mdrejhon

I have a question from those of you at the 100-ways... What are the lowest-number jumpers for the 100-ways --- were there several with under 300 jumps? I am still a little over 270 jumps at about 100 per year, but helped by having 80% of my jumps being RW and now have more tunnel time than skydiving time including 4-ways in tunnel. Because of RW priority, I can't yet freefly -- though I'm beginning to working to fix that...

No, I'm not. With a regular clock, there's not much of the piechart effect as there is with the Altimaster. So I read an analog clock at a different speed than I read the altimaster. But, when you read the history of the Altimaster's, it is true that the people behind the Altimaster designed the face to resemble a clock. But there's the coloring at typical decision altitudes. If I see the arrow exactly between the colored area and the 6 o clock, I know it's the 4500 breakoff (typical small RW breakoff). If I see the arrow just about touching the colored area, I know it's time to pull if clear. However, I am also a good English speed-reader while still retaining sufficient contextual information, so I am pretty comfortable at sub-second quick chance glances of numeric displays. I find I process numbers better than analog displays, but Altimaster compensates by providing the pie-chart effect (The yellow and red zones). In an actual computer test, I can read a digital clock flashed 1/60th of a second, but I cannot read an analog clock flashed 1/60th of a second. (Persistence of vision allows reading 4 numbers post-mortem in the following fraction of a second, assuming I am already glancing in the exact direction where the numbers briefly flashed) Tests show that it's truth that people can read a limited number of digits purely by persistence of vision alone, for a numeric display instantly flashed -- if they're glancing at the general direction and expecting to read numbers. (For sake of context: The quick urgent glance at an altimeter while you're trying to save your life in an emergency situation). This is because my brain is trained to recognize numbers very quickly. Thus, I only need a near-instant glance at a digital alti and know my altitude from simple persistence of vision. Yes, let me also defend another perspective from naysayers who may respond with the calculation perspective: Yes there is, on a population average, slightly slower speed of comprehension of estimating differences (i.e. 5200 versus 7500 on digital-versus-analog alti, or 12:15 versus 12:40 on digital-versus-analog clock) on digitals than analog. Yes it may be slower than knowing the needle moved a little over two ticks on an analog. But, even this isn't universally true, and sometimes this is less important than knowing how close you are to impacting the ground. (i.e. a simple bigway jump where there's already a central breakoff signal and you're already using an audible, and that in an emergency situation when you finally pull, certain people will indeed survive better with digital -- then that's when the digital versus analog will matter for that particular person). Sometimes the superiority of digitals are very dramatic for a small niche of people: People who already know their addition tables, do fare well though -- i.e. People who instantly know the difference between 5 and 7 is always 2. Now, if I was graying out, and my Altimaster did not have the piechart effect, I'm going to trust a digital more than an analog to know if I hit my hard deck under a confusing mal, because I take less time reading a digital display -- I don't even need to continue staring at it - I only need a quick glance, and read it 1/2 second later from my persistence of vision. The only reason the analog is faster is because the hard deck is conveniently red-colored, that only requires an instant glance too as well. (But what if the hard deck for a specific type of parachuting activity, such as freefly, especially as a deaf guy it's hard for me to rely on an audible except for the Optima LED?) Anyway, many people agree that they read a digital faster. But yes, some operations are faster with a digital and some operations are faster with an analog - people process different types of info at slightly different speeds. Some people actually process almost all operations on a digital than an analog (even instantly knowing 75XX feet and 52XX feet is about 2.3Kfeet different without needing to math calculate. Just good addition-tables memory). Some people never grew up with an analog-dial telephone so many people haven't developed brainpower to process circular-analog display, especially if they're heavily schooled on numbers to the point where they've got all their 100/100 addition table memorized (good for the upper 2 digits of the digital alti). But yes, this is the exception to the rule, and some people only process digitals faster for some operations (not all operations) than analog. Almost everybody knows when they glance (either digital or analog) at 6000 feet for a flatfly jump that requires a 3000 feet altitude, they know they have approximately 20+ seconds before pull - the question now becomes, can they survive better in an emergency situation with the digital or the analog? Hard to say, but I am willing to bet big money that the answer is not 100% universally the analog. I say: varies by person. You're contradicting yourself. Many reputable institutional classes speciallizing UI design has a lot to do with ergonomics and psychology. Have you studied Apple books recently? Have you taken any courses in this? I have. Have you? Most people do function better with certain UI than others, but what I am saying that there's no cookie-cookier "one size fits all" quickest way for everybody. Exactly the same thing applies for analog versus digital. I reiterate that I side with the school of thought that some people, on average, function better with analog, and others function better with digital. On average, yes, it bias towards one end but I disagree with the assertion of the one-size-fit-all approach. Personally, I function okay with either technology and I can see the advantage/disadvantages of the two... Some people have very good number-relationship memory. They glance 5XXX feet in less than 100 milliseconds and know it's 10 seconds to pull time. (This is true: In tests, people can read a digital clock that has been flickered on-and-off in less than 1/10th of a second in front of them -- the digital altimeter with a 4 digit display is the same number of digits.). Instantly knowing that 7[0-4]XX feet from 5[0-4]XX feet is around 2000 feet, without needing to calculate or trying to remember. (It's just simple hard-wired addition tables in your memory, knowing the numbers 5 and 7 have a difference of 2). True, what you say may be a travesty to the poor level of numbers ability of many people today, analogs are much much better in this case. What's definitely true, is that not 100% of people read digitals faster than analogs. However, some properly literate people read digitals much faster than analogs. Yes, analogs are better in general (when not knowing what's best for the person), but this is not universal. And it even varies by discipline. A certain swooper might prefer analogs for very excellent reason, but that a certain RW flyer performs more flawlessly with a digital, and another may have no real preference. People revert to their childhood mode of oepration in an emergency situation (read analogs faster), but many certainly didn't grow up around analog dials as a kid, and would survive an emergency situation better with a digital, especially if they already have a reasonably good ability to glance numbers (an addition table memory is useful so that NO mental calculating is needed). Certain things are totally effortless for some while for others it is not. In fact, I seem to be a digital-era person instead of analog-era: I seem to somehow struggle badly with a circular compass, but I instantly function with a digital-degrees readout display or ruler. (Hmm, I bet you can stir up some interesting debate with airplane pilots about what compass they prefer) Sorry, I get defensive, but when someone disputes correct information incorrectly, I will throw some more facts. If we wish, we can begin posting references to educational studies and all (I'm ready), but I think that's going overboard and will just make both of us unpopular to others. I declare I'm already going overboard, so that's where I get off this train. What's important is that we have fun skydiving, and safe skydiving. This subject is a dead horse. There are friends on dropzone.com to enjoy skydiving with.

Please take a photo too.

I am close, but I can read the analog alti okay -- but yes, I notice I do read digital clocks much faster than I can read analog clocks, which takes a bit of time to process. The pie chart effect on Altimater's helps a lot - the amount of white space left before the yellow/red area. I do also like the AltiTrack, which is somewhat non-linear though, as the pie chart really usually only becomes important to me at 6K or under, really... It also like the Windows world versus the UNIX world. Some of us process faster with textual info (like me), while others of us process faster with just the icon without the icon description. I always configure my Mac's and PC's to display Details in File Explorer / Finder / etc, because I hate icon grids, and prefer to work with list-displays: My brain processes faster that way (except for photo folders, at which I prefer Thumbnails view.) The point is different people process different kinds of information at different speeds.

While not the largest 2-point sequential, I think it's the largest 4-point sequential, no? I think that "Larguest sequential" should be quantified as "Largest X-point sequential". Skills-wise, I believe that a 4-point 100-way is actually more impressive to me than a 1-point 200-way or a 2-point 150 way. It is a challenge to reduce the tension in the entire bigway to the point where everybody can safely let go. Especially if you're a weed whacker anchor (As I found out in my first 49-way at Perris P3)

Followup to say that my contact, too, also confirms that groundbreaking is happening shortly.

Good point: Another exercise for the non-skydiver student who's writing the essay: Wingloadings. Some of us love the smaller 'fabric wing' of a parachute, that can do a fast horizontal swoop or swoop-like landing before slowing down. Some skydivers delibrately choose more exciting parachutes that are smaller and land faster. To the nonskydiver, this is more perceptually similiar to an airplane landing, using techniques called "swooping". Some high performance parachute users will glide at MORE than 60mph horizontally (zero vertical velocity), just a foot above the ground, for the landing excitement. Intentionally. Before slowing down to safe horizontal speeds less than your maximum running speed. Others, stick to bigger parachutes for maximum landing safety. Consider landings even in an unconscious no-control situation (emergency parachutes should be big because of this), versus landing while controlling the parachute. Being conscious allows you flare the parachute, which slows down the vertical descent by converting vertical velocity into horizontal velocity and then air resistance/gravity essentially finishes the rest. Depending on scope of essay (a sentence? a page? several pages?), break into a few: - Typical round parachute landings. (old perspective: low H, lots V) - Typical large square parachute landings. (modern perspective: low H, low V) - Small parachute controlled high-speed landings, called swooping. (stunt perspective: Lots H, low V) - Unconscious square parachute landings. (emergency perspective: Lots H, lots V. Survivable under large square parachutes, lethal under small parachutes) So many variables. Of course, this may be advanced subject matter and beyond the scope of the essay If it's just a sentence or two that's needed a boilerplate "Modern parachutes have the ability to land at a total standstill: Zero horizontal and zero vertical velocity, through skilled landing techniques. In reality, a typical landing can be similiar to jumping off a chair." (reword into your wording, don't plagarize mine)

If you cover historical information (round parachutes), answers for those are completely different and come from different sources. For sake of completeness, include information for both round and square parachutes. Separate sections for these two, perhaps. Only modern ram-air (square) canopies can fully zero velocity when landing. Whenever there's slight-to-moderate winds and you are landing gliding against the wind, it's a pillow-soft landing when controlled properly. Zero horizontal and zero vertical, just an inch above the ground, then plop, softer than the stress of jogging. When done properly. An okay typical landing, less perfect one, would be more similiar to running, with the additional stress of running off a 1-foot curb/drop-off.

Historically, Skyventure's open a few months later from the date forecast at groundbreak time. I observe that based on an official May groundbreaking, let me forecast: Late May 2009. Don't vouch me -- I do hope it is open for Christmas!

last time i talked to one of the guys who is in charge of the tunnel ground was being broken this month and another thing i heard is that construction has already started. Well that would be good news, if the May groundbreaking is what I heard. I will email my contacts to confirm. (I even got offered to invest in the tunnel once.)

Although I jump entirely different gear (Vector2 with a spandex BOC), I do observe that BOC's sometimes feel looser if the container is packed more loosely - i.e. a 150 versus a 170 in your main tray. Extremely minor, but I noticed this during a demo of a PD143 Optmium reserve, it packs much looser than my regular Sabre 170 piece of fabric. Even with a spandex BOC. It may only be a few percent looser (PC still quite secure), but I can only imagine the difference is greater with a Cordura BOC. Have anyone in this thread considered the variable of how tight the main is packed into its tray, in influencing the tightness of a Cordura BOC? Just like how an overstuffed tote bag: The outer pockets are harder to fill, than if the tote bag was empty or loosely packed. Or the front pocket of an overstuffed school backpack. Same principle.

Congrats! By next spring 2009 I hope I can be one of the 100-ways! I only stayed for the Perris P3 camp last weekend, where I was in a complete 49-way. Next stop for me: 40-ways at Skydive Burnaby in June. I need WAY more big way experience this year to get to that level!...

From what I have heard during the Canadian tunnel camp trip to SVNH two weekends ago, the groundbreaking wouldn't be April yet. I think I heard May as the whisper word, but don't vouch me.

a) For the first grass stain? b) For my first windy landing at Perris? c) Or for the unexpected landing scare that pops my 100-jump wonder bubble? d) All of the above.

Hello -- During Perris P3 Big Way Camp, one of my landings was.... "exciting", and needlessly to say, I tumbled (accidentally semi-PLF style -- feet, knees, roll diagonally on back, and then back on my feet with no pain at all). No pain, not even a knee or funnybone bang, just a clean tumble. However, I got my first grass stain/dirt on the rig, which if you know Perris dirt, is pretty tough stuff. It did scare me a little that landing was harder than expected in that flare unexpectedly didn't work as effectively as usual, even relative to jumps earlier in the day. And even when I wore a weight belt, I had other good landings. No door fear, no other major anxiety except typical nervousness of performing well, but I have some landing fear now for the last few landings. It's not going to stop me - just making me pay attention much more. In a way that's a good thing. Always a good example of how a canopy can come back and 'bite' you even if you normally are reliable on your stand-up landings... I hope I am right in assuming that it was just a confluence of Perris characteristics -- hotter and humider weather than I am used to, the different denisty altitude, turbulent wind patterns, and all with Perris being famous for that. And since my first contact in the ground was cracked dried mud, I believe I also tripped trying to begin a run out a less-effective-than-usual flare. And it may be how I staged my flare, that contributed to this. A basket of factors. Any comments by others who have actually been in a similiar situation?

Roll call time! Did you go to Perris P3? Me... Deaf guy from Canada. I met something like 150 flatflyers at Perris P3 last weekend and there's not much talk on dropzone.com. I am sure that belly is such an old skydiving discipline that people teach themselves the old fashioned way more often and many don't come online, but as a deaf individual I still love these forums anyway! My 3 Fun Lessons Learned: - How to get pixie dust (perris dirt) out of a pilot chute! (Tip: turn it inside out!) - Be a hero if you must; help that last person make it; give him/her encouragement before the jump! And congratulate him when he finally makes it in the next jump! - A stable formation at 5500 feet is always safer than a disaster at 6500 feet. Always wait for the central breakoff signal, even your breakoff is at 6000, if the LO says so! (World Team 400-way used conditionally-delayed breakoffs if the formation was building in an orderly manner.) And many more, but three is enough for this post. Post in this thread if you made it to Perris for May 1 to 4th, or are part of the Perris 100 ways! Let's put a face to dropzone.com names.

True, but it's the most accurate known means of measurement and GPS is recommended by www.trackingderby.com -- they have custom software recommendations to analyze this GPS data. It wouldn't be perfect, but would probably be the most accurate method known to skydivers at this time. I could be wrong, but I think there is additional software (Excel macro?) that even allows you to enter winds and vectors at different altitudes (at 3000ft intervals), and it'll automatically compensate for these during calculations. It would not be perfect, but could even theoretically improve the error margin significantly (i.e. when calculating horizontal airspeed instead of horizontal groundspeed). Anybody who uses this software, who can confirm the existence of such a tracking airspeed calculator? True, this is only for hardcore derby/wingsuiters -- but GPS appears to have become the best tool!

Wingsuit jumpers have used the audible-sized Wintec WBT-201 Bluetooth Data Logger GPS. Get one of these, turn it on in the plane and make sure it's near a window, then just before jumping, slip it in your audible pocket (best results if it's not a covered audible pocket, and you can slip in the audible without taking off the helmet) and do your thing. When you land, plug (can do either USB or Bluetooth) the tiny Wintec WBT-201 into your laptop computer and view your altitude/distance graph (including both horizontal and vertical speed), or superimpose your tracking tracjectory on Google Earth, etc. A GPS logger essentially logs your XYZ coordinates once a second in all three dimensions and works wonderfully with many wingsuit jumpers. Currently, it is a favourite GPS because of the quality of wingsuit trajectory logging (i.e. proven useful for skydiving -- search the wingsuit forum) If you get a Garmin branded wrist mounted GPS, get the 301 or later instead of 201 because it is MUCH better: Locks onto a GPS signal much more quickly. In addition, just make sure you get a GPS lock while on the ground before entering the airplane, the warm-start "Reacquire" time is always faster (just wait at jump door for 2 seconds - easily done during an exit count) than the cold-start time (need 30 seconds to initalize) Of course, GPS is something of more serious interest to serious tracking derby people and wingsuit jumpers, and is overkill if you only have a passing curiousity about your horizontal speed. [EDIT: Checked, if a wrist mount is used, the best wrist mounted Garmin GPS would be the 205 and 305 because of better GPS 'sensitivity' -- I doublechecked.]

Well, it was a honor to be in an anchor slot, but the truth is that I'm still a newbie in the multiple-plane bigway leagues (the TRUE "big" ways). I was happy to get to be on a trail plane! I am honoured they did give me an anchor slot of a 3-person weed whacker, even if it probably was just the "weed whacker of last resort". We were always the last weed whacker to begin building. Being the last anchor to dock, I docked 47th out of 49th on both of the two last jumps! Bigway newbie to the point where I won't get invites to 100 ways yet! But now it becomes much easier to contemplate joining future 40/50/60-way events. That's what I will strive for this year, get more experience.... and nail the next CANADIAN RECORD (2009) -- that's my goal! It's only a 59-way, that's within a stone's throw -- that's why I went to Perris P3 -- ready myself for a future Canadian Record, which has been my next big inspiration of mine after Deaf World Record 2005. So I'll be back at Perris P3 next year! Normally my docks are gentle, like on the first day of bigways. They are MUCH better after nearly 4 hours windtunnel time, including 4-ways in the tunnel. But on the last day, I became so anxious to dock that I grabbed. Oops - but I stabilized quickly (tunnel time helped) and only exerted a small bit of force before quickly eliminating grip tension, with a very abrupt tension-elimination motion (Didn't look good on video obviously ). Next time, I definitely will have more confidence, and will dock more gently. Talk about a HIGH PRESSURE dock -- 47th two times in a row on a 49-way! Now that I've done it, I'll relax better next time I'm in a similiar formation. I seemed to have better success making it there than the 48th and 49th since I kept my stadium/radial much better on the last two jumps, but I wanted them to make it to their slots too so I 'helped' them on the last jump. There's a bit of interesting untold drama for the 47th (me), 48th, and 49th but I think I played my part in being the "HERO". At one time, the 49th was three feet below while docked -- the whacker was tilted 15 degrees down, pulling me away. I fell as hellishly slow as I could without feeling unstable, pulled them upwards and inwards (as did the 48th and the 49th), and we all finally levelled off. At one point I briefly glanced the belly of the base and I would bet the house that the 49th saw the WHOLE UNDERSIDE of the completed formation after he docked! Talk about being the weed whacker of last resort. Last day, last jump, last attempt, I think we were ALL desparate! But we DID IT!!!! I think it was a new experience for many of us, not knowing the history of the 48th or 49th jumper but probably we probably all were relative newbies to bigways. All of us have made mistakes at one time or other, I went low in a couple earlier jumps, and they went low on the 2nd last jump (49-way attempt, where I was the last to dock 47th), that's the kind of jumps you REALLY don't want to get low on -- and I know the feeling when you're given 3 chances and you only have one last chance to successfully dock! After the second last jump where he went low, I went up to the 48th before the last attempt, and told him to say, I did go low too a couple times on earlier days, that you can do it, try again, do a higher stadium, and wait for me. And when we made it on the final attempt, I went to go and congratulate him for making it! Breakoff at 6K and flying to a sub-2500 pull altitude - you get a lot of tracking practice. Did a much better job tracking this time around - it's fun to race the others who are to the sides of you (slowest vertical, fastest horizontal - goal to stay up in the air as long as possible). This time around, I had great clear air when I pulled, and was above the canopies of most of the other outers. So my tracking is improving really noticeably but to be sure, I didn't always do a good job tracking on one of the earlier jumps, and so I kept tracking a little longer and let myself pull at the legal minimum altitude I think my slot still belongs either in the base or in an outer weed whacker. I need to become a good middle dock guy (i.e. dock 20th in a 50-way), which means I must fly my slot in the middle of heavy flatflyer traffic. I'd like to practice more of that, did not get much opportunities -- I was mainly in the base or on the outers. I'd like to be able to do any slot eventually, on any plane. I also got my first audible altimeter, the Optima, and will be getting the LED accessory! The exact same model I demoed at Deaf World Record 2005.

Actually, if you mean bigway in the definition of a multiple-plane bigway, I did a successful 30-way in 2006. This, however, was a totally different animal! Right tail plane, door diver, outer weed whacker at anchor point. Thanks, by the way!

OK, I'm back home! Thanks to everyone who helped me and gave me rides. It was a great time, the best skydiving trip I've had -- and I now have a souvenir: A photographic print of my first complete 49-way!

Belly is dead at certain dropzones but belly seems to be getting more popular at other areas. I just completed my first 49-way at Perris P3 last weekend. BEER TIME!

It certainly is busy here (I'm here for Perris P3) The dinner was busy tonight! I was the last person to buy the KOJI benefit dinner, after a hundred or two people bought dinner before me! I was the last one to finish packing (Okay... I got excuses ... windy on the grass, clumps of dried Perris mud inside my ram-air inlets, and broken rubber stows to be replaced) Still was a great day with Perris P3. 30 and 37 way attempts were done today, we move to 50 ways tomorrow...

If you go the Bravia route, remember they can be blindingly bright at close distances, especially if you don't have windows or game late into the eveings or lights off. They make wonderful monitors but crank the brightness WAY down or it's headache inducing. Even my 24" designed-for-PC monitor burns my eyes during videogaming, if I leave the monitor at default brightness -- same problem. To push the monitor even further back, you can also configure Control Panel font size to Large fonts, and use Firefox or Internet Explorer 7's page zoom feature (125% or 150%) to make it more comfortable to view from further-than-usual PC-monitor-usage (non-television-usage) distance. Then you can back away to approximately 2:1 viewdistance:screenwidth, closer to regular hometheater recommendation than usual computer monitor usage as a compromise. Without adjusting the operating system or letting it scale a lower computer resolution (i.e. 800x600 stretched to 1920x1080), 1080p usually causes computer text way too tiny to read if you back away further away than 1.5:1 which ends up to be slightly less than approximately 60 inches away, from a 40 inch diagonal display. After all you're going to be using this for videogaming anyway, so this is not going to be that big an issue anyway. You can easily make do with just 720p or 768p rather than 1080p, if you want to save a few dollars, although it's nice to go for 1080p. You'll just have to experiment with computer settings... But proper reduced brightness will be a primary key to eliminating eyestrain. You'll know if you have sore eyes after 2 hours of gaming, that you need to make adjustments. Even today's computer monitors are often set way too bright, just like TV's and equally at risk of eyestrain.

We own no cars here -- I use a carsharing service (Vrtucar in Ottawa, similiar to Zipcar in some cities in the U.S.) ... The costs of gas and insurance are included. But with the increased long distance roadtrips I sometimes want to make for skydiving, it sometimes get tempting to just buy a car. Maybe some hybrid or efficient compact such as a ForTwo.