mdrejhon

There's a good bodybuilding discussion site at www.bodybuilding.com ... It's the "dropzone.com" for the fitness world. Ask your question there, perhaps?

At our dropzone, anything at 5000 feet or under appears to be called a Hop and Pop, no matter how much freefall... Just the way we call 'em... maybe not perfect usage of terminology, but...

Due to winter, Canadians do it all the time, every year! Okay, 6 months per year, but... Though I'd probably rent a canopy one size bigger at first, and do a real simple high-altitude solo on a nice stable medium-wind day. But I disgress. Talk to the dropzone.

Hi Tom. Thanks. That clears it up. Indeed that is what I thought. Especially since my gear is made in USA.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BILLY!

My understanding is that if I am beyond the 120 day U.S. reserve repack cycle, but within the 180 day Canadian reserve repack cycle, I must still get my reserve repacked before I can jump at a U.S. dropzone. Correct? I'll get my repack anyway as in "better safe than sorry". I am curious if there was some very clear specific rule of thumb that compensates for differences between countries in reserve repack cycles, and when a jumper travels between them. At the moment, my assumption is the above rule: Make sure you're within the visiting country's reserve repack cycle.

It does get easier! I spent many hours on the ground packing and unpacking (with a few screwups) and several verifications of my packjob. My canopy now smells of dried sweat from my first pack attempts. (Hmmm, how does one launder a canopy? ... Guess I'll have to ask a rigger!)

Hooker? Isn't that a synonym for "swooper"?

I have noticed that sometimes if I waveoff at 3000 feet, I am usually under good canopy at 2000 feet. In reality, I'm waving off at 3000 feet, doing a careful motion to pull stable, letting go of the pilot chute at 2700 feet, and under good canopy at 2000. Lately, I've been liking high pulls (4K and 5K) for most solo jumps. I've been monitoring the altimeter when I waveoff, when I let go of the pilot chute, and when the last end cell inflates. I see that my Sabre 1 opens with about 600-700 feet. No hard openings lately, so I am happy about that. In fact, I can't even remember my Sabre 1 openings lately - they've been more on-heading and predictable - so uneventful openings I don't remember are the good openings.

Nah. That's the instructor's job to critique me.

Best advice. I've been often reluctant to ask for video. I'm pretty sure I am simply not used to this flying behaviour (doing its job, just need to familiarize)

That's a good point. I may have been using more muscle memory ("Autopilot") in previous flares. At least I have an excuse for me to to tell myself Really boils down to "fly the canopy till you've fully landed" advice I've been given at the dropzone - this is another way to interpret it. I'll "dial it in"... Next two weekends is better almost guaranteed - I'm hoping to be doing my 100th!

Good to know about the tail deflection trick. It's something I would do to observe then communicate to my rigger. I suspect it is probably okay the way it is and simply me being used to short brakes for approx 45-to-55-ish jumps. But it's a valuable reference point since something might actually be unusual. Another (unrelated?/related?) observation is that my brake lines are somewhat loose when I pack. My stows are slightly messier than they used to be because the brake lines are longer than the regular lines when I pack. Then again, my openings have been much better (soft, on-heading). Then again, I may just be better at packing. But very interesting theory -- brake line length affecting openings? Do they? Brakes are probably not too long because I feel the flare earlier as I pull down, and sometimes I pop upwards before I'm even at half brakes. But I will doublecheck with the tail deflection observation and let the rigger know, so that I know it's good (looking at tail deflection, at least, would be a confidence building measure that brakes are good and that it's simply pratice I need to do). It's probably just a more confusing flare range since I'm not used to it. Some people think I may be making a big deal about it and just need pratice. And I will. Just need to build confidence.

Now I'm curious about tail deflection, thanks for that idea! (at least so I know what PD factory brakes look like and so I can occasionally observing it as my brakes age). Will have to watch it during one of my pratice flares. At least as a reference point. Anyway, it probably won't mean anything at this stage as I'm likely to keep the brakes the way they are. I've only jumped these new brakes 9 times. I just don't want to jump 50 times just to get used to these new brakes to the same experience level as old brakes, but I will just have to be patient. It's a fastball I have to keep in mind in the wonderful sport of skydiving. What makes this even more frustrating: I haven't landed the last 9 times as well as my first-ever Sabre 170 landing after the 190->170 downsize!! According to my feet, anyway. (I could be wrong from an external perspective, mind you) It wasn't all bad, I had a few fun freefalls in spetacular partial-cloud sky including a very memorable sunset jump, and I enjoyed a closed accordian 2-way jump with somebody I enjoy jumping with, and oh yes -- finally having the A in the mail. I'll remind myself of the positives.

I am told they will do it if I insist -- but, I really want to follow PD factory specs. I'm just trying to research. I know I do not want to piss people off by giving excuses I found off a forum but I'm researching from multiple sources THEN filtering through dropzone people I trust. I am inclined to believe that PD knows WAY more than I do, but, I do admit that I felt MUCH safer under my old brakes. I think I was too used to short brake settings since jump 25 where I first started jumping Sabres. So it just frustrates me. They were old brake lines that have shrunk. I've talked to some really nice people at the dropzone and the usual advice applies -- pratice makes perfect. I just feel like I'm back at jump number 25 landing experience levels - that's how I feel! Oh ya, and I probably am a bit too hard on myself (People keep telling me that!).

I will definitely have instructors and all take precedence, but I do admit to having had a really frustrating weekend landings-wise after having my old brakes replaced on my rig by a rigger (rig was purchased used back at jump 59). Brakes are now PD factory settings. I think (incorrectly or not) that for many people this is minor since all but one of them under the new brakes, were standup and have not gotten hurt, but, for me, it was really frustrating because of my erratic flares and also lost my ability to turf-surf. (A few things made up for it, including some really nice and friendly chats with the great people at the dropzone, as well as my "A" license being in the mail!) Prior to today, I was getting much better at dynamic flares (some people call this two stage), to planeout, fly over the ground and then touchdown softly. I also nailed zero wind landings too as well and slid only once. Sitting in Scott Miller's canopy course was helpful too! Really great pillow soft standup landings! 40-50 feet turf surfs from just simple straight-in approaches. There were some less-than-perfect landings (i.e. slight early flares, etc), but still stood up pillow soft (no feet thump at all), except for the three times I had to slide it in under my new rig (mainly zero winders I was still tuning into). Landed really pillow soft from third brakes when I had to fly through ground-level turbulence. I did a successful slight 45 degree crosswind landing with a slight flare turn to compensate. There was that occasional slide landing on the nice soft dropzone grass, but I felt I was progressing well and safely. My brake lines had to be replaced because my brakes lines were old. Brakes are now Performance Designs factory specs, but this really threw me off pretty badly. This weekend most of my landings were a little squirrelly, all of them standup or near-standup (a couple of feet slides), but I wasn't flaring smoothly anymore. Looking at it, I guess it was kind of bad timing -- new brake lines (was necessary) only 20 jumps into my new canopy, and I have to relearn landings "all over again", I feel like I was flying 40 jumps ago. (New brake settings is a bigger challenge, because all the Sabres, rentals and otherwise, I've flown since jump 25, have all had shorter brakes than this, so this is probably the first time I am flying brakes at factory lengths). I have been, and will continue to be doing lots of pratice flares, flat turns, braked turns, up high, many 5K pulls, but I am still only slowly tuning into the new brake settings. And I had my first tarmac landing which I almost fell over on. I was upset at myself about that - it was stronger wind at 500 feet, lighter wind at ground, that threw me off and accelerated my forward motion at low altitude - it was either taxiway adjacent to landing field, or a low turn, so I chose tarmac when I noticed no planes were anywhere in the airport or vincinty.) I know, shame on me. I was visibly upset at myself for doing that (I'm a bit hard on myself at times), but somebody nice at the dropzone said that people make mistakes and it is a lesson learned. I am pleased at how forgiving my Sabre 170 is -- I have not gotten hurt and manage to keep landing standing up, I just am no longer doing a smooth planeout, I'm either sometimes thumping my feet, or sliding my feet, or a little high. (I need to thank the dropzone people for patience with my frustrations.) It does humble me to stay on the 170 and never downsize for hundreds of jumps. Newbies like me need to be aware of the subtle fastballs like replacement brake lines. I'll just have to get used to PD factory setting. The flare range is totally different and not what I expected. Not getting myself hurt so far, but risk has gone up, so I am conscious about this. There are the good and great weekends. There are the frustrating weekends. This was, on average, one of them. (But I thank the patience of so many people at the dropzone!) Besides having to vent a bit, I am researching about how one gets used to new brakes (Beyond the existing pratice flares I'm doing on most jumps at 5K pull, except during my occasional RW jumps). Remember, I'm a relative newbie so take it easy on me. I know I won't be taking forum advice to heart -- but I'm going to do some research from all sources and cross-reference with my dropzone friends/instructors. (Note: I do have Brian Germain's "Parachute and its Pilot". I'll be studying it again before my next visit to improve the smoothness of my flares.)

Very neat. That's the best canopy coloring software I've never seen! One suggestion I can add though, is to make be able to click the top/bottom skins at the bottom of the screen for coloring (much like I can click the slider to color it). Basically, instead of clicking the 3D graphic to color it, I'd like to also be able to click the 2D graphic at the bottom to color it. But that's a minor nitpick. It's very neat nontheless, for a niche market product - I know programmers can be pretty expensive for something like this!

Hi Kate, I had the same problem when I had an ebay auction (non-skydiving-related) and a customer wanted to buy from me. I found out the problem was because a spam filter was eating up my emails. It appears that spam filters at places like hotmail are becoming too over-eager and eating a few valid emails in the process. Something to keep in mind, since spam filters has occasionally become a "third party" causing problems in relationships between companies and clients. Just so you know! This may not have affected you, but something worth mentioning, anyway...

Will you also be able to support older rigs such as Vector 2?

If you don't mind me asking, how did you lose your job? I would make a guess based on an interpretation -- was it because you were stuck in the country trying to fix the problems, and you lost your job as a result of missing the plane? It's pretty sad to hear about the loss of a job over a chain of events possibly initiated by one person's messed-up ordering form, then things probably deterioriated to the point where neither parties enjoyed working with each other... I feel that any good company doing custom orders (ie containers, canopies) must institute a policy of faxing phone order forms back to people ordering by phone, for a confirmation first. (Or a scanned version by email to those without a fax - it's easy nowadays with a cheap $70 scanner unit with a one-button "Email" button on the front of the scanner). It sure would have saved you a lot of trouble because it sounds like somebody there like they messed up a phone order. Phone orders are unfortunately error prone, especially when taken by an overworked person... Accents, misunderstandings by tired staff, hurried order forms, messy handwriting by phone operator, etc. Once a mistake is made that is costly for the original company to fix, plus an infuriated customer, there is a lot of opportunity for a continued cascade of problems (including treatment, reparations, attempts to fix things, no longer wanting to be nice to each other, etc.) hurting the reputation of a company, regardless whether or not the customer is partially at fault. My experience with working with companies and watching the support machine run itself, there's always occasional bad spots in a company with otherwise good reputation -- and I hope they try their best to fix and refine their order process to reduce the chances of botched orders (which in my experience, is a pain for even a good company to fix -- but it should be the company's responsibility to confirm the order in the first place. Especially phone orders, which are historically massively more error prone than faxed/mailed orders). Regardless of whether it's a custom car, a custom computer, a custom skydiving rig -- it is ALWAYS good company pratice to do "Always confirm the complete custom order by a visual/written method of communication - ALWAYS". This means phone orders would be forced to be confirmed by fax, snail-mailing, or email. If what I am reading is correct, Square 1 made a very serious error -- I know that operating a phone line of a company, it is very stupid to do >$1000 non-refundable custom orders with an unfamiliar customer only by phone with no written confirmation of the custom stuff by fax. Industry statistics show a very high error rate in unconfirmed custom phone orders. Sometimes the error is so vague (i.e. the word "Blue" written in the wrong box by the phone person, or "Black" written as an acronym "BL" which can be confused with "Blue". Or simply bad handwriting that's read differently, or a foreign accent made "Green" sound like "Blue"), it becomes not obvious and the company blames the customer for the errors. Customer blames company. Never-ending fight with no resolution. Very bad pratice. The only way to avoid this is WRITTEN CONFIRMATION. (Even though this is not 100% fail safe, it really dramatically reduces the error rate). It doesn't matter which company, any company doing high-price custom orders must always have written/visual confirmation. That's often why, when you order a high-end computer system by phone, you often get an email confirmation with an opportunity to cancel/modify the order if you call back within 24 hours -- or at least the computer company at least instituted a generous money-back guarantee to compensate for the lack of written confirmation for phone orders. At least there's a light at the end of the tunnel, I am very glad that it was not totally bad at all; the manufacturers managed to fix your problem eventually. (Still a better outcome than people who have been sold defective stolen gear at expensive prices!)

There is a bunch of power projects involving wind under construction now and in the pipeline (including a massive 700 megawatt wind power farm off BC's coast). I hope many of these come to completion. Our government wants to shut down all but one coal plant in this province (Ontario) within a few years, and we're not going to be able to do that with the recent summertime power crunches (which has eased off after temperatures dropped). Should ease up after two more years when new power capacity comes online. There are now small solar resellers popping up now, but definitely not in the big names here (yet). The prices are definitely higher than California though. Humidex exceeding 100 degrees Fahrenheit have happened this summer around here a little more often than usual. It's no fun packing on these days

There is a cornfield only 100 meters from the peas at my dropzone. I'm glad I did my AFF-type freefall course in the spring, since I landed in the adjacent field a few times as a student.

Lucky you... But they're not stocked around here yet. Northern climes such as Canada benefit somewhat less, but eventually I'd love to see them up here. Only $400 for a 100-watt solar panel is a very good price compared to the past, and that almost puts it within my price range now (if I had a house and everything else I needed...) The energy crunch in your state in 2001 is happening in midsummer in Ontario both last summer and this summer. We've having a minor (major?) energy crisis in Ontario this summer, with brownouts and occasional rolling blackouts (which didn't hit the downtown core). Although we've managed to stave off importing TOO much energy, and avoiding going to the soup kitchen, we had several advisories to turn off our air conditioners and cut back energy use. On top of this, a brownout was recently instituted temporarily - the 5 percent voltage drop caused some minor inconveniences (traffic light malfunction in a town, and some complaints at a factory, here and there) Last year my apartment went nearly 100% Compact Flourescent (The instant-on CF lightbulbs are my favourite!). Only bedroom and oven lights were left incandescent. But I'm leaving the air conditioner on -- very hard to turn off! It's central air conditioning anyway, so...

Oops. My altimeter just blue-screened.

That was my situation too as well. Was going to get a Cypres1 with just 2 years left. I ended up buying a Cypres2 with 10 years left! POW went my wallet... At least, I don't have to worry nearly as much about water (not that there's much water near my dropzone. Except maybe the great lake about 5 kilometers away...)