mdrejhon

Whaaaaat.... I don't hear that from Scott or Brian... Sometime, I'd like some canopy coach teach me swooping (double fronts straight-in to begin with, then eventually 90's) and I think I'd do it with my existing 1.1 WL Sabre 170. (Maybe after 300 more jumps, maybe sooner, but it'd definitely have to be from a good canopy coach) Someone will have to correct me if I am wrong about swooping underloaded canopies (at least when only doing double-fronts and 90's), but I haven't heard from Brian or Scott that it's more dangerous to start the learning process for swooping while still at only 1.1 after becoming throughly familiar with it in a non-swooping manner. Nontheless, I'll cross the bridge when I get there and get canopy coaching...

According to my PIM's.... In my research, it is understanding Solo's are allowed to jump at other Canadian dropzones (check first though), but you need an "A" to go to most USA dropzones.

I wouldn't have problems with that keyboard either. At www.typingtest.com, I actually type up to 142 WPM although usually I've benchmarked about 125-130 WPM on that site. ("Huckleberry Finn" test, 1 minute, full punctuation, approximately 98% accuracy)

This is very impressive. Each keycap is a video display, which means 104 tiny video displays on a keyboard! It's certainly doable now with today's technology and very impressive that a prototype has already been developed. (The T3 photos look genuine to me, and not photoshopped.) I would be surprised if they priced this keyboard less than $500 though. Replaceable keycaps is an absolute must, since keycaps are bound to break and wear out. Fortunately, the same keycap could be reused for any key, since it doesn't matter where the keycap is inserted. Mass-manufacture of tiny screens could dramatically drive down the cost of a keycap to maybe a few dollars each. While OLED is very expensive in big screens, tiny OLED screens are gradually becoming very cheap to make (especially if they are using a printing process to manufacture the screens). It wouldn't be too surprising, since tiny low-rez color screens are falling to just a few dollars factory cost in some cases. It's not outside the realm of possibility, but I'd think 2007 would be more realistic from a cost perspective, since prices need to be ramped up quite a bit for Western markets. Factory cost for keycaps with displays would have to be something like $1-2 per keycap (factory cost, not retail cost), to still be profitable for North America market at $500 per keyboard (retail cost). This would be a remarkable achievement in reduction of prices for color displays. Small low-resolution monochrome LCD displays have already reached that point, when mass-manufactured. (Example: Free digital wristwatches inside cereal boxes) It's only a matter of time before color OLED displays are cheaply manufactured at the same prices. The trend is towards cheap disposable-league displays. Replaceable keycaps would be essential though, as I am a fast typer. Pop out a defective keycap, and pop in a replacement.

I'm usually the only person left in the air at my dropzone. (Except on boogie weekends) I still pull fairly high (between 3K and 5K, depending on type of jump). Usually, it has been 4.5K with my new rig and Sabre 170. At least when there are no tandems on my load. When I see all canopies below me and in the middle of their swoop landings and the only guy above, 3000 feet above them, I can be kind of an airspace pig if I want to be, enjoying a beautiful partly-cloudy sky at 3000 feet familiarizing myself with my new rig. I had one of my best canopy flights last weekend, skimming the edge of a cloud at something like 4000ft after a 5K pull. (Not to worry, I had a perfectly clear view of the dropzone and avoided the ends of the runways.) I'm back to my normal 3K pulls now when doing 2-ways or 3-ways, but I've been frequently requesting 4K and 5K pulls whenever they allow me to. But I particularly enjoy the canopy flight. (And also throwing in some pratice canopy flight... test flares/stalls... rear riser control... flare turns... braked/flat turns... Etc. And of course, fun spirals and pretend swoops at play altitude)

I thought of a rather silly and stupid idea... Pay for a tandem! Then, tell them you won't jump tandem, but let the dropzone keep the money anyway, and demand coach training/jump in lieu of a tandem! Just half-kidding though...

I am going to attempt to reach a windtunnel sometime by the end of the year. Probably Orlando SkyVenture this October. 30 minutes time. I think it would do me some good since I'd like to safely be a part of bigger ways. (ie 20 ways)

Wow, that's a long spot. The furthest offzone landing was under a Manta 288 and I landed in some farm about two or three kilometers away. It was a bad spot and I believe the wind really picked up after I went up. I realized I wasn't going back, because the wind was blowing me backwards! So I aimed for farmland and landed standup running backwards. Got my jumpsuit muddy trying to walk through a gate. Fortunately the offzone pickup van found me surprisingly quickly Not as interesting as many here, but it was my first off-zone landing too (During one of my student jumps).

I had a friend come for a tandem and I jumped out of the plane first. I just waved goodbye and then backwards-tumbled out of the plane, while still waving.

Well. I just looked up some weather data, and while the temperature was something like 33-34C, the humidex was a whopping 43 or so. That's 110 degrees F. No wonder I was sweating as much as I did when packing!

Congratulations! Thanks for your great story. I hope to train in a windtunnel for 30 minutes too this year. I'm still somewhat of a floppy bellyflyer I did finally have my first 3-ways last weekend though.

Don't feel too bad! The offzone farmland loved me for quite a while. (And may still yet. Knock on wood.) After studying up on angle control in Germain's excellent book (Parachute and Its Pilot), I rear riser angle-controlled myself into three consecutive peas landings under my earlier rental Sabre 190. You really do dial into accuracy after you memorize a few tricks. However, my new rig with the Sabre 170 with its tendancy to turf surf, has given me a real tendancy to overshoot, so I'm back to square 1. It will just take a couple dozen jumps to "dial into" its tendancies. Fortunately, I'm at least landing inside the dropzone For now, I am focussing on proper flare technique ("finish the flare") and avoiding getting too fixated on the peas and leg-reaching out for it. Eventually, I'll compensate for this by severely undershooting the target, turfsurf my way over the peas, and then tiptoe land onto the peas. As for all newbies, myself included, "It'll come in time"

Oh ya, that sounds like a scary display. I do wanna try swooping eventually, someday, but I'll let a good canopy coach (ala Brian Germain or Scott Miller)teach me to do it properly and more conservatively than some other swoopers. I do know barely enough background from Germain's book to say that I don't think Brian Germain condones that type of lesser-safety-margin type of swooping, at least for a guy like myself ... Back on subject. Yeah, I'll love zero winders as soon as I get a standup landing in zero wind under the 170. (I have only tried two zero-wind landings under my new rig) I almost have one now. I've fully finished my flare on the last one, but I still had too much horizontal motion left. Got to adjust my flaring differently next time for that. Then again, it all balances out. 6 out of 7 standups, I can live with. It'll get better. Great medium-wind landings with a small pop and zero steps forward at the end are fun too.

Excellent. Please do. I can understand that there is only one dropzone in Greece and help can be hard to get... If you think a Sabre 150 is too small, please convince him to go to a Sabre 170 or even 190. (Or whatever the dropzone thinks is appropriate) Still lots of fun to fly and everybody seems to be agreeing they are far more forgiving, as far as I know. Nontheless, the good news is he appears to have stopped considering the Stiletto.

Very funny. I guess, ya, the D-bag is literally "a bitch". According to Merriam-Webster, you used the correct gender.

Thanks, I have now put the zippered duffel bag upsidedown just in case, so the rig is no longer compressing the canopy on top of it. The canopy fills about half of the duffel bag (same volume as a gym bag), so that's plenty loose enough I guess. The gear bag normally has enough room for a helmet, some logbooks and other gear, but I didn't pack any of those. Good point about pinching. That shouldn't be a problem, it's a plastic zipper on a fabric bag, but I'll watch for pinch points and sharp objects.

For a newbie like me at least. On a hard concrete floor hurting my knees. Repeating it 4 or 5 times before I jumped my first packjob. Humidex was well north of 30 degrees C and 90 degrees F. I think it felt like 100. Parts of southern Ontario has broken some record temperatures recently. That's extremely hot for Canada. And praticing packing for 3 hours nonstop as a newbie, before jumping it for the first time. Also, I now realize I appear to be stuffing a 170 into a bag ideally sized for a 150. (But it's too late to reconsider, because I bought the rig already.) It's really, really, really tight. Also, it kept slipping out as it liked to stuff up pretty well. It's a low-jump ZP Sabre 170 that loves to fluff up faster than I can defluff it. The fabric is slippery and likes to slide easily back out of the bag despite the tight fit. And my hands were too wet and sweaty and the rubberbands kept slipping out of my hands, and my shorts was too damp with sweat to dry my hands with. And the canopy becomes even more slippery because when I lie on it to get the air out, the canopy gets slightly damp with the sweat from my body. Making it even more slippery, and leaps out of its S-folds as soon as I let down my guard slightly. It'll become a LOT easier when it is cooler, so that my hands are dry. Have you considered how difficult it is to pull small rubberbands through grommets with wet and soaked hands you're unable to dry because your clothes are already damp with sweat? That was how HOT it was... And I pack on a CONCRETE floor. Brutal on my knees, and too hot to wear a jumpsuit to protect my knees while packing (even just jumpsuit pants) Nontheless, on my fifth packjob, it did become easier, since I spent extra time pushing air out, and allowing me to rest while I had both knees on the canopy so I didn't have to hold the air out with my hands all the time. (God help me when I have to pack on a dry and cold day. I hear stuffing a D-bag is harder.) Consider the fact as a newbie I pack really sloooooow (I started packing when one load of people left the hangar, and was not yet finished when they came back to the hanger to pack!). And that's a nice leisurely Cessna load that took forever to climb to 11K. I drank about 5 or 6 liters of water that day, and I think I sweated ALL of that out. (I know, since I had bottled water... and ran out.)

I just started jumping my packjobs (first packjob last weekend, jumped 5). Several of the small rubberbands on my D-bag broke, so I had to use the dropzone's larger bands. They were too loose (slack) on the bottom of the lines, so I had to double-wrap. I also now have the bigger bands on the two locking stows after the small bands on those broke too (I hope I got the terminology correct -- these are the first two stows after the lines comes out of the D-bag?). I have had 1 soft opening, 3 normal openings, and 1 relatively hard opening. (Sabre 170, known for hard openings) About statistically the same as the other packers. Now this post got me thinking. The softest opening was when I had the small rubber bands on the locking stows. I am going to inquire at the dropzone on the next visit. Maybe I should be buying my own rubber bands rather than using the dropzone supplied.

Heya... The door monster is gone for me too now. I now get more nervous before the door open (the opening relaxes me now after the 9K-10Kfeet anxiety), and more nervous performing in front of instructors. I just had my first 3ways this weekend! Think of funny stuff. Some of the skydiving rigs look like owls or faces. "Hoot" says the rig. And just joke with myself "It's just a fun relaxing solo skydive, nothing different, just two other people 'happen' to be jumping WITH me". My nervousness in performance anxiety is probably a 4 out of 10 rather than an 8 out of 10. Still gotta work on it.

I recently bought a Sorz goggles that doubles as sunglasses itself. I love them, and they were cheap too! I do have to pull them down to my neck during sunset loads after my canopy opens, although they don't darken my vision that much.

We had delicious fried canopy the other day a couple months ago. Somebody had some old canopy that was retired into the bonfire.

When I went to a Sabre 190, learned a valuable lesson on my first ride on it about pulling the opposite toggle too quickly. (This happened over 3000ft, possibly 4000ft, as I pulled high to familiarize myself with this new canopy) I induced linetwists on my canopy, but I successfully scissorkicked out of them (two attempts). That never happened on any of my previous canopies, but the Sabre 190 was high performance enough. I'm sure I would have had to cut away if linetwists were much worse, fortunately it was only one 360 degree worth of linetwists which I could easily undo in mere seconds. Since then, I've read in a great book (Brian Germain's "Pilot and its Canopy") about always keeping tension on the lines. If I must turn opposite direction suddenly, monitor the line tension as I change directions quickly. Canopy is like a puppet on strings. The book told me I can only control it as long as I have tension on the lines. That made it safe(r) for me (Also doing flat turn pratice, braked turn pratice). Talk with instructor, see the book.... lots of lessons to be learned...

I did it! I finally know how to pack now. Jumped 5 of my own packjobs this weekend on my new rig. Yay! Now I can finish studying for my "A" test. But, man, stuffing the bag on a hot midsummer day, is the biggest instrument of torture known to man. Even packing shirtless, my shorts got almost totally soaked with sweat falling off my chest and back. And shaking my head just twice, caused a minor rain to fall on the floor. It consumes much more energy than the skydive itself! (I also had my first 3-ways too. And yes, I bought beer already)

Hi, I jumped my first packjobs this last weekend. Beer!!! However, I had to leave in a carpool in a hurry right after my last jump, so I was told to pack next time or at home. He showed me how to carefully "braid" the lines, and stuff the canopy in my gear bag (a duffel bag) and put the rig on top of it. Since I do not dare pack at home (not enough space, and I've only packed 5 times.) and will pack next time I am at the dropzone, I want to know what is the safest way to store an unpacked canopy. Is it allright inside my gear bag for two weeks with my rig lying on top of it?

Hey Trevor, I've noticed that but have been trying to ignore that since it's mainly swoopers that pull of those unpredictable-looking flares. Jumped 7 times. Some of my best landings this weekend was when I reminded myself "finish the flare, finish the flare, finish the damn flare, wait for the ground". On a couple of those, I remember my flares varied in speed dynamically to maintain distance above the ground until my horizontal speed was gone. I didn't even have to step forward after touching down on some of those. Fun 40-50 feet ground turfs in straightin approaches. I think about two of my landings could have been better, one of them was when I stabbed my legs near the target followed by running. (my first peas landing under my new Sabre 170, and it was still a standup). The other was a zero-wind landing where I gently tumbled to my knees on the grass. Still, 6 out of 7 standups (some only zero, one or two steps) aren't bad. Surprisingly, I find this canopy more forgiving than my former rental Sabre 190 -- though that's probably because of its excellent condition from low jump numbers and the toggles stall point is better for my needs (full brakes rather than 2/3rd brakes). Darn zero-winders. I gotta get that nailed eventually Pratice makes perfect... And packerboy....I jumped my first packjobs this weekend! 5 of them, in fact. Yes, I bought beer. (BTW, your beer bottles are in a bag in the the fridge, with your name on it... since you'll be there next weekend ).