Trae

Well I suppose the thing to do would be to set a reasonable limit.. it wouldn't have to be too slow and it could change if required. perhaps sometimes small canopies would just be too fast for the heavy traffic and these people might need a cruisier canopy for those times.

in reply to "I learned this from a newer jumper than myself and have adopted this idea. When you make your final turn to land, spread your legs as if you are lunging. For some odd reason this puts me just where i need to be for my flare and if you need to run it off, your already in position. " ................................................ This is a classic Newbies inventing new landing techniques is fraught with danger and suspension of belief. Your technique may work most of the time but when you get it wrong, one leg will go one way and the other leg will get as far apar as it can....ouch! The timeless call of " LEGS TOGETHER " should not be dissappearing from a student DZ near you.

in reply to " when traffic starts getting heavy and people start cutting in front of you - do you look more at the road, or do you stare at your speedometer?" .................................. My car has an audible over-speed alarm and cruise control. My canopy don't . Some type of canopy speed indicator might help control the 3D skyhighway mobs (eg approach speed limits minimising over/undertaking) as they all pull into the service centres at the same time flaring erratically at high speed. But that would be ruining the fun? Canopy speed limits for general sport skydiving? Sounds restrictive and potentially complicated /unworkable but might just be common sense.

in reply to "get a GPS-unit, do some tests and let us know! " ............................................... I think it is slightly hilarious that we don't know how fast we're going. Skydiving is like driving on a 20 lane 3D motorway with any and every pleb, no lane markers and no speed limits...and we wonder why we crash into each other? hey manufacturers ! niche market recognised, canopy speedometers could be the new 'must have' gadget on the DZ.....that and speed limits, radar checks, licence suspenesions etc.

Good info on relative landing speeds. 22 or 26 mph is still a fair speed for such lightly loaded canopies. Do you know what the landing speed is for a range of modern canopies that A licencees would be using? eg what would the speed be for a Sabre at 1:1 ? Just thinking it might be helpful to know what speed we're flying around the place at. Most of us know what our loading is but just how fast are we all going?

reply to "I've done 12 jumps so far on a 230. Ie would this step down be om, or too big. " ................................ This is a no brainer. DEFINITELY stick with the 230 you'll have more fun but scare yourself less ..and don't let the second hand market suck you into downsizing way too early .

in reply to "Dead. Dead is too old. " .................................................. This is the real truth. The only thing making me feel old are the injuries I collected in my youth.

If it hasn't got a tail-gate its a waste of 2 mil.

Altimeters are a great invention. Without one I'm not sure I would have got past 10 second delays (static line course). Instead of counting to 10 in 2 seconds flat got to watch the dial . As a training aid its almost indespensible. as an ongoing safety aid, yep, almost indispensible. No REAL need to not have one , although loaning to another is a good cause. Jumping consistently (hundreds of 4way ) without an altimeter nearly put me into a hill after a 4way jump through cloud. Our team gradually dispensed with altimeters until only one person on the team had an audible. I didn't hear it but saw her dump just before I saw the hill coming up. If I'd had an altimeter I might have opended just fine in cloud instead of landing on the side of a hill under a reserve with the slider still up . Now I prefer to see an altimeter during a dive .

in reply to "Good call, I almost ignored that fact when I started working on the wing animation. Having the wings rigid most of the time gives us some leeway. :) " ............................................ Amazing Can it be possible for the player to alter their suit design? possibly fly the full range of suits? Perhaps the possibility can be allowed for as you model the suit. congrats on a great effort

in reply to "Would you mind defining "master". Is that 100 flat jumps? 1000 jumps? Choose your own definition. Most people are able to determine their own skill level in a sport, and are fairly aware when they have reached a level of competence. " ............................... Thankfully yes. Funny what us humans can get up to though. We just might hide our mistakes, lie about our jump numbers , and have unrealistic delusions about our skill level. Having friends who will tell you when you're not up to it can be a nice safety valve.

in reply to "As long as you can track and be stable at pull time there is nothing wrong with not mastering belly flying if it holds no interest for you. " .......................................................... One way to help keep yourself safe is to recognise questionable advice....perhaps by cross checking. Too many people I've heard talking like this 0 jumper just aren't around anymore. The problem is they cut themselves off from hard learnt lessons and then get to see how we learnt it. OUCH.

in reply to "If the toss was good, than this is bad... If the toss was bad; we don't have to worry. (user error) " ..................................... I wonder how many of us will be doing bridle/pc clearing exercises from now on ? absolutely excellent save Frodo :) hope we all learn from this, especially manufacturers !!!

in base it feels like you're jumping 1 good canopy. in skydiving it feels like you're jumping 1 1/2 canopies.

Half a dozen solo recurrency jumps under the guidance of an instructor would usually do it. I think you'll know after your first jump back when to part with readies. real ones

in reply to "Bottom line is, you don't really want to be leaving stuff lying around - particularly not at Boogies where people come and go. " .................... Thing is its very difficult to maintain full security at a civilian DZ open to the public. I've had a container and canopy stolen . I made the mistake of leaving it in the gear hire room for a few weeks and some nice bastard borrowed them permanently . They were historical bits of gear I treasured. the canopy , a 5cell rainbow stratostar, was my first canopy. no doubt its hanging up somewhere. Funny the overseas visitors that left rapidly around that time. Most cases of theft I've noted happens when lots of strangers are at the DZ. Sometimes the theivey guys are working in a group, lookouts and interference. Don't underestimate them . We caught a thief after months of loosing stuff. Turned out to be a local kid who roamed in and out depending on when loads went up. He had his own little treasure stash of jewerelly , watches and cameras that he'd nicked from unlocked cars. Another thief was caught by a video camera setup in the packing area. When it comes down to it, most thieves are more scared of getting caught than they are of not stealing. Minimise the opportunities for easy theft and then they have to work for their ill-got gains. Like with snakes, if you feel the fear there's usually a good reason . Oh the sweetness of catching a thief in the act. Hope you get to do it sometime.

in reply to "I vote also to not use AAD and play more responsibility skydiving choosing your load partners, opening at the right altitude, wearing the correct reserve size for the container we use, etc, etc. " .......................... Hopefully the AAD crowd do this as well...praps not for some. At some point, especially if reserve activation altitude is increased, it might seem more appropriate to put the AAD on the main. Then the activation altitude would be raised up to main opening heights. In a real emergency all that extra height could be very handy. If people are genuinly concerned with getting unconscious in freefall, it would seem more logical to provide themselves with a slow docile AAD'd 7 cell non-snivelling main (ie low aspect ratio, lightly loaded canopy) that will let them down relatively safely while unconscious . But by all means, raise the activation altitude for these people , if you feel like you need an AAD to survive or CYA, then you need extra altitude even more.

in reply " it sounds like the same old thing, another high speed landing incident. " ................................................. It does seem like the safety of parachutes used in skydiving has peaked and is on a definite downward trend. This should be obvious to us all when very experienced skydivers die from momentary poor canopy control. Monkey see monkey do. Its really up to the 'pro's on show ' to set a good example in canopy choice not be the ones screamin' in like idiots. A few steps backwards as regards choosing more docile canopies would imho be a good thing for the sport. Skydiving might get cruisy again, you know like it used to be.

in reply to "What I have a feeling you are picturing is a cutter that detects that something is routed through it. There's no reasonable way for an AAD to tell that that something is a properly routed closing loop. And setting aside monetary costs of doing this incomplete check you have the safety cost of a bulkier cutter that interferes more with the packjob/closing of the container, has more potential hang ups, and has a more complicated wiring harness. " .................................. It might be possible to design the cutter/loop so that the unit could be supplied with the part of the loop to be cut already installed. If the cutter unit had the part of the loop to be cut as an integral part of the cutter unit . ie the loop section to be cut is always in the cutter , it wouldn't have to be placed there by the rigger . The loop sections outside the cutter could still be easily replaceable and open to rigging errors, but the bit to be cut would remain inside . Because a loop would have to be attached both sides of the cutter the loop would become a chain , A missing link in this chain may be easier to pick up than a misrouted loop. Hope we get better AAD's out of cases like this.

in reply to "For BASE jumping yes, but, that has nothing to do with our choice of skydiving canopies. For BASE, I have a 240 designed for the job it's intended. For skydiving, I jump a Velocity. " ............................ Sure might mean nothing to you , to me its made me re-evaluate my choice of skydiving canopy. 260 for base was excellent . Now my K120 looks like a suckers canopy . The slightest whiff in the wrong direction and it wants to kill me. Newbies should realise its OK to go a bit slower ,..and stay there, that skydiving doesn't mean you HAVE to have a tiny HP canopy . ALL the long term skydivers I know have pissed their tiny HP's off and now jump sensibly sized canopies. Like me, they've seen TOO many people get sucked into the fast landing BS trip.

in reply to "Having jumped a big accuracy canopy and a xbraced 69.... Both can be bothered by turbulence. And if one were to partially collapse... I'd rather be under the big ass canopy than the small one. " ......................................... oh yeah, me too. Going back to jumping large 7cell f111 canopies (tall walling ) has been an absolute delight. Now my skydiving gear looks a bit dangreous in comparison. Base jumpers show a great deal of sense when it comes to canopy selection. The skydiving community could learn a lot from them in this respect. What some would see as backwards step, ie a return to docile slower canopies, others would recognise as a safety improvement. Its just no good for our sport when the canopies are faster than the pilots. How many more players would there be if they weren't taken out by landing injuries.?

in reply to "Maybe it was the 9-10 years I preceded you, but I've known too many impact deaths. " ....................................... A relatively peculiar thing happened around the time I did my first jump. There had been a spate of bounces and incidents at the DZ just prior to my first jump course. The military moved in....no-one bounced at that DZ for the next 15 years.

in reply to "The FXC's had some real operational difficulties. That's why experienced people didn't use them. " .................. Hi John, I mainly saw them being used on student mains and set high, not as a last resort . They worked just fine . On a reserve I wouldn't have been so keen . ............................... in reply to "Modern AAD's have very few disadvantages and many advantages. That's like saying "Experienced drivers should outgrow seatbelts." Nonsense. You've been jumping almost as long as I have. How many dead friends do you have that an AAD would have saved? Too many for me. What are we not learning now that we have AAD's so prevalent? " ............................................ Its sad but I can't think of a single friend that would have been saved by an AAD. So many other dangers in this world when you push it a bit. Height awareness would have saved quite a few though. Being guided by decent, intelligent , well paced individuals would have saved even more. So many incidents are created by a mad collective rush that would have been a warning sign preAAD days. eg What a show of broken bones and death from HP ZP canopies . My feeling is preAAD , preAFF, skydivers knew how to take it all one step at a time . Now its straight to the top, by-passing the steady accumulation of knowledge and experiences . This shows up for example in higher canopy control incidence rates, Poor exit skills are another warning sign of basic lessons not learnt. I've seen experienced skydivers afraid to exit an aircraft at 2500'. AFF trained of course. Many things are not being learnt. Most could be relearnt easy enough . Have to recognise the small gaps in their knowledge first though.

in reply to "I used them during testing some years ago. Not my idea. On exit I would shut it off. They could have an operational window + or – 1500 feet something I did not want to deal with during a live test. " ........................................... I have a good memory of the FXC's. thing was most users, mainly students, outgrew them. Skydivers don't seem to outgrow their AAd's anymore so much...more like addicted to them. I think its stopping them from learning some things that pre-AAD skydivers took for granted. The AAD's do it for us. Kinda like a medication rather than a cure.

in reply to "This the one you need, designed to be all things to all people. All you need is to make sure you have the foot cocking wire. " ...................................................... Saw these operate on student mains over many years with nil problems. Very tough reliable unit .