djd

i was doing 450's on my katana about 250 jumps ago was def better than 270's felt i got a lot more power from my canopy, i got the velo90 and went all the way back to a couple of 90's 180's and all the canopy handling skills i had learnt from scratch then stuck with 270's for about 100 jumps but i just couldnt get my accuracy and my set up anywhere near good so i pushed myself onto 450's the wrong way in hindsite, started of with fast wippy turns and am now just pretty much doing a 450 harne turns from a lot higher which i love (thx JC). i realise now my accuracy and set up was so bad on the 270's because i just wasnt used to how quick everything was happening and didnt understand the canopy as much as i should have, I always ask a lot of questions to everyone some comments you can just throw away but some are quality tips. i know i still have a long way to go in regards to everything especially experiance which will save you time and time again. but hey thats life. thanks for yr comments. soft landings. Danny..

Its by Fat boy slim Wonderfull Night its on his greatest hits album.

Mega i love reply's like this, I had coaching of off JC and Clint last week but on the grass landing strip. my choice to go and play with the pond was my idea and bundy was offering me some good sound advice. actually he pretty much said all the points you brought out. my set up was a bit out on most of my turns, mostly being a bit short and being a little low, not low just a little, with the addrenalin running and oh my god im a little low just made me turn quicker than i would normally ...i think anyway. the vid of clint was shot by larry at a previous date but was on the tape he used to video me and i couldnt help downloading it. made for a good still i believe. Thanks for the constructive critisism i thought id remember what bundy had told me but woke up and had forgot most of it...lol.. now i can read this....cheers.. danny..

QuoteI will never, ever agree with the argument that you "need" to have a long-recovering canopy in order to learn to swoop. If you are fucking around and banging turns at random altitudes in hopes of "figuring it out" then yes, you are going to be worse off with short-arc canopy. BUT, if you are working out your turns in a proven, scientific manner (which I have reposted over and over and over), then there is no reason why you ought to concern yourself with changing canopies. You guys that say that we older swoopers "had it all wrong" under our highest-performance-available Monarchs, Sabres, Excalliburs, BlueTracs, etc tickle me. No, you are not going to go 400 feet+ under an original Sabre, but you can certainly master every one of the skills needed to help you survive under a smaller, MUCH faster, longer-recovering main. It's my opinion that at least 90 percent of the skydivers I have ever met don't have any business jumping anything smaller than a Sabre 135. If you can't learn how to perform high performance landings under what you are currently flying, you certainly don't have any business downsizing for more speed and perceived "safety." Seriously. I dont normally post on here as you can get a lot of people attack you for what seems like no reason other than they are arsholes. But id like to say for the record that this is one forum where the advice usually given is pretty much spot on, i left all off this post so people can read it again... well said... people should swoop and learn to do it safely at a pace that is safe to them. some are much quicker than others granted but everyone needs coaching.. heres a thread to my progresion at the perris pond yesterday. taking my setup point back a bit further each time. it was my first attempts at going over water and it certainly got my blood pumping. but getting my foot wet at last was awsome.. http://www.skydivingmovies.com/ver2/pafiledb.php?action=file&id=5117 Learn slow.....Go fast...Stay safe...ish..

a quick vid of my learning curve to swooping the pond at perris.. + main man clint clawson swoops in too you wont mistake him..... http://www.skydivingmovies.com/ver2/pafiledb.php?action=file&id=5117

thx people this is all good ideas. as to the JVX its what i was thinking of getting but been told the sail cloth 1's pack for shit.... im gona stick with my velo for now as im just about to start swooping the pond at elsinore and want a canopy i know a bit rather than a new one. but i can see the JVX will be in my rig bag soon if the reports stay as good as they are. safe swoops...........

lol....yeah figered might be stiring a hornets nest. thx anyway. i love flying my velo just hate the openings... im a pretty neat packer but every now and again she just wants to scare the crap out of me...as i said i love the canopy fast as shit landings cool..but may think of taking a percentage drop in performance over openings when flying camera..

Ive heard so much about new canopies but which ones the best. i personally jump a velo 90 but have heard about the jvx and xaos. i know openings on the xaos are supposed to be really good, but do you lose any performance..??? any advice much appreciated. thanks....djd

ATTENTION ALL YOU ACADEMIC TYPES! Please give me some ideas on the research topic. I was thinking along the line of "do skydivers jump because they lack something that makes them feel more normal and the adreniline rush of skydiving gives it to them", or "do skydivers jump because they have something chemically/biologically that others do not have?" I watched a program on british tv, very popular doctor over here think his name is robert winston...(very popular..lol) he was talking about the difference in gene make up off humans and split it into catogories, quite simply there are the boundry pushers and the thinkers or something like that, if the world was full of thinkers we would still be living in caves and if it was the boundry pushers we wouldnt have made 100 years let alone how ever long we have been here.... not quite that cut and dry i know but sort of remember it. might have archives at the BBC website... will be co.uk not .com dont think this will help but what the hell.....lol

Help Please If somebody goes to the states on a 3 month visa waiver, how long do they have to be out the country before they can go back, i seem to be getting lots of different feedback from my sources, if any body does actually know the real ans id be very gratefull. cheers..........fluffy landings.,.,.,.,.

What? Again what? it was explained to me as dynamic air presure... if you imagine a small straw with a pea in that is only a little smaller than the straw you dont need a lot of air to hold up the pea...hence go up in a sv tunnel its harder to stay up there unless you weigh 100ib and can fly with yr pants on fire (not jelous at all ) however double the size of the straw and keeping the same pea up in the air you are going to need more wind speed. Well it made sense to me at the time but now im typing lol...lol...if this makes sense to you let me know or if im completely wide of the mark, tell me so too..

just wanted to add if anyone hasnt seen much video of bedford i have uploaded a vid on skydivingmovies. found it on fabians website hope they clear the upload... ....keep banging them walls and smile....

wow you guys kick off over this best thing quick as quick...lol... well ive done 4 tunnels,,perris,parris,orlando and bedford...all are great,each has there good bits for instance you can mess about in parris and well they tell you off you can say non comprehend,,bloody marvelous, orlando has awsome instructors(as do the others just incase anyone was looking to argue)perris is so cool just watching joao tambo fly was worth the trip itself and the staff go on the piss with you and let you foot dock there heads while stood in the door...(sry private joke)and let you put them on a rodeo bull and bend them...steve couldnt walk for days...lol...oh memories memories, but for me at the moment bedford rocks for lots of reasons which im not putting down as someone might say im biased or pompus.... im english and have the right to be popus..so there end of story...lol...we have a queen...

QuoteI think its fairly normal. I second that. i was the same and have seen many there too. my mate had 3 n a half thousand skydives and never been in the tunnel, i went with him for his first session and could see the look of fear in his face at the thought of being crap. .. well guess what...He was..the look of dispare on his face after the first 2 mins was awfull,,,,however his second was much better and by the end of his 15 mins was pretty much flying well, but that could be down to the 3.5 thousand jumps under his belt me thinks... dont be to hard on yrself with yr level of experiance i dought if you will have a lot of the bad habbits skydivers can have in the tunnel so you will pick things up mega fast.... i have bounced of more walls than i care to remember and woke up with bruises that i have had no idea how i got all i know is every time i go in the tunnel i come out with the biggest grin on my face... keep trying keep banging them walls its the only way to learn and it scares the crap out the tunnel rats....lol...

im learning free flying, im not head down yet but i love the tunnel and want to give myself the best tools to learn with, im 5'6" and stocky so need a bit more lift than my regular tony freefly suit im in at the mo, although its great for back flying its not giving me enough lift for sitting so i use a stock student tunnel suit.

QuoteI found these on their websites. Dig in to their photos and design programs, call them, ask ?'s to get the suit you want

i need to get a tunnel suit but cant find any companys that have pictures on there website. any info or help would be appreciated. me thinks this could open a big can off worms

if i had been 3 mins earlier (manifest girl was on the phone) i would have been on that lift. scarey thing was i was just having dz breif theres manifest so on when the plane took off in front off us, wow she sure got off the ground fast, dont beleive the local news the wing never hit the ground on take off and it wasnt smoking + she got to about 300 - 400 ish ft too. as far as im aware there was only about 15 - 20 people there and dont know how many of them saw what happened. had an email from a friend in the uk saying pilot is now stable havnt confirmed this but hope its true. rest was minor in comparison 2 broken legs and an ankle, that was from a policeman talking to two off the wives, horses mouth maybe but cant be sure off the accuracy on anything. must congratulate the staff at deland they all moved very swiftly and profesionally. was my first trip up to deland and was going to be my first jump there. great looking dropzone will def be back but maybe in a week or too after copious amounts of beer and a good chat with him whowatches over me..... blue ones and buckle up..... dave (glad to be on the ground for once) never thought id ever say that!!!!!

the term hook by definition means your doing it wrong, you should be asking how high can i start this turn not how low. blue ones.

spot on you dont need maga amount of jumps just good sound coaching

when i started in this sport (profile not correct i had a 9 year lay off) i brought a stlletto 120 after 310 jumps, said id be carefull which i was untill the day something cought my eye after id allready done a toggle turn looked away from my landing spot for what seemed a fraction of a second, well i hit both brakes v hard when i looked back down, lifted my legs, my arse went into 2 foot of sea watter hit the beach under the sea flipped me on to my knees bounced up and did a somersault through my rissers landing on my feet ran up the beach (couldnt stop) and ended up in a bush covered in sand, all in front of 500 people dancing to reggia in swim wear at sbi sebastian. The americans watching thought i was so cool i got beer all night for free (bonus) my boss at the time on the other hand called me allsorts of names im not putting on here and grounded me from jumping my stilletto till we got back to the uk(boooo),(although i understood). i very quickly appreciated that if id done that any were else id be dead or very badly injured, I hope i learnt from this and havent had anything like that happen to me since, im having lessons at the moment in swooping and think anybody who wants to learn should do the same, while i would never tell anybody not to swoop no matter how many jumps id advise them on training, i know cisco the pd factory team cameraman started swooping at well under a 100 jumps so hes proof you can do it early but we thinks he had the best coaching around so listen to others and learn learn learn. be positive but dont go near the corner,lol. blue skies soft sandy landings my darlings.

id say any you dont get up from

i just got my katana 107, i have 850 jumps and think its awsome. ive had a stilleto 120 that was good too but this just feels better. couldnt agree more about its not a mid range canopy, you want slower buy slower, i love the speed of the thing but am still treating it with a hell of a lot of respect due to my inexperience at swooping, i dont want to be a statistic but i still wana have fun, slowly slowly catch a monkey type thing, learn and take lessons too, we all have to start somewere, and i think pd's customer base is spot on, if you wouldnt think of buying a 120 then you shouldnt be getting a katana or anything like it. dont moan for the sake of moaning get out and jump, oh and dont forget to smile afterwards either. soft landings...