what I see. The perfect 'confluence' may have happened... TOTALLY agree, but see the 'layers of safety' above. I may have overemphasized the heading, so I will agree on that count too -- though I can't always rely on the group before and after me to avoid tracking too long, so it's to me and my buddy benefit to agree to the 90 degrees-from-jumprun in the plane too. (can be an independent decision rather than a dropzone rule too) That's assuming a well-spotted plane. But as we all know, there's often a slight fuzz to the spot, especially early in the day and especially with the first group gauging when to climb out. I don't mind landing out, so this is moot, but the last groups typically get impatient when waiting 55 seconds to exit -- so the blood pressure does go up a bit anyway. Now, this is rare, because usually there's three or four tandems at the back of the Twin Otter, and most 2-ways start dirt diving 4-ways when they realize they're all in the same Twin Otter on the manifest board...

And 4-way tunnel training is a cheap way to stay current in red zone skills of big ways. Lots of opportunities to learn to become burble-resistant by evading yourself from 'burble accidents', and fun if you practice a few blocks that requires fly-overs and fly-unders. If I catch the occasional tunnel sale ($500/hr) and when 4 of us go, we split this 4 ways, then it's only $125/hr. 60 minutes of freefall time for the price of 5 minutes worth of jump tickets! Often it's $200/hr at normal prices plus a coach (because at least one might need help to get into 4-way tunnel), still cheap at the price of 8 American jump tickets or 5 Canadian jump tickets, to do 60 jump tickets worth of 4-way skill training.

There were same-sex marriages, or similiar unions, in ancient greek, and in ancient rome, at least in certain parts for some time period. Also at some point in history, small parts of China and small parts of Africa also sanctioned same sex unions identical to gay marriage. Fascinating research available in books, on the Internet, and in recent university papers, and some very old texts that manage to survive. Then laws were made to ban gay marriage -- there's a legislation in 342 A.D. banning gay marriage or unions, pratically ending the sometimes loosely-interpreted rights that had apparently existed prior to around that time. Right near the boundary of the early Middle Ages. See, the debate is not new... While not widespread, or consistent throughout a particular empire, there are some pretty amazing history that's been covered up by centuries of extreme forms of various religions and the former taboo-ness of the subject...

That argument is totally fallacious. It just doesn't work that way in the real world, unless someone is intentionally trying to set up a court battle. No doctor or hospital is going to deny visitation in that situation. When it comes back to the subject of gay rights, I wish you were right, but... Google search "gay partner denied visitation rights" seem to contradict your post. More search terms include "hospital visitation rights for gays" Some of these are partners together for -- yes -- decades. It happened far more often in the past. I've seen newspaper articles about denied visitation rights from before the Internet boom days too, so it's probably all over microfilche in the libraries too. Although many hospitals now permit gay partners visitation rights, it hasn't always been that way. In the last 10 years, I have personally read local newspaper articles of partners being denied visitation rights. That said, one could argue you don't need marriage in order to be given visitation rights -- just simple rights. Fortunately, nowadays, all of Canada's hospitals, to the best of my knowledge, are now required to give visitation rights. (Though there might be a renegade or two left in Alberta or Nunavut that I'm not aware of) That's even if you're an unmarried gay, so while useful for visitation rights, one could argue marriage really is moot for this argument.

I agree, but I'm talking about "pressure", not what it should be. When you have 10 different 2-ways, no tandems, then all those delays add up. If you go to 10 second delays, you will not empty the Twin Otter until about 1.5 minutes between the first and last groups. The "GO GO GO!" pressure automatically can go up in such rare situations. That's the pressure factor I am talking about (technically I agree with you, though, but that wasn't my point I was trying to pass)... My observation was brought up because this person described a load that had many non-tandem 2-ways (described in the original post); and thus the 'pressure' equation -- the point I am trying to mention -- might have played a factor into making it a 5-second between exits, despite freeflyers exiting first. __________________ On another topic, but related: Most of us experienceds, myself included at times, have often just gone with the prevailing flow of delays and be super aware while tracking (And tracking 90 degrees too. The 90 degrees track from jumprun becomes a more important safety procedure for solo and 2-way precisely, in part, for this reason to avoid airspace enroachment, loads that have many solos and 2-ways are often exiting more tightly spaced (i.e. 5 seconds rather than 10 seconds), and thus, everyone doing 90 degree tracking helps. Problems start cropping up when you treat 10 separate 2-ways as bigways with long tracks at the end of them, despite short exit spacing between them). That said, I have no problems landing out and will not rush out being the last person out of the plane. There are times that many 2-way groups often forget to track 90 degrees from jumprun. That's not a problem for Cessna dropzones where the two separate 2-ways have the luxury of being lazy with exits (15 seconds delays between two groups have often happened, with no spotting problems). But for Twin Otter dropzones, the way some of them mandate a rule of tracking 90 degrees for all solos and 2-ways, makes a lot of sense partially because of the compressed exit delays inevitably caused by pressure caused by longer jumpruns caused by many different small (solo/2-way) groups...

I remember a jump I did where uppers were like that. It's more of a spotting issue when it comes to a 15-way, because that often fills up the plane with little or no other people. Part of the problem occurs when you have tons of 2-ways after each other, as it happened. For this, you are under more pressure to have shorter delays between exits, to squeeze everything into a single jumprun without a go-around.

I think it's neither support nor non-support. Officially, whitehouse.gov says Barack Obama "...supports full civil unions and federal rights for LGBT couples and opposes a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage" http://www.whitehouse.gov/issues/civil_rights/ ... I realize it doesn't mean supporting or opposing, but it suggest tacit support for states to make their own laws permitting gay marriage. Obama certainly isn't standing in the way of states making their own laws for-or-against. Obama, has been relatively quiet on the gay rights front, but I perceive that as mostly because of toeing the fine line.

I do wonder the money should have been better spent now (just settling for civil union status first, marriage later) and then wait half a generation later, to ensure a landslide victory. From my math calculations, a same-sex marriage certificate already cost California taxpayers over $5000 each because of the YES vs NO battle. California has some serious financial trouble to worry about, after all. For the moment, the average citizen probably needs help more than this issue. The freedom is there to relocate to another part of the country as well. Then again, I understand that the battle is very passionate on both sides. But how massive a fleet of skydiving aircraft can $100M buy? I'm glad that the ones who got married already, get to keep their marriage. It at least spares them some of the pain of doing it all over again next time it becomes legal.

It's pretty surprising how a lot of things have changed in half a generation. One decade ago, no country recognized gay marriages. A lot has changed since the Harvey Milk or the Stonewall days before I was born. I admit I am surprised it's legal in Iowa and it's not in California. Iowa is full of surprises - including Obama's first big break.

Out-tracking your instructor during AFF -- congratulations. Sometimes some new skydivesr just uxpectedly perform a specific task (such as this) very well. So I think that should be added as a factor as enroachment to the next group of skydivers -- the farther you can go in a track, the more likely you will enroach the next group. Normally being able to track well is great, and you DO need to practice your track. For most 2-way, one often doesn't need to track very far to get to safe airspace, and actually safer than airspace enroachment. Since many jumpers need to practice angle control during tracking, one idea to discuss with instructor is you may wish to intentionally track steeper (but inform your instructor/buddies about this intent) to get more familiar with angle control during tracking (for future tracking jumps, etc). That said, you will still often want to practice your best track for longer periods during some 2-ways, for the sake of pratice of your tracking skills. In this case -- the other suggestions made by others are good, like changed jump order, increased exit delay as much as 10-12 seconds, tracking 90 degrees off jump-run, etc. Also a pull at 4000 versus 3300 can also be explained by this: A 4000 pull to some people often means waveoff at 4000feet, reach at 3850feet, pilot chute release at 3700feet, and full canopy inflation by 3300feet under many canopies -- and many instruments often record the point *after* most of your vertical deceleration has occured. So the ProTrack or AltiTrack deployment altitude is often at least 500 feet lower than the pull altitude. It's something worth being aware of, why instruments measures altitudes almost 1K feet lower than what you clearly remember as the pull altitude. I'll echo the sentiments about curiously ask why the exit order (freefliers first, bellyfliers last) is the way it is, and if it remains that way, what adjustments may be made to compensate.

I have had a few high-speed wipeouts while downhill skiing (the league of skiing straight-down steep portions of double-black diamond slope) rolling with no injury, and it seems to have carried over when I tripped over a piece of caked mud during the May 2008 perris big way camps, during what I remember was a very hot and humid semi-turbulent zero-winder with weaker-than-expected flare - I was still at the high speed portion of my planeout, almost too fast to run out, but planeout too low. I just rolled and got lots of dirt on me. Landed rolling, with a diagonal roll across my back as well. I never was taught any PLF's during AFF/PFF, but I think there are 3 or 4 landings that I could have gotten hurt, possibly seriously, if I didn't 'roll' in some kind of manner. Another particularly memorable roll was an out landing in a fenced-in forrest-surrounded cow pasture north of Spaceland south of Burns road (thankfully, missed all the cowpies, but parachute floated down in half-meter high thorny bush, so took 5 minutes carefully peeling off all the nylon without ripping!) All the instances where I rolled, had considerable horizontal velocity, so more like 'parachute landing rolls' rather than 'parachute landing falls'. Though I daresay I'm more deficient at PLF's than PLR's, due to less experience of high-vertical-velocity low-horizontal-velocity events in my lifetime.

Wait till you jump on Twin Otters's, Skyvan's, CASA's -- or even one of the rocket powered King-Airs or lightly loaded Super Otter's and be at full 13K altitude in just about 10 minutes. On those jumps, you're often literally anticipating on the ground, not in the plane. (Although you probably have some door axiety now, like many student jumpers.) You'll notice at different dropzones.

Good jump for me to try sometime - the intentional preplanned get-low formation jump. I actually paid attention to my videos (to the best of my ability of the bullet points I was already aware watching for) and made very sure that I did not look W-shaped, or warning signs. Except for two of the 100-way jumps where I made subsequent adjustments, I was within the 1/3 to 2/3 area of my fallrate range. Not sure if you have actually seen the recent videos, but when I say slightly floaty, I still got 1/3 of my range left, meaning I wasn't struggling to fall fast. I discovered pulling up the sleeves a few inches on my slowfall jumpsuit, actually was able to sometimes put me on the faster side of my fallrate range for a floaty camp-league formation (there was 'fast' feeling moments too, not just 'floaty' feeling moments. But roughly three-quarter of the time I felt neither). Other times I pulled down my sleeves over my wrists and tightened my altimeter, but that was one of the jumps I was floaty on. So I knew I had safety margin to speed up my slowfall jumpsuit. Next jump, the sleeve readjust put me at a 50% point in my fallrate range, with the neutral position more similiar to my fastfaller+sweater but with the added fallrate range. So if the situation warrants I might stick with the expanded-fallrate-range configuration, at least until I have more tunnel time to even further finetune my slowfall abilities. (I actually wore some additional unnecessary weights for an hour in the tunnel while doing some 4-ways to help improve my formation flying abilities at different parts of my fallrate range, though I jettisoned the weights later in the day. I flew 2h45min of tunnel at Skyventure Montreal last month, shortly after it opened!) For formation camp jumps, including 20-way local ones, my fastfaller + sweater had sometimes not been enough, but for invitationals I may very well wear my fastfaller + sweater at first for outers, depending on which slot I am assigned, but I might also choose my slowfaller + weights instead depending on the exit, slots and skills found in the jump (the invitational is in only two weeks!) if I am assigned a very late diver slot, but I will almost definitely jump with the fastfaller first. If everyone wears weights in the entire 40way to make it a very fast falling 40way, it'll definitely mean I'll wear my fastfaller with no sweater, and throw on some weight too. Knowing history, I probably will be assigned the base or easy slot at first anyway, so I'll just end up wearing all the weights I own (plus borrow some). As my slowfall body position improves, and the events I get invited puts me in people of different skill levels, I'll definitely adjust my equipment. As they say, dress for success for the paritcular moment. Wish me good luck at my first invitational big way sequential.

MakeItHappen, Excellent observations and you may very well be right! But for now it wasn't too big, because: I was assigned near last-out of a trail-otter for all 18 jumps in the 100-way camp. So I was forced to use the slowfaller each and every time -- so I had plenty of opportunity to experiment with tuning the jumpsuit (pulling back sleeves, etc). For all other slots that I wasn't near-last-out I used the fastfall jumpsuit. Given my limited choice between my two existing jumpsuits, I think my jumpsuit selection was spoton most of the time. I was pretty close to the middle of my fallrate range on 80% of these jumps, and within 1/3-to-2/3 range on all jumps but two or three or so, with no near-max's or near-min's. But, yes, I actually became a little floaty on some jumps. I compensated by pulling up the sleeves a little, which worked perfectly on the 100-way final -- most jumps showed I looked pretty good, rather than floaty. I actually experimented with both jumpsuits on similiar jumps on the earlier 50-way camp, but for the 100-way camp they seemed to want to challenge me with last-out, so it was a total nonbrainer for me -- I needed the stopping power of the fastfaller more than the minor floatiness disadvantage which can easily be tuned out by jumpsuit adjustments/weight. Ideally, I need a jumpsuit somewhere right exactly in the middle between my two jumpsuits - a medium-fall speed jumpsuit, one tuned for future invitation-level bigway events. However, both jumpsuits have sufficient overlap that I can compensate by wearing a little weight in my slowfaller for now -- if I get provisional invite for a 200-way or bigger in Thailand, it may warrant me to purchase another jumpsuit since my fastfaller is clearly obviously too fast (I have recent photographs of 20-ways where people say I need to wear a sweater), while my slowfaller gives me a great advantage at camp-league 100-ways. I need a longer braking period in the fastfaller, even with my 5 additional hours of tunnel training since September 2008, so clearly I need something slower than the fastfaller, but I already recognize (as you do) the slowfaller can be a bit too slow for "fast" invitational bigways. I certainly noticed different fallrates even when docking at the end of a weedwhacker. Once I was surprised to actually find I near-maxed myself to fall slow in my slowfaller just maintaining level (not braking)! But on the last jump of the day, I was actually slightly floaty! Different jumps, people were managing to make it the whole big way fall much faster. I think the expanded fallrate range of the slowfaller came in handy that day -- adaptation to a wide range of fallrates. Now, for invitationals, fallrates should probably be more consistent, and can probably risk the slightly narrower range of my fastfaller, although if I am an outer last-out last-dock guy, I'd prefer something slightly slower than my fastfaller, unless even the outer whackers were wearing weights, too. It is true I'm not afraid of going fast in the slowfaller -- confidence builder -- On one jump, one person complained I was too fast and then abruptly stopped at the stadium's top edge, before I learned to be patient with the slowfaller. (The sheepdogs in front that I passed doing that: I apologized, and I should have followed closely instead -- I was only trying to get into the video frame before breakoff on the first day of the 100-way camp being last-out of a trail Otter!) It is true -- as you say -- I am sometimes too floaty, some of the 100-ways were perfectly in the middle of my fallrate range, while other 100-ways I had to fall slightly fast for or de-tune my jumpsuit a little. I also experimented with diving fast with my fastfaller jumpsuit (in the weekend-prior bigway camp), and was able to prevent myself from getting low, except once (because I was actually assigned last-out on a 20-way) where I switched back to the slowfaller. Had I been assigned a 2nd-wave breakoff or a floater slot on any plane, I'd likely have been wearing the fastfaller, possibly with weights. I did on some earlier-camp jumps. But on all 18 jumps of the second weekend (all 18 jumps were all 100-to-107way attempts!) -- last-out on trail otter on 14 jumps and near-last-out on 4 other jumps. Sheepdog for 14 jumps, no sheepdog on some of the jumps because I was assigned a slot that required me to fly to a whacker group mostly populated from a different trail plane, which gave me a fun "radial accuracy" challenge (I docked 100% of the time). I was also given a lot of kudos on one of the jumps of the 100 way camps for having perfect radial while parking waiting for neighbours, and I wasn't floaty on that particular jump. (But I was clearly, though, on a different jump). I'm not perfect mind you... I screwed up other things on certain things, on a first-day jump like passing 3 same-whacker neighbours to follow the neighbour in the weedwhacker in front (I was impatient waiting for my weedwhacker neighbours to get into video frame -- shame on me -- I then on later jumps switched focus to practicing better sheepdog skills. It was my first time being last-out on a trail-Otter on a 100-way, so was a very new slot for me, and I desparately wanted to be in the video frame regardless of my sheepdogs!), So for me in particular, given middle-of-fallrate-range on most jumps, the slowfaller came in really handy. For the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th days of 100ways I made my slot 100% of the time on the 100-way camp -- either dock or park -- with a jump that I had to briefly undock-and-redock (last person on whacker) when I found myself more floaty than middle fallrate -- I promptly equipment-adjusted on next jump -- the day prior I was impatiently waiting for sheepdogs (before I trained myself to be more patient) and decided to work on proximity skills with the sheepdogs -- that improved towards the end of the camp. Although at times I wish I had a 3rd jumpsuit in between the two, I had a great opportunity to use both jumpsuits and equipment select. I was pleased to find myself, much more frequently, in the middle of my fallrate range, with only minor occasions of lowness and minor occasions of floatiness... That said, I am stuck with these two jump suits, in today's economy. Weights+slowfaller will have to do for now, when I need a jumpsuit in between these two. No matter how much my skills improve, there will always be much bigger fallrate range in the slowfaller than the fastfaller -- I can fly the fastfaller almost better than I can fly the slowfaller 6 months ago, but any increases I make in my fallrate range in the fastfaller, also means I've also increased my fallrate range of the greatly-expanded-range of the slowfaller. In the slowfall, I loved being able to dive with speed with no fear of getting low, and often having to wait for sheepdogs (once I realized I didn't need to be slow, as I was at first), it was only when I was already in the stadium that floaty problems start -- and then when that happened, I made adjustments on subsequent jumps to de-tune my slowfaller for spot-on middle-of-fallrate on subsequent jumps - as you taught me so well last September 2008.... But on world record jumps (if I get invited) if even the 2nd and 3rd wave breakoffs are starting to wear weights to keep it fast falling, I'll definitely be using something my fastfaller, or something more similiar to my fastfaller even last-out or purchase a new medium jumpsuit (in a World Team color?) squarely in between these two jumpsuits. Needless to say, my experience at upcoming invitationals will tell me what kind of jumpsuit I will need to wear at such a record event, but I think both you and I already know it'll probably be something somewhere between my fastfaller and slowfaller. The question is, if it'll be closer to the spandex fastfaller or the balloon slowfaller. I feel that the slowfaller was a big boon to me -- even for the reasons you say (confidence building) -- the ability to dive as fast as I can, and still confidently park into the stadium (or next to sheepdog) on cue -- is indeed, a big confidence builder. I did do the same to the fastfaller, to better success this year (during the 50-way camp of course), albiet, I went low once (only once during all the bigway camps, this time around -- and only 5 feet low), so I did equipment-adjust for a re-jump of the same slot. Either way: I have lots to learn, I do, I do. Regardless. I'm just so happy I've been invited to my first 40-way sequential this year and looking forward to it! A subject for another thread, possibly -- but needless to say, I'll be able to drive to this one instead of fly. Big savings.

Anybody reading.... Count me in if 2 or 3 others want to share 2 hours of time with me on a Monday. I know a friend in New York City who's always happy to fly with me on whim, so we only need 2 more people. $125/hour/person for cheap 4-ways is a lot of fun, we are both sufficiently skilled enough (9+ hours me, 20+ hours him) to just leap into the tunnel and do our thing with minimal supervision by the tunnel spotter. If you've got similiar time, PM me to co-ordinate.

At Perris I had many opportunities to land a few one-step-forward or zero-step-forward zero-winders (basically, shutting down my canopy fully enough during zero-wind or near zero-wind). It helps that I was flying a Sabre 170 and it has just been freshly relined. I also flew a Pilot 150, which actually seemed tamer than my Sabre 170 (probably because a new 150 feels bigger than a 600-jump 170 that has lost some of it zero-porosity-ness) It's usually a very normal dynamic flare (two stage), but with a sudden sharper than usual stab (from 2/3 brake position to full brake position) one or two second before my canopy would have touched down. This is what many people call the "finishing the flare" thing -- Normally if I am still flying at full speed (i.e. there's lots of energy), doing a sharp stab of the brakes can be dangerous because it cause me to pop up massively, but I'm doing it when the flare is already weakened, most of my way through a landing - 1 or 2 seconds before the canopy would normally force me to touch down, I give a quick/fast stab (sometimes thrusting my brakes down as hard as I can, from 2/3 brake position to full brake position, 1 or 2 seconds before touchdown) at the end to "shut it down", it suddenly changes the angle of attack to turn the canopy into a giant airbrake, stopping my forward motion, while giving enough of a weak pop-up effect to only move me upwards a few inches. This, I only do during zero-wind situations, to mostly eliminate a zero-wind run-out. It may be a matter of tuning the timing of the flare shutdown, based on wind conditions... Do the flare shutdown too early, it gives you a huge pop-up that makes things a little exciting. Do the flare shutdown too late, it does nearly squat. Some people even call this a three stage flare, but I prefer "dynamic flare". First stage is flare to plane out, second stage is to maintain planeout, third stage is flare shutdown. Often for one canopy in one wind condition, this often looks like a medium-speed stroke from 0 to 1/3 brake (level-out start), slow stroke from 1/3 to 2/3 brake (level-out maintain), then fast sudden punch-stroke from 2/3 brake to full brake position (shutdown) -- Often all the steps are blended into two stages, to keep it simple for skydiving students -- this is sufficiently good enough for you to land safely at your current level, even if not always optimally. Sometimes other instructors just call it "dynamic flare" because two stage is a little fuzzy of a definition. I did misjudge the approach once thinking I could fully zero my horizontal, and got some dirt on my jumpsuit trying to stand up a zero winder instead of running it out. So I still always have to be prepared to run it out. Forunately, the Perris dirt has been pretty soft, having been recently tilled. It also helps me land downwind landings (up to 10mph) without tumbling -- most of my recent downwinders have been successful runouts... (a zero-step zero winder means you have enough room to run out a downwinder, for winds up to the speed of your running abilities) Most people at your level aren't yet familiar with this flare shutdown trick, so don't worry if you don't already know this stuff -- it'll eventually come to you... That said, at your jump numbers, don't try anything I say -- it could inadvertently be dangerous -- get an instructor or canopy coach to teach you the magic of shutting down a canopy on cue (the "flare shutdown" stab at the end of a flare).

Yeah, you were one of them to tell me during the May '08 camp! It sure pays for itself even though I paid Bev over $400 to "pimp" it out with all the features I wanted and triple-rush (+$60 fee) it to me!

That would be a 999-person demo jump... Given a blanket government authorization, a big enough landing area (like the grounds of an entire unopened international airport that just completed construction -- like for 2006), you don't need demo jumpers -- just people like you and me... Just to be clear, demo jump being a mass-drop, not the 500-way formation world record planned in 2011.