Zennie

Yup. 347 jumps. 571 days. 0.61 jumps/day But that's nothing. One of the packers at our DZ has been jumping a little over a year and has around 700 jumps. Another guy has been at it right around two years and is well over 1000. In fact, I hear he buys his jumps in blocks of 1000. - Z "Always be yourself... unless you suck." - Joss Whedon

Not to be a CN or anything, but you're jumping a 1.85 wingloading with 250 jumps? People think I'm being aggressive going to 1.4 with 350 jumps, and I swoop a lot and am at a swooper's dropzone. In any event, as far as openings go, the other thing I'd recommend is to avoid the rear risers on opening. I've found the Jedei likes to "hunt" for a heading, so I just let it do it's thing. The rear risers have serious oversteer, and I just made problems worse when doing rear riser inputs during the opening sequence. As far as hard openings go, I pushed the nose into the pack job, and then folded the end cells into the pack job as well. Pull the slider out (naturally) & make sure the slider grommets are aligned square. That seemed to tame it pretty well for me. - Z "Always be yourself... unless you suck." - Joss Whedon

Pretty much never until I'm setting up my swoop. Despite that, my internal clock has gotten to where I pretty much know when the skydive is about over & the ProTrack is about to go off. Still, I prolly ought to get a second audible if I'm going to rely so heavily on it. - Z "Always be yourself... unless you suck." - Joss Whedon

I spent my first 100 jumps or so learning RW. I can vouch for the fact that learning RW helped develop a basic, fundamental understanding of body flight that can be carried over into freefly. Learning things such as "When I push against the relative wind this way, my body does..." or "When I arch/dearch, my body does...." is very useful in freefly, even if you don't use those exact skills. What's funny is that now that I've been freeflying for a while, I'll occasionally go back & do an RW jump and be amazed at how much better I am at it than when I stopped! Just as some of the RW skills can be carried over into freefly, freefly skills can be carried over into RW. For example, I was doing a raft jump that went to hell and so the backup plan was to do this big-ass round. Out the door, when it was clear the raft dive was blown, we all went down for the base. I went into a hard RW-style dive, which for me was just the other side of head down and was quite comfortable. A couple of RW folks complimented me on my ability to dive hard and controlled. At one point as I was heading into the formation, I realized I was coming in way too hot. I did this weird instinctive de-arch, grab the air thing that immediately put the brakes on. A couple RW folks had this look of "What the hell was *that*?" But it stopped me on level with the formation & I was able to back off a bit and come back in. So the instincts in both can carry over and serve you well in the other environment. I'd also note that the USPA Millennium Award has a belly component, and many of the top freefly teams were incorporating belly moves in their routines at this year's Nationals, so being proficient on your belly is becoming more & more important in freefly. And remember, it's all skydiving. It's all good. - Z "Always be yourself... unless you suck." - Joss Whedon

Newbie freefliers always worry me a bit, knowing now what I know. It's not so much the time thing, though that may be a problem for some folks. The thing with freeflying when you're first starting out is controlling sliding. Newbie freefliers always front/backslide when they are starting out. Usually they backslide while learning to sit & frontslide when learning head down. Head down is especially worrisome because you can cover a lot of ground without even knowing it. That's why I tell newbies to try to take & maintain a heading perpendicular to jump run (and actually it's a good habit for experienecd freefliers as well). If you forward/backslide you won't drift over the previous group or under the following group. Looking up & down occasionally doesn't hurt either. - Z "Always be yourself... unless you suck." - Joss Whedon

Hey man, congrats! Guess we'll be seeing your name in Parachutist/Skydiving. BEER! Thanks again for the head down drill jump. That did wonders for my confidence. I may be heading out to the DZ this weekend, I'll drop you a note later. - Z "Always be yourself... unless you suck." - Joss Whedon

Hey lew. I asked freaksis who all was around and she mentioned you. Sorry I never got a chance to say hello. If you noticed a guy walking around in a YinYang freefly suit (who almost swooped into the cars on Sunday - DOH!) that was me.

Ya know, now I think you'd have to pay me to be a tandem passenger. I'd just feel naked without a rig. - Z "Always be yourself... unless you suck." - Joss Whedon

What am I? Chopped liver? j/k Hope you had fun playing around! I did!

Even though this is the RW forum .... Head down is freaking hard. It's taken me ~150-200 jumps working strictly on head down to get to where I can fly in docking proximity with someone, take (and switch) grips & hold the slot. Pointing your head at the ground ain't the problem. Fall rate control, falling straight down the pipe (rather than zooming) & horizontal proximity are the things that are really hard to learn. Just takes time & lots of jumps. Newbie sitfliers are good for target practice... K back to the RW chat. - Z "Always be yourself... unless you suck." - Joss Whedon

Exactly. I've flown a Jedei & a Vengeance. The vengeance is becoming my favorite main yet. The thing dives like a mofo but I always feel like I'm in complete control of it. Plus it doesn't seem to have the rear riser oversteer that the Jedei had. Some people have commented that the Vengeance is a Stiletto with airlocks. I've flown both a Stiletto 120 & a Vengeance 120 and they are two totally different animals in terms of flight characteristics. The Stiletto has way higher front riser pressure, and the flare is more difficult to get a good surf out of (IMHO). What's interesting is that everyone says the Stiletto is "twitchy", but it was a heckuva lot more docile with the toggle inputs than my Vengeance. Just my $0.02. - Z "Always be yourself... unless you suck." - Joss Whedon

I wasn't on the jump (for two obvious reasons ) but I was on the same formation load where there was an attempt to set the Texas all-ladies formation record. They went for a 29-way but didn't quite get it (dunno if they did later). It was kinda cool watching the formation coming together from the back of the Sky Van after they left. The guy-gal ratio on the ride up wasn't too shabby either. - Z "Always be yourself... unless you suck." - Joss Whedon

Hey Slap, I'm prolly gonna have to drive up myself. Other commitments, ya know. - Z "Always be yourself... unless you suck." - Joss Whedon

Happy B-day Scotty! And good to see you posting Tami!

Hey Trent, if you do an inverted monkey exit one person is gonna be in a sit and one in a head down. So for that cartwheel do both have to be head down or can one be in a sit? - Z "Always be yourself... unless you suck." - Joss Whedon

I know Levin flies a wingsuit from time to time. he's up at SDH. Zak flies one quite a bit and just sold his suit to Austin Davis, so there are at least a couple there. IRC, doesn't someone at Skydive dallas do wingsuit instruction? I'd definitely like to try it, but if things go the way I expect, I'll probably be taking up BASE jumping first. - Z "Always be yourself... unless you suck." - Joss Whedon

Thanks to all of you for your kind words and support. You have no idea how much this means to me at this time. I especially want to thank those of you that took the time to send me a private message, though all of your responses are appreciated more than you can imagine. It's nice to know that people care. You are all like family to me and I love you all dearly. Bloos! - Z "Always be yourself... unless you suck." - Joss Whedon

Subject says it all. My wife & I are separated and it's looking pretty bleak that my marriage can be salvaged. On the up (?) side, skydiving isn't the issue. Instead my wife has told me that she's in love with someone else and doesn't love me anymore. This after 10 years together. To say I'm taking this hard is probably the understatement of the year. Sorry to lay out my dirty laundry, but any good vibes y'all could send my way would be greatly appreciated. - Z "Always be yourself... unless you suck." - Joss Whedon

Excellent! Congrats!

Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder "Attention Deficit" is kind of a misnomer because I have a really strong ability to hyperfocus (I call it my "code trance"). One doctor said that Attention Inconsistency is probably a better description. - Z "Always be yourself... unless you suck." - Joss Whedon

I was recently diagnosed with ADHD (which helps make a lot of sense of why I do the things I do). And when I stop and think about it, there has got to be an awfully high percentage of us who are ADHD...BASE jumpers prolly even higher. In my case it's kind of weird because I'm not really bouncy & I got pretty good grades in school. I fidget with my hair all the time. I have a hard time sitting still unless I'm totally engrossed in something like a movie. I get bored *really* easily. I have a really bad habit of tuning out in conversations and I lose stuff all the freaking time. I can't remember the last time I finished a book, but I still buy tons of them. You oughta see my "To Read" pile. I've always sort of wondered why I'm attracted to hardcore heavy type music, frenetically-paced first person shooter games and skydiving. Now I have an answer. So anyway, as sort of an informal poll, how many of y'all have been diagnosed with ADHD (or think you have it)? - Z "Always be yourself... unless you suck." - Joss Whedon

Whoa. I'm kind of surprised no one had a Cypres fire. In any event, yeah we all screw up. God knows I've had my share. But ya gotta just treat them as learning experiences and move on. Last time out at the DZ one of the newer jumpers just decided he wanted to do one of those cool hook turns "because they look cool and look like a lot of fun". Problem was he started it *way* too low. Luckily all that happened was that he busted his butt on the ground. Needless to say *everyone* was giving him hell about it. I told him, and I guess my thought to you, is that you shouldn't take it too personally. People do that because they care and don't want to see you get hurt. Yelling really isn't my style, I'm more of an "Ummm... that wasn't a very smart thing to do...." type of person. But if folks chew you out it doesn't mean the hate you or anything. So live, learn, go forth & sin no more. - Z "Always be yourself... unless you suck." - Joss Whedon

No. Despair is much worse. "Zero Tolerance: the politically correct term for zero thought, zero common sense."

I've been jumping a Jedei 136 (precursur to the Samurai) for about the past 150 jumps or so. Just bought a Vengeance 120 and like it a lot. Just a few impressions... Jedei/Samurai --------------------- * "Icarus" style flare (doesn't bite until deeper in the stroke). * Good with braked turns... not "twitchy". * Big time oversteer on riser turns. * Great glide. I had some seriously bad spots and always made it back. * Moderate front riser pressure. Vengeance ---------------- * "PD"-style flare (duh). * Little twitchier in the toggles. Braked turns are a little more dicey. * Very light front riser pressure. I could hold double fronts pretty much as long as I wanted to. * Very nice glide. * Great surfs. I realize some of the performance difference are due to the fact tht the Jedei has around 1000 jumps on it, and the Vengeance is a size smaller. I have put a few jumps on a Vengeance 135 and my general impressions are pretty much the same. They're both great canopies. I don't think you can go wrong either way. My thing right now is getting used to the PD-style flare on the Vengeance again (I had a Sabre before the Jedei). Once I get it dialed in that thing is gonna surf like crazy. Oh and FYI I'm loading the Vengeance around 1.4 (just lost around 15 pounds). "Zero Tolerance: the politically correct term for zero thought, zero common sense."

Yeah that was pretty much a mind-blowing event. And, like Paula said, it was pretty much a carnival atmosphere. Kudos to all the Spaceland staff for their hard work in putting on a great event. It really showed. And also kudos to Paula and the volunteers for helping pull this thing off. This really was a team effort. Hope we can get it next year.