mdrejhon

Hey Jumpdude, Back when I was promoting Rainbow Boogie 2006, I spent a few hundred dollars on Google Ads advertising www.rainbowskydive.com in Year 2006, partly because of this URL of a Skyride home DZ, as I had to compete. I really do not support an ASC URL, due to Skyride's 'sleazy' history. This ASC URL shows up as #1 on Google for a search of "gay skydiving", so in order to be on the first page, I had to use Google Ads. It was a matter of principle that a few eyeballs got redirected to my site, rather than ASC's. (For those who ask -- Rainbow Boogie 2006 was the world's first gay skydiving boogie, which I organized along with other people. It was also hetero-friendly too; we even had a 36 way skydive that consisted of about 10 gay/lesbian jumpers and 26 straight jumpers.)

You mean the google ads I purchased? They were more targetted towards tandems, the people who aren't familiar with skydiving. I never had a problem with experienced skydivers searching "gay boogie" or "rainbow boogie" (rainbowskydive.com came top anyway), but I had a problem with potential tandems searching "gay skydiving" (ASC came at the top). My research of search trends (Google Ads statistics of the number of times the ad showed, and number of clicks) indicated that traffic went up with people starting to search for gay skydiving, especially after hearing about Rainbow Boogie, or through media coverage. Or people coming across my dropzone posts during 2006. Some would get Skyride's "gay tourist trap" page instead of the Rainbow Boogie I organized during 2006. Not many came to the event as a result of ads or articles, but a few did. Either way, it was a matter of principle that the publicity in the gay magazines/papers indirectly advertised the home DZ of Skyride, so I had to compete with that, at one point, raising the cost per click so that my link would stay at the top and always show on certain search terms. This adds up... Rainbow Boogie did get a few (not many) gay tandems, including one lesbian from the Phillipines (who was at OutGames, but wanted to do a tandem). It was on the last day, after almost everybody had left the dropzone, but she impressively spent a whole month of her own salary just for that tandem! Anyway, it's now all low key until the next Rainbow Boogie.

I would think something like that would be more offensive then a bad joke at the dz. I should bill them for all my Google Ads and see what happens.

It is impressive how the Airbus kept in one piece despite this. I have seen shows (Discovery's Mayday, etc) where an airplane immediately cartwheeled or broke into pieces when one of these engines touched the water, like a scoop, and the airplane disintegrates. It helps that the water was very calm. And when gliding below 10 feet, putting it down quickly to make sure both engines start 'scooping' water at the same time to prevent cartwheeling. (The thought of slamming a jet onto the water quickly from a 10-to-20 foot planeout, sounds like no fun) I am no pilot except under canopy, but this is a very successful water landing of a full fledged commercial jet, even if it's merely an Airbus A320!

Based on the photos on facebook, the facade is almost complete! There's a tunnel camp now being organized for weekend of April 2 through 5th. Inquire within.

Yes, ASC. Yes, the owners of the infamous Skyride. Yeah, the irony. That's why I spent over $100 (a few hundred totally, actually) in Google ads when I designed www.rainbowskydive.com back in 2006, to couter-weight Skyride. Google searches kept ranking that ASC URL too high. That way when someone searched "gay skydiving", at least the RainbowSkydive.com website would at least come on the first page, as a paid advertisement. Fortunately, google searches for "gay skydiving" (and similar phrases) now bring up the Rainbow Boogie site on the first page of Google search results nowadays, usually in the top 4 results. No need for paid Google ads just to show up on the first page of results, thankfully.

Gulp. I feel as if I have a scheduled high-speed mal coming up at around jump #587 or thereabouts. I think the dust devil my canopy nearly collapsed in during September, gave me that hint. Does it mean it's time to update my will, just in case?

The risers on my Sabre 170 loaded at 1.1 is very high. You are slightly more heavily loaded than I. I can only barely pull it down, but I am now doing double-front straight-in swoops that more than double my normal surf-the-turf distance. But practice at full altitude, of course. Get appropriate dropzone help for bringing double-fronts all the way to near the ground. Go to half brakes. Go to full glide quickly (i.e let go of brakes, raise the toggles quick). As the canopy surges forward, grab front risers and pull both down immediately. You'll get much lighter front riser pressure for the first 3 to 4 seconds after suddenly letting go of brakes. Enough time for double-front approaches. Beyond that, I have to do a chin-up on the risers essentially to continue to hold them down beyond that. Try to see if you're able to at least practice double fronts before you downsize. Also experiment with how easy it is to steer using the front risers to keep yourself balanced and flying straight (usually easy at these wingloadings), and experiment with letting go of the front risers suddenly (which is generally safe to do so on most canopies) Practicing chin-up exercises can help, too.

I can now pack with no packing weight if I pack on grass, although I tend to drag the rig slightly so I need a few more feet of packing 'runway' in that case. A tent stake solves that problem. I have a weight belt with only 8 lbs of removable weight (in 1lbs and 2.5lbs increments), and it is heavy enough to keep it in place, unless I'm packing on slippery painted concrete.

It took me 5 minutes, because my canopy floated onto a thorny bush. There were bits of that throughout the pasture, and I happened to land near one, and I had to pry my canopy off that bush very carefully in order to not rip fabric! I wasn't out of the pasture field for at least 10 minutes after I figured out the safest way to get past the barbed wire fence, and it took me almost 20 minutes before I was at the side of a road, since I was near the opposite side, and had to walk through partial forest when I got over the barbed wire. I have to say that was an adventure -- the most entertaining aspect was looking at the cows and horses from the other side of the barbed wire fence, as I made it back to the road through rough areas on the other side of the road. A thrilling exercise in creativity to get back to the road, without damaging my gear!

Many used gear still come with Sabre originals. This is a fairly old airfoil, but excellent. I would add Sabre (original) to the good list with the following caveats: (1) It must use the PD recommended replacement oversize slider, to soften hard openings. You can measure the slider and verify with PD, and get a replacement if necessary. (2) It is relatively low-jump (i.e. 200-300 jumps instead of 1000+ jump) (3) Wingload is appropriate (i.e. something your entire dropzone staff trusts you on) Started on mine more than 300 jumps ago at jump #59 (I also weighed a little less, so the wingloading was less than now), still jumping the same one mostly, and also learning how to swoop on it before downsizing to 150.

Hey, You might want to search some of my old posts about my Rainbow Boogie 2006 promotion (the world's first gay skydiving event), and about www.rainbowskydive.com. I generally don't have a problem and I'm usually low-key -- I'm pretty indifferent to gay jokes, and don't like stirring things up, but rather focus on the positives. Keep tuned to the next Rainbow boogie (dates and location are not yet announced), and also join the Yahoo RainbowSkydivers mailing list if you want to find other gay skydivers, which are pretty few and far-in-between. For the last boogie, about 50% of the attendance specific to the boogie was straight, with people bringing their friends from U.S. There was gay attendance from U.K., Europe, Australia, and even a lesbian tandem from Phillipines. I realize this is the speaker's corner, but since you're banned from the Bonfire, I'll post here anyway. (Something I rarely do -- I'm not much for the drama of Speaker's Corner.)

I have discreetly reported when I got a canopy airspace incursion (a get-it-homitis guy flying a right-hand landing pattern overlapped with my and others' left-hand landing pattern). I did not snitch on who it was because it was still simply yellow alert -- 200 feet of horizontal separation when he turned away from flying towards me at the same altitude as I, but what I did was to ask the manifest to make an announcement about following landing patterns. I have also, embarassingly, landed in the wrong direction in a main landing zone, and someone looked out for me. It goes both ways.

Try jumpsuit rental for now -- then after you're off student status, they shouldn't have problems letting you jump a jumpsuit with red grips.

What is using velcro doing with the type of the canopy? True you're right -- theoretically, one could have hard housings AND velcro on the same risers... Just something I've never seen although I'm sure some do it that way. (Hard housings appears to be a relatively new development, that often goes hand in hand with newer stows) As long as the mechanism is toggle-unstow-resistant, anyway, more important for ellipticals that may go into linetwists upon such an unstow mal... (I don't think Velcro had many of those types of mals anyway, based even on my limited experience!) To another poster, I agree, the need for freefly safety of containers was a good thing, but I do agree that the baby did get thrown out with the bathwater -- I miss the velcro stows. And that's often the case in the software industry too, where I work!

That's what I do with my helmet when I travel for skydiving. However, sometimes if I pack it in a smaller luggage, there's not much room for padding. So I just stuff the outside baggage pocket with some stuff to make sure it's not a problem. The bottom surface of my luggage is hard, so I don't need to put much there. Lots of baggage piled on top of most skydiving helmets won't be your main worry -- it'll be blunt-force trauma, like corners banging into each others, punching holes and all. Just pack as if you're shipping.

The good news: Gear that you need is in high demand. If you MANAGE to nab some *good* used gear that are a proper fit for your situation (190 sq feet), you can resell it at the same price, or near, in just a year or two from now. This size you're looking for is an extremely popular 'first gear' size, which has very low depreciation if you pay 'used' to begin with. As you witness, these gear sizes show up used, rarely and sell out fast because this is a popular first-rig size. For a poor student, the prospect of buying new and then getting an instant 30% depreciation is pretty scary -- just like driving a freshly purchased car off a car dealer lot. But this is less the case if you buy a good used well-maintained 10-year-old Honda/Toyota in a private sale, use it for six months, then resell it for almost the same price. If you are hell bent on buying new, consider this option: You might get some excellent package deal through a place like SQUARE 1 that allows you to get free gear rentals while you make payment instalments towards your new gear, and then while waiting for the gear to be custom manufactured for you. If you are near one of them, this is definitely worth considering. For the SQUARE 1's and similar: If you are in California, check out Skydive Perris. If you are in or near Arizonia, check out Eloy (Skydive Arizona). If you are in Florida, check out Cross Keys. Factor this into your consideration.

I can confirm that they are Canadian airplanes. It was manufactured by de Havilland Canada -- and Canada has an influence on it being a good bush plane, as well as and excellent ability to fly in cold conditions. At the time, many Canadian country airports (outside metro areas like Montreal and Toronto) were bush-like conditions including mid-forest and northern airports. The excellent cold-flying abilities have led to Twin otters being used as a workhorse for Antartic bases today.

Properly maintained velcro seems to be pretty reliable. Before I replaced my risers, my original low-jump Vector 2 had the original velcro toggle stows for main risers (risers had less than 200 jumps since the mid '90s). The velcro stows functioned 100% reliably. Now I've since upgraded the risers (front riser loops, non-velcro toggles, etc) and I have had two jumps with stuck toggles on non-velcro toggle stows. On both jumps, I freed eventually. The risers I have will not wear as quickly as velcro, but initially velcro is more reliable and mistake-proof -- but only until the velcro gets worn. Then the mals start happening. If velcro didn't start having some nasty problems when it got worn, we'd still be using velcro today on main risers, at least for non-ellipticals. It's still used in reserves because it seems so damn reliable when it's good quality and well-maintained and not worn out. 6 month reserve pack cycles will benefit velcro toggle stows on reserve risers for this reason because it will make it wear more slowly.

Chubba, that's normal -- sometimes the slider is so balanced to the canopy, and the canopy having similiar opening characteristics at wide varieties of speeds, the openings can 'feel' similiar in subterminal versus full speed. If the slider is small and/or mesh, a canopy will open harder and faster in a terminal deployment. If the slider is very oversize, a canopy can (in SOME cases) snivel more softly in a high-speed deployment than subterminal, burning lots more altitude to slow down. There are other variables, like how long the canopy has been packed without having been jumped, to age of canopy, and other factors. (Rigs stored for 2 months without repacking will often open very soft) So it's no wonder the answers about opening speed (either in duration or in altitude burn) in subterminal versus terminal, varies quite a bit.

Or an outer-wave breakoff from a 100-way, and ending up having a complete canopy at 2000' or a hair-under on some jumps.

Speaking of long walks back to dropzone being better than a heli ride to the airport... Out landings can also be an 'adventure'... An additional bigway challenge occurs when you're opening at just 2000 feet. Quick decisions that need to be made, clear airspace, safe canopy piloting, locate dropzone, landing area, decide where to land, etc. Basically, pulling at ~2500 feet and having a complete canopy approximately 2000 feet -- you sometimes have little time to decide where to land safe. As an outer-wave breakoff tracking for almost 30 seconds, you can track very far away from the dropzone, which forces you to be creative with your out landings sometimes. This was my most 'interesting' / 'challenging' out landing. I was tracking on a radial directly away from the dropzone as an outer wave breakoff, helped by a headwind too -- then I was open over the forest north of Spaceland. So that's a fight to fly back to the dropzone. So I had to find essentially a large backyard to land in -- I remember having to land with the cow patties in a small 5-cow field. It flanked with heavy obstacles on all 4 sides by forest on the opposite side of a forest as the dropzone, because I was tracking directly away from the formation. When open, I was being blown away from the dropzone and it looked borderline with power lines if I flew into the wind -- not much wind penetration as I hoped. So instead of gambling I could make it back, I turned around, flew away from the dropzone, started my alternate pattern, and landed on the opposite side of the forest, in a cow pasture south of Burns road (14200 on Google Maps), surrounded by forest. Cows were stunned at my free demo landing for then -- they stared at me as if I was an alien. Took a while before the Spaceland staff found me. I almost had time to pack my parachute before they finally found me... No cow patties on me, thankfully. I had to scale a barbed wire fence though. Someone asked if I opened low on that one. Nope -- it was just a typical first-wave big way breakoff, median altitude amongst everyone. Side Note: It's always useful to learn to pack without a packing mat, packing weight or packing stake. Not always as fun, but useful for these long waits.

Not really. I did observe, however, P3 teaches the importance of tracking teams (which automatically reduces many kinds of tracking problems), so they are already more focussed on that than the cookiecutter 20-way camps I had been to for a long time. As well as other tracking aspects than other bigway camps I had gone to. I observed that video debrief attention to tracking teams at the Texas Winter Bigway camp was good, but that only covers the 180 degree turn, tracking team formation, and first few seconds of a track, and only in the videos that allowed such debrief. It hasn't been until I went to P3 for the first time in May 2008, that I learned the concept of the 'tracking team'... I'm not saying there isn't room for improvement though. It may be that there hasn't been a massive wake-up call lately such as this freefall collison fatality after a bigway breakoff. No kidding -- I imagine they ARE going to focus on these little details a lot more now with this fatality. Hopefully!

About 150, plus 4 hours tunnel during this year. Mostly bigway camp jumps, with the rest being 4-ways, smallway RW, and tracking practice jumps, with a few high altitude hop-n-pops thrown in for the mix. I was going to have 175 if I made ZHills for the Markku 40-ways, but I'm now between jobs, so that nixed the Florida trip for me. No worries, a 50-jump 10-day vacation at Skydive Perris coming this May, for two consecutive P3 camp weekends, including more 100-ways again.

New photo of Skyventure Montreal posted during December, on the International Bodyflight Association website: http://tunnelflight.com/pages/image.php?it=iba_tunnels&id=222 Almost completely enclosed now. It looks on track for an approx. March 2009 opening.