mdrejhon

Cool - I can't wait!

While I find packing weights convenient, I learned to pack without packing weights at Perris P3 Big Way camp, on the grass in the shade of a tree. I had to cope with a little bit of sliding, and if I'm without a packing weight, it's easier to pack on the grass than on a tarp due to the extra friction of grass. However, I do find it more comfortable to pack with a packing weight, but at least I can field pack my canopy, while waiting, if I land out at a foreign dropzone on the wrong side of a river and have to wait a long time to be picked up. Tip: Keep a pull up cord in your jumpsuit pocket at all times. Tie the risers together with the pull up cord, to keep the lines symmetrical when packing without weights, less need to keep them taut. When this is done, you don't need a packing weight as much. Once you've stowed the lines, you just remove the pull up cord from the risers and carry on. That said, I will use a weight or an anchor when available, but it's no longer essential if I have to pack right away for the next bigway load...

Message from Skydive Burnaby. Date change, it's now 20-21-22 excluding the 19th, I think due to organizers.

If there is anyone from the Ottawa area (or even Kingston area) that's going Wednesday evening, please get in touch with me! I'm looking for carpool opportunities, so I don't have to take the bus/train most of the way there.

In my city of Ottawa, I use a carsharing service called VRTUCAR - www.vrtucar.com. It is similiar to ZIPCAR, although cheaper. Essentially I get a universal key to 45 cars throughout Ottawa. I reserve online, go to the car, and use it for approximately $3 per hour plus about 10 to 25 cents per kilometers. Taxes, gas and insurance included - I don't even need to fill up the gas (except with the provided gas station card they provide in the glovebox)! No worries about maintenance, they worry about that. Often, it's cheaper than taxi, especially if driving two. If I want to roadtrip on a weekend, it costs $35 per day. Various modern cars such as Toyota Yaris, Matrix, Echo, as well as Honda Civic Hybrid. I only need to pay my bill at the end of the month. It's 100% agentless -- just go straight to the parked car. Sometimes I have to reserve further in advance if I'm using a car for several hours in advance. The shortest trip was a 30 minute trip, that cost me less than $5. Where else can you rent a car briefly for less than $5 including taxes? The longest trip I had was a 7-day reservation with a 2000 kilometer round trip. It cost $400 including taxes, gas, insurance, everything -- and I only needed to pay at the end of the month, phone-bill style. I can use it as little or as much as I like, drive as little or as far as I'd like. Some monthly bills are pretty low if I decide to take public transit more, other bills are higher if I use it frequently like weekend roadtrips to the dropzone. I try to carpool to the dropzone, but at least it gives me an option. It's much, much cheaper than the monthly payments of a similiar car, if you don't need to drive as much. Even if you own a car, it also makes a handy "second car", so you can own one car, and carshare a second car. It's agentless, far more convenient than a car rental, so you bypass that, go straight to the car and use your own universal key that you always keep.

Hey! Say hello when I'm down in Gan on the last weekend of June. I'm the only deaf skydiver on the dropzone.

Right, but John Woo isn't relevant to this 'poll' anyway except as an interesting side topic -- I wanted to hear from others about early breakoff/pulls, rather than late breakoff/pulls (late pull is what happened to John Woo). The topics of John and altimeter calibration just simply came up as a side topic...

Apologies if it was taken this way. It wasn't meant this way. My deaf colleague (I'm deaf too) almost got killed by this error. Billy Vance, John Woo, and myself, attended the Deaf World Record 2005 event.

That's true -- it's great that many analog altimeters have the familiar red/yellow zone to allow you to easily tell your pull altitude. This makes today's altimeters easy and very safe, even for people who have more difficulty quickly reading an analog dial than others. The pie chart effect helps a lot too -- one knows that 4000 feet is very close to the yellow zone. It's a very familiar angle. Now consider sensory overload, a wrist altimeter on a flailing arm, a quick glance, 4500ft versus 5500feet being sufficiently outside of the colored area, fast-flitting eyes, doing less-than-sufficient glance at your altimeter by chance.... I am sure most people just glance at their altimeter a second time if they were not sure. I knew I didn't give it a honest enough glance (that was signal enough for me to glance better) but 4500 still immediately registered in my mind anyway, due to the 'read the wrong tick effect'. Under high time pressure, under heavy distraction, doing new things, sometimes one leaps into action (the breakoff, the pull). Seems like so many, more often students, do the same thing, or in one variation or another similiar, to what I experienced.

Fair enough. Although I would argue that different people respond differently to specific formats under specific conditions such as rushed glances. This thread also shows there are many ways, other than the kind I described, to misread an altimeters -- including digitals, audibles, and hybrid altimeters too.

That's a good option that I should have included of course, but for now ignore the percentages from the poll, they are meaningless, it was really more of a survey counter than a percentage poll. A very unscientific poll, this thread primarily goal was merely to invite discusion -- this goal succeeded beyond my expectations, even if the poll formatting is mostly a failure.

The poll is informal, definitely unscientific, and not the primary source of info. It is merely to invite discussion from people of similiar experiences. Ignore the percentages from the poll, they are meaningless, it was really more of a survey counter than a percentage poll. The omission of a "Have never experienced the above" is academic at this point anyway -- the primary purpose of the poll was simply to invite discussion, and now the poll can safely be closed (if moderators wish) because several posts have already proven my post that dial misreads do happen. That point has been proven beyond a shadow of doubt, and thus the mere token purpose of this thread has been met. It's not a foregone conclusion. It's just discussion, to show that there are people out in the open, who has, at least one time, misread a dial such as an altimeter. If you're talking about the incident, I'm not the investigator. Obviously, for the pilot, it could just very easily be something else, such as ice on wings, or something else. I only spoke up because the 45 versus 55 is uncannily similiar to my one time 4.5Kfeet versus 5.5Kfeet misread. It's kind of silly to interpret me as having said this is a foregone conclusion, when I clearly said it is not. That's a misinterpretation. I said 6 votes, not 6 agreements. Polls can be inaccurate, but if you read the thread and posts, you'll see people DO misread dials on too-quick-glances. Not everyone, but it happens. Don't put words in my mouth... No agenda here. Look at all the posts out there of people who have misread altimeters. Nothing is being manufactured. Yes, have merely come up with the terminology "read the wrong tick effect" to describe a very real effect that actually happens. But if you do some honest research, I'm sure you're in agreement too that dials can, on very rare occasions, be misread under certain circumstances such as glancing that is too quick. No argument there. Analog is always generally the best. We're not debating that. I'm just mentioning that misreads do happen among a portion of the populace, especially under duress. Sure, I may have manufactured the terminology "Read the wrong tick effect" (and similiar wordings), but that's the name I have come up with to describe this genuine effect. If you read all of these posts more carefully, you'll see my point. Most of the poll is meaningless and there are misvotes. But if you read posts, a portion of them actually match, and do a little research, it definitely happens in the wild. I only posted the poll to invite discussion on the topic. Not everyone misreads dials, different people have different ability to read dials during brief glances. Some people read slower, some people have less ability to understand numbers in a quick glance. Also, differing levels of "dial education" plays a role: Many have not grown up around analog dials (kids who grew up in modern digital age) and take slightly longer to read dials, and take a long time to interpret a clock. Others, are simply slightly dyslexic that requires a longer stare before the text/numbers become perfectly clear. Yet other people, just glance simply, WAY too fast (imagine a glance that's about 1/4th the speed of your fastest glance). Often a quick glance means you don't read the altimeter at all, but with some people, a quick glance actually reads a portion of the altimeter. Not everybody's brain processes the information at the same speed, just look at everybody doing things at their different speeds. Sensory overload can do weird things -- you witness stories of students not being able to hear while under sensory overload, to things like missing something visually when they were focussing on something else. And besides, in certain high-stress situations, a fast shaking wrist altimeter, with a fast moving head, with fast moving eyes, in a panic situation, is more prone to misreads than your chest altimeter. There may be only an instantaneous moment that the dial is stationary enough for a glance. There is potential for the glance to be too quick. Tunnel vision can also be caused during panic and intenese concentration in certain individuals. There are a lot of sources as well as books that covers this: Google [panic attack tunnel vision] Google [intense concentration tunnel vision] Then compounded by that, some people lose ability to read in nearby peripheral vision in a quick glance. Sometimes even in a longer glance at one spot: This is shown in some people who stare at the middle of a book page: Some people can only read one word, while other people can read three to five surrounding words without moving their eyes; speed reading training courses aim to try to expand your ability to read in your peripheral vision, so that you don't need to do as much left-to-right reading motions. Google [speed reading peripheral vision] Also, it's useful to become familiar with an effect called persistence of vision, iconic memory, or sensory memory which is relevant to this discussion. Different schools of thoughts prevail, but the general idea is that there is a short term visual memory even past the glance. This is relevant, because a quick glance exercises this kind of memory: Google [iconic memory] Google [sensory memory] Google [persistence of vision] Not to mention, humans get more inefficient the more they try to multitask. Consider a high-stress situation where many things are going on under a high time pressure. Scientific papers have already proven this. This is relevant here, since it does degrade certain people's ability to properly read an altimeter during a high-pressure situation. Google [human multitasking inefficiency] With a little digging of these search results, you can find scientific articles on reputable websites too, and some of these articles link to scientific papers. Be my guest to pick them out. All these factors combine, among other factors, as well as person-specific characteristics (capability with reading speed, past analog dial experience, etc), especially in a high-stress situation, towards dial misreads for one reason or another, including reading the wrong tick. There are other factors. Obviously, brain can play tricks on you when you least expect it to -- just witness the strange judgements some people make during a high-pressure situation. Mind you, I agree some people always flawlessly reads dials. But not 100% of the world's population do. I generally flawlessly read dials, but apparently I glanced too quick at that one time. As did many others too. For various reasons, one or another, including reasons I've already written as well reasons other than those I've already written. At least, you do have to agree that some people do misread dials, even if you don't agree with the reasons I've mentioned. Again, I use analog and that's the kind of altimeter I use. This isn't an analog versus digital debate so that isn't an agenda. FWIW, I use an analog wrist altimeter - an Altimaster II Galaxy. I read it pretty well, and my instructor have commented I always had good altitude awareness. But that glance was just a TAD too quick during that jump, and I broke off 1000 foot early... Students do this a lot more than experienced skydivers, but it clearly still happens (to a lesser extent), especially during a high-pressure situation, as you are witnessing. Either way, I think you may have severely misinterpreted this. This poll is not scientifically accurate, it is merely to bring people, with similiar experiences, out into the open. As you can see, not all experiences match mine (i.e. defective altimeter), but you can clearly read, from some of the posts, some of the misreads actually mirror the one I once had (i.e. genuine misread in a too-quick-glance). This poll is merely discussion-inviting and it has served its purpose that there are people out there who, has at one time or another, once misread a dial because of a too-quick-glance. I'm willing to bet money that this effect did not happen to the pilot in question. Just that the 45 versus 55 is uncannily similiar to my one time 4.5Kfeet versus 5.5Kfeet misread. Plus I know that dial misreads definitely do happen in the general populace. Thus, I just merely put this subject out onto the table. It is easily totally something else. Such as ice on wings. Hey, no worries -- I don't want to make enemies here. All I am doing is stating the fact that dial misreads happen, and the poll was to invite discussion on it, that's all.

You must calibrate for the 0 altitude before getting into the plane. If you adjust your altimeter again during flight, to match other people's altimeters in the air, your altimeter will no longer read 0 when you land. Your pull altitude will likely be more inaccurate than it was before, and can be nearly fatal (As it was for John Woo) if you make big cumilative rejadustments. If you're pulling lower than normal due to a malfunction, your altimeter could kill you if it causes you to delay reserve deployment because your altimeter is still reading 1000 feet when you crash into Planet Earth, because you added 500 feet twice to your altimeter in order to match other people's altimeters! Some altimeters are just a little slow to increase, some altimeters will read 8500 when another altimeter reads 9000. But both will return to 0 when landing because they were originally calibrated at 0. If the 8500 altimeter was adjusted to match the 9000 altimeter, then when you land, that altimeter will read 500 instead of 0 when landing. Danger, Will Robinson! Danger! Inaccuracy of 8500 versus 9000 is meaningless, compared to the need of accuracy of the zero altitude (SPLAT!) Some altimeters "climb" slightly more slowly than others, and do not always stay in perfect sync to each other, especially at higher altitudes. Even if one altimeter is 8500 and another altimeter is 9000, they are still both accurate for altitude 0 if they were both calibrated to ground altitude 0 before entering the plane. If you readjust altimeter in flight, your SPLAT altitude (the 0 feet altitude) now becomes wrong!

Around here, 50-75 jumps seem to be a common point where you stop renting and jumping your own gear. I was jumping my rig at Jump #59.

Hey! Did not get a chance to really say hi... Please say hello to me next time you're at the dropzone, probably during the next Otter boogie at end of June. I'm Mark, supposedly Canada's first licensed deaf skydiver, trained at Gan. If anyone up here is going to give anybody a chance, it's gonna be Gan. No other dropzones near me responded about taking a deaf guy like me, it was Gan that did. Here I am, successful 49-way at P3 with a hopeful bigway career ahead of me... Sad to see you won't be able to make it further. Fly tandem and tunnel anyway. Who knows, you may rack up two dozen hours tunnel time. Get people to make you lose control in the tunnel, test distorted body positions, and learning to recover in the tunnel using only your upper body. With a thousand skydives worth of tunnel experience, you never know? Worse comes to worse, the tunnel time is fun anyway and you can just keep doing what you're doing, tandems and canopy, gliding, and more.

Very interesting! Thanks for the insight... Just to be clear, due to this post, I'm trying to collect more info on actual misreads -- and early pulls -- not late pulls. Cases where the altimeter was correctly functioning, but was accidentally mis-read due to a glance that was too quick.

Poll... Have you ever broken off or pulled 1000 feet too early by accident? After glancing at a correctly functioning altimeter? Even back in your student days? A long time ago, there was one time that I accidentally broke off at 5500 feet instead of 4500 feet, because I glanced my altimeter too quickly and instantaneously under extreme stress, while being distracted. This was a while back. The reason for this poll is because of this post. The thinking is that during periods of extreme stress, by chance, you glance at your altimeter WAY too quickly and read the altitude wrong because the brain did not have enough time to process the information properly. If you reply to this poll, please describe what happened if possible. Preference to those who have actually glanced at their analog altimeter before doing things 1000 feet too early, even though they correctly remembered the pre-planned altitude. [Edit: You can pretend "feet" is "meters", if you are using a metric altimeter.]

Silver cutaway and a red pillow reserve handle? I learn something new. I'm so used to seeing a red pillow cutaway and a silver reserve handle.

The exchange rate may have changed since, but 25 GBP was almost 55 USD at the end of year 2007 when the GBP was worth more than 2 dollars! [Checked -- actually, yes the exchange rate is a bit better now. I should have mentioned $45 or $50, and for cheaper dropzones, more like $38-$40]

You can use BlackBerry with Internet disabled (i.e. BlackBerry on a cheap $20 voice plan, no data). The QWERTY keyboard is still good for texting, even if email is disabled. Also, you can buy 5 BlackBerries for $500 off eBay, such as old 8700g's or 7130c's. When a BlackBerry is lost, just get the SIM blocked, and switch to the next BlackBerry.

Hook what up with a BB? If you are tight in money, you can use prepaid on a BlackBerry. Pull the SIM card out of your prepaid phone, and plug it into the BlackBerry. No email, no web, just SMS text messaging and phone calls. Just pure QWERTY organizer goodness and texting. There are plenty of good suitable unlocked BlackBerry models available off eBay, such as 8700's for approx $100, Curve 8300 original's for $300, or older 7290's for less than $50. Be careful to buy from reputable sellers who have regularly sold BlackBerries to previous happy customers, as 'hot' corporate BlackBerries are rather nasty in their security locks. You can always add BlackBerry service later.

I think the Canadian jumps are more forgiving because there's somewhat of a shortage of Canadian RW skydivers willing to congregate in one location to make even an 80-way or 100-way record. The last Canada Big Way Record event allowed almost anyone who had reasonable RW experience (20ways) and it was more like a Canadian bigway camp than a bigway record attempt. However, I'm more ready this time around to practice two-and-three-plane bigways, thanks to Perris P3. I think we can do it within the next couple years and I intend to be one of them... Or at least try. It's why I went to Perris P3... But yes, good advice: Don't fuck up!

Hah. I'm already paying $35 per jump in Canada. Japanese pay $85 per jump and UK pays $55 per jump. I opt to check "$50 is too much for a jump", since I'm going to keep skydiving even at $50 per jump - but I may make fewer jumps and spend more on tunnel time at $3-4 per minute (when doing 4-way)

Isn't AVG renewable for free on an annual basis, by opting out of the higher-end paid version when renewing? Avast allows me to renew for free every year. It is the only time that it 'advertises' the opportunity to upgrade to Professional, but I can elect to stay on the free version.

Hello, On June 19-20-21-22.... Guy Wright is holding 40-ways at Skydive Burnaby, which is on the Canada side near the Niagara area. It is an annual event to have Guy Wright. No registration needed, just show up, smaller ways will test whether you can be part of the bigger ways. Two Twin Otters - the more people the merrier! If you decide to sit out the 40-ways, there's plenty of smaller ways and freefly happening! (Completed my first 49-way at Perris P3 last month and hoping I can stay in the 40-ways this year without being cut this time around. )