mdrejhon

Discovered this little gem recently. This year is apparently the 200th anniversary of the first life saved by parachute. (In this case, from a burning hot-air balloon) From this PDF file (page 1 and 2), and also supposedly mentioned in the Guiness Book of Aircraft

Hello, I haven't actually landed yet with double fronts, but I've gotten them to a lower altitude to the point where I can see a little increased ground rush (if I chinup). Basically, ending it at 150-200 feet. I don't want to be a competitive swooper, but I'd like to at least land with double fronts gradually. Already have Germain's book here... However, the front riser pressure of my Sabre 170 is rather intense to the point where I hate using the dive loops because they hurt my hands, rather grab the front riser at the S-Links (I even feel I have a better grip too). I have to actually pull a lot on the front risers or even chinup, to feel noticeably increased breeze in my face -- it's not very responsive, intense input required and I worry I'd drop the front risers from that chinup (rather than smoothly release them). Not a good thing at low altitude, even though it's definitely a bigger boat of a chute. I'll just stick to stuff like flare turns and such, get better at pushing it in these other ways. Understand this 170 as well as I can. Unfortunately it's also getting a little weaker in its flare too - being a nearly 500 jump canopy (with some accelerated wear-and-tear from early newbie packing back when I got it, and from recent exposure to abrasive Perris dust!) rather than a sprightly 175 jump canopy - so I can't do my flare turn carves as big as I used to. (I'm actually nervous to push the flare turns as much, due to the weaker flare now -- but this could change once I speed it up with some double fronts, only problem is the severe front riser intensity required to get noticeable extra wind) I'm starting to think I'll never start learning to swoop at ground level under this one -- maybe left-size to a different kind of 170 (Sabre 2) or get as good as I can with this 170 then downsize to 150 (which I've already demo jumped a dozen times for fun). I'd get lesser front riser pressure with either approach, or more comfortable stiff dive loops. Anyone think I should even dare try to swoop the 170 in a straight-in double front manner? Maybe wait until I got 500 jumps under 170, even -- and then do one level of downsize/leftsize in order to get that lighter front riser pressure. I'm not in a freaking hurry, but I'd like to push the Sabre 170 limits a little more eventually. Opinion? I know a good pro can swoop even a Sabre 230, but... (I'll probably take a canopy course within the next hundred jumps, but comments will help me decide on a canopy progression that could happen around the same time)

No comments about wingload, just some personal experience about my linetwists: Under my still somewhat big square boat (170, loaded between 1.15 and 1.2), I've had three cases where I had spinning linetwists and was able to kick out of them within 3 seconds. Worst was a 720 degree (two twists) and I was still able to kick out of that. Smaller ellipticals twist many times more and more quickly, with more G forces. If I go that far, it's probable I'll discover I'll need to pull silver when I realize I can't kick out of them. I guess if one has muscle memory to yank the correct toggle quickly before there are too many twists (too tight to pull toggle), I'm sure that would work fine if a reputable guy like Brian says it can potentially. Probably not going to be my approach, but could be workable, especially if the line was slippery enough (new lines would probably be easier than older dirty lines) -- if Brian Germain every makes it part of his cirriculum for spinning-linetwists recovery, I am definitely going to listen to him -- but it's still unorthodox, would rather wait until dozens of jumpers claim that the toggle-pull worked before I muscle-memory that technique. One thing I was worried about for my canopy: Hard riser housings for cutaway lines especially since I'll downsize eventually to 150 and maybe 135 or smaller someday if I start a swooping habit someday (maybe not). I didn't have hard housings until now. Spinning linetwists on highly loaded ellipticals can twist SO tightly that it can make it impossible to pull cutaway because the linetwists holds the cutaway line in place even though only a few inches of it are into the linetwists (there has been deaths already due to this) -- and a cutaway line is slipperier than a brake line, especially a brake line going through a parachute that has 10 linetwists (360 x 10 = 3600 degrees) -- some people have experienced more linetwists than that -- that's going to be nearly impossible to pull compared to simpler 720 degree linetwists. I may not have experience with smaller canopies that go into crazy spinning linetwists like that, but just connecting the dots from what I've read, make me think that the toggle pull recovery method would only work if you had few enough line twists and reacted quickly to pull the correct toggle before too many twists tightened it to impossibility, may be easier if the brake line was super-slippery (i.e. made of slippery material, some of those no-stretch lines seem to be slipperier than dacron). Either way, my opinions carry no weight as I am not qualified -- just some musings anyway... So many stories told... While I haven't had twists this bad, just be aware of the existence of evil line twists so tight that it's impossible to cutaway due to twists tightly holding the cutaway lines in the riser housings (in risers without hard housings)... Linetwists so tight that it threatens chokes your neck and you even have several linetwists below the S-Links, going all the way to the rear of your neck, almost making the two sets of three-rings touch each other behind your neck, forcing your neck down towards your chest! Stories of evil line twists like these exist.... Assuming similiar friction for brake line versus cutaway line, considering about 10 times brake line stuck in linetwists, in such evil line twists (much worse than what you've already experienced), would be at least 10 times harder than the 'impossible to pull' cutaway line that has already killed people... So be prepared if you have worse line twists than you already had... Plan B time! (And even Brian Germain said that too) P.S. It's true! That's why new risers now come standard with hard housings for the few inches of cutaway line above the three rings! Just ask the parachute container manufacturers!

Here you go in this attachment:

Going to a counsellor together I think is a good thing. Some people don't respond well to counselling, but others respond amazingly well and saves a marriage or long-term multiyear relationship. I have personal experience with both extremes (separate SO's). Still with the same better half, we responded very well to counselling sessions, especially when it was temporarily ramped up to a weekly basis during crisis time... Ponying up the extra funds for weekly sessions (instead of twice a month or just monthly) sometimes helps -- some people respond MUCH better to weekly, while others are fine with just once a month, etc. If there's a prolonged period of difficulty, schedule the sessions en-masse (so you know when your next 3 sessions are this month). It makes some (but not all) people more comfortable to talk and work on things without being nervous or difficult about it, knowing that a pre-scheduled counsellor session is already set up, to help moderate things and balance things out.

Make sure you inform them and get a skydiving-experienced tunnel instructor experienced in AFF. So that you actually spend time on leg practice rather than just only familiarizing with the tunnel or a new body flying position such as mantis (very useful for longer tunnel lessons or career in formation skydiving, but may conflict with the regular boxman arch teaching of AFF). For that $150 for 10 minutes, spend the extra $50 to use an outside tunnel instructor that also happens to be an AFFI or highly experienced RW skydiver. Well worth it in my tunnel experience where possible

Lots of fears go away after about 50 jumps, but now I'm slightly more scared now at 300 jumps than I was at 200 jumps. The 100-jump wonder in me still exists, but it's somewhat humbled -- a little.

If you get enough tunnel time, a 4-way camp can eventually get the costs down to about $200-$250 per hour per person when sharing the chamber. You do need to have a pool of RW buddies and an appropriate RW coach, and at least about an hour solo each before they let you all fly in the same chamber.

1437 jumps without a mal -- that's quite a lot.

I have updated my signature to attempt to recruit more people for an approx 1pm shuttle.

However, even if de-energized, a snapped 100+KV league power cable can chop you in half if it breaks of a sudden! The lightning line (the ground wire at the top of transmission towers that acts as a lightning rod to protect the rest of the lines) also was held up by a partially buckled pylon, which could buckle even further and cause the pylon to totally collapse. I'd still be scared as rescuers even if the power was cut.

Doesn't seem to be gone -- it says "Chicagoland Fun Better Version" so the video must have been upgraded...

Someone wins the big BINGO pot! Dropzone/organizer mandated plan...

It is an area-by-area dependent thing -- the DSL service can be pretty terrible in the periphery far away from the central office, but at my home, DSL (smooth transmitting 24/7) is more reliable than Cable (lots of bursty freezing and slows down at peak). Fiber is the best though -- if you're lucky to have access to Verizon FiOS.

Good to hear from you again Al -- I'll see you at Gan. I'll make sure one of the brochures is for you.

Tough one... When I do a solo, the virtually-non-accelerated-altitude-loss slow spiral (Approximately 50 times slower than fast spiral - which may be a super-slight harness turn when flying sensitive canopies) feels safer than flying straight into somebody else's airspace of the previous or next group especially when I don't know my heading. The super slow spiral was what I've been taught to do for solo jumps, as dozens of other dropzones seem to teach this. Perhaps I should change this practice, but this is a solo jump. About 5-10% of my jumps are still solos, often a tracking practice jump. That said, I do fly straight outwards in a cloud if I was doing a group jump (RW, etc). That's the way I've always done it when I happened to be tracking or opening in a cloud. (Yes, don't jump, but there times the jump proceeds when the sky's partially cloudy and we can see the dropzone but that my track or open accidentally happens to be in one... Murphy happens and not all countries have the same cloud rules that U.S. does.) I'll follow the plan though -- if the organizer says fly towards the sun, that's the advice I follow.

That's definitely affordable and cheaper than renting a car for 10 days and letting it idle most of the time until September 22. I know there are people going back to LAX at the end of the camp. So yes, we can split a shuttle, $54 per person is literally almost the price I need to pay in gas for the roundtrip to Perris and back anyway! Anyone else who need a shuttle for noon? Three and four people would reduce the costs even further, perhaps down to $30 per person.

I think it's a bigway-specific instruction, where the sky is mostly clear but a few puffs of clouds, and a portion of the people happen to track into the isolated cloud. For these isolated clouds, it's easy to tell which way the sun is.

During ground school, I was told that in the event a cloud opening happens unexpectedly, I'm supposed to pull down the toggle an inch or two or so, for a super-slow spiral (one that probably takes a minute to complete a 360 under a big boat), so I don't accidentally go far away from the DZ in one direction... At least this seemed to qualify during student jumps where I had the whole sky to myself at the time. Maybe this is incorrect training, but it seemed to be a safe kind of spiral...? Obviously, I may do this differently if a skydiving formation happens to track and open unexpectedly in a cloud one way or another (i.e. a country with no cloud jump rules, or we got blown over one instead of a hole) and just fly straight, especially if I know I have been consistently tracking in one direction, my opening felt on-heading, and know there's tons of outs for many miles in every direction...I'd hate to spiral right back into canopy traffic! And if a bigway event tells everyone to head-to-the-sun, I'll follow that advice for that event... (seems reasonable if a few outers track into an isolated cloud in the periphery, you'd be able to tell which way the brightest side of the cloud is, where the sun would be -- the bigway wouldn't be jumping if the sky was significantly cloudy anyway)

I have landed on my rears twice as intentional practice. But for the first time ever, I had difficulty unstowing my toggle a few jumps ago. When it wouldn't budge and I started turning of a sudden, it startled me slightly, I stopped pulling and pulled my opposite other toggle into half brakes, to straighten out my flight (I turned only 90 degrees or so it was counterbalanced quickly). Then I had a moment to inspect the problem of the stuck toggle, it was some kind of very simple hang up. Unstowing the toggle differently cleared it instantly -- I was now flying normally with unstowed toggled and the landing proceeded normally. This all happened in 3 seconds. Lesson learned: Keep a careful eye on how I stow my toggles next time. If I couldn't fix it I knew I would land on my rears. I'd probably do one of two things: (1) If the stuck toggle was safely stowed then I have both hands avialable to attempt to safely restow the other toggle while flying straight (I'm still flying a good old 170 square) or failing that, (2) Hook knife cut the other toggle line if the line was easily accessible (I could easily reach it without accidentally cutting other lines), and failing that, (3) reserve. That'd just be me for my canopy (not your canopy, not for students). That's assuming I was flying nice and straight and can safely maintain doing that while I did either 1 or 2, otherwise it's my reserve, pronto. I am really too squeamish about wrapping my toggles and trying to rear-riser flare at the same time.

I like tandem progression systems better. When one extra tandem, as leninent fluff, is added to the beginning of the official progression, it is possible to claim that you pass, even if you don't pull on your first tandem. Basically, the first tandem jump of several tandem progression jumps (in certain variants of tandem progression, anyway) seems just a "sensory overload exposure" jump in many dropzones' tandem progressions. Designing a progression program to ensure a one-time pass, even if the first jump is just a sack-of-potatoes jump, seems a wise move to quickly 'ferret out the squeamish' on a dropzone's part and keep the interested coming back -- it may just be better suited for tandem progression jumps. From my memory, it was 4 tandems (2 fun + 2 educational) and 8 instructor assisted freefalls, so a fuller tandem progression than most. Officially, the tandems were not part of my program but introduced as "prerequisites" which made it it a part of mine so it can be viewed as a variant of a tandem progression. In retrospect, my beginning of jumping appeared to be a tandem progression of sorts, because I had some exercises to do on my final two of four pre-requisite tandems, even though they weren't advertised as being part of "skydive school" back at the time. Just saying "did you have fun?" -- "yes" -- "you pass." to go onto a more rigorous second tandem with a pull responsibility (or a pull waveoff) and qualification into classroom stuff/other exercises, etc. It's a good way to pull in people at some dropzones, I think...

Okay, I visited the site myself last night on my way home from NouvelAir. Took some pictures! You are seeing Dropzone.com exclusives. Photo #1 (2008-08-17) - Looking at whole completed foundation Photo #2 (2008-08-17) - Looking deep in the end zone Photo #3 (2008-08-17) - The cinema multiplex the Skyventure is built right next to I meant Colossus, not Silver City. Same cineplex brand, but different multiplex name. Also, when using google maps, search for "Rue du Cosmodome, Laval, QC, Canada" as the exact address does not seem to be in Google Maps. (Permission granted specifically to three parties: NouvelAir/Skyventure/bodyflight.net to use my photos on their website or forum...if anyone is reading this.)

Breaking news! I got the Skyventure Montreal brochure! It has a picture of what Skyventure Montreal will look like. I am at NouvelAir today, the dropzone run by the people building Skyventure Montreal. I have obtained some Skyventure Montreal brochures with the January 2009 opening date. Here is a Skyventure Montreal brochure teaser photo Come to Skydive Gananoque's Labour Day Boogie (Aug 30, 31, Sept 1) and I will give you one of these. The brochure itself is a coupon too for a tunnel time discount. They are numbered, one discount per person. The official address of Skyventure Montreal is: 2700, av. du Cosmodome Laval, Ontario (Right by the Silvercity multiplex cinema)

Bump. I still need a ride. (The airfare's already purchased, it was just too expensive to fly into other airports.)

Although I'm deaf, I keep an eye on this as transcription software may help others put their words into text for me. The latest version of the transcription software have improved quite a lot, and requires minimal training (sometimes no training at all) and it learns on the fly. So if you are still using transcription software, then upgrade to the latest. Just make sure you have a good noise-cancelling headset. It could even be a high end Bluetooth headset, for convenience.