rendezvous

Has anyone attend or has info on the boogie at Lake George in New York. Read a little about it in the parachutist. I believe you land on the frozen lake. Any info will be appreciated, thanks.

pot + skydiving = Fatality, Mr pot or someone else, waiting to happen.

I was and still am attracted to all the disciplines since I can do non with any degree of competence. The more I learn the less I seem to know. I've decided to focus more on RW this year while atleast learning to sit fly. For next year I'll see what I want to do depending upon how this year goes. Wing suit is up on the priority list and so is BASE.

Well, Skydiving is demanding on patience. Consider this as an exercise towards developing some. If you want structure in a sport with 30000 plus participants you are bound to run into some paper work. If you want to get better in Skydivng you'll have to rely on a lot on pa·tience. It'll be tested a lot. As for the frustration of not being able to get an answer on how to give the test, well, most folks out here who have a license have managed to give atleast one test and have dealt with the paper work. Make it happen for yourself. You are a Skydiver. You have to be able to deal with a situation that does not present itself well. Read the incidents forum and you'll realize what all you can be subjected too. This is not a safe sport, it's made safe or atleast relatively safe by how you think and act. Figure out how you'll fullfill the requirements of the A license, have fun doing it and go get the license.

One creative dicspline I can think of is hybrid formation skydiving i.e turning points with a mix of RW and VRW on the same jump. We already have people trying hybrid jumps and we have an increasing number who want to excel in both FS and FF. I think we are probably seeing the birth of a new discpline. Ofcourse every thing from exit orders, seperation and fall rates to jump suit designs, formations, points, helmets etc will probably under go a complete overhaul if and when this catches up. I'm sure it'll be a huge challenge to work out issues like fall rate and the dangers associated to it and a lot of brain storming and creative thinking will go into it, but I think eventually it will happen if it hasn't already started. I for one would look forward to the possibility.

Want to take up a tunnel camp. How do you think the NSL camp compares with the Airspeed one. Which one offers more value for money, or are they pretty much the same. Appreciate an opinions on this.

What are the pros and cons of jumping a container that has been modifed for wing suits. I believe the edges of the base are freed for wing suits so as to facillitate an angular extration of the bag. How would this modification impact non wing suit jumping. To me it seems if you can use it for wing suit then you can use it for non wing suit too.

Just spoke to Sky's The Limit personnel. They say, there's nothing to worry. The the ruling does not apply since only the FAA and the DOT can rule over it. The operation will continue. By the way, when was this news reported ? I hope it's not old news coming back into circulation.

Every take off, until the plane reaches 2000+ makes me anxious. Keeps me thinking and ready. Fear is good. Hold on to it. It'll save your life one day.

No it is not. It's quite possible to get a step through on one side. I put in one once when I had cut the main to clean the cutaway cable.

Has anyone made any base jumps in the the North East area ( more like NY,NJ,CT ). Don't want to know the sites, just want to get a feel for how active this region is for BASE.

www.freefalladventures.com 2 hrs from Manhattan. www.skydivejerseyshore.com 1 Hr from Manhattan. www.skysthelimit.net 1 Hr from Manhattan

With high performance parachutes, adrenalin, and enough air heads around in Skydiving low turn deaths are here to stay. When it comes to that one reporter who is looking to run us into the ground no matter what, the only thing regulations will help do is make us look crazy and rule violators from just plain simple crazy as it stand today. You can do what you like, as long as Skydiving exists reporters will find a way to put a spin on a story. What needs to be addressed is whether rules in this case will be effective at all and to what degree can they be enforced. It just takes I low turn to kill. It's not that a Skydiver needs to do 10 to die on one that you can find him and isolate him. Controlling canopy size is much easier and yet I don't think we have a consenses on how to do that. As for banning hook turns, well with canopy swooping becoming a well establisehd discpline I'd like to hear how that can be achieved and who the motivation for it is going to come from. The only solution that comes to my mind is emphasize knowledge and education in the sport and then let people make their choice. The statistics that we have right now aren't all that alarming considering the growth of the sport. We have to develop an appetite for some growth in statistics as the sport becomes larger and broader. There is only so much we'll be able to regulate but there's a lot we can educate on, so I'd say the stress should be on bringing in good training and knowlege rather than more laws that will only entice people to test them. Laws after all are only as meaningful as our ability to enforce them.

I don't think there is anything that needs to be done to regulate low turns. It's talked about and there's enough information and advice available on it. Anything more would amount to policing the sport which is not a good idea. Personally, I think the sport is safe enough and the reason for that is the stress that we lay on educating ourselves about the sport. Since we are not policed we make an effort to think about our conduct in the sport. The day we have our conduct being dictated to us, we'll probably see the rise of a new breed of people who'll want to take shots at breaking the rules just to see what the fuss if all about. I think people are more responsible and mature in their approach and thinking if the choice to err remains with them. I do not think regulating will change the statistics to any better. It may just introduce a new type of category in the statistics. I think we should continue to stress on educating ourselves about the sport. May be we should get more people to discuss safety and low turns at DZ i.e have more safety day kind of discussions. I think that would be enough to get the point across to those who are smart enough to get it. For the few who are not, they'll inspite of all regulations still find some way of cutting their lives short so it doesnt really matter. As for bad publicity and bad press, well, there was a nice article in one of the Skydiving Magazine isssues on it. I think that's what needs to be done. We need to possitively engage and manage the press and Skydiving related PR at our DZs. PRESS is always looking to sell a good story. We can either help them author one or shy away from them and let them write one. As for ocassional cases where no matter what you do reporters still want to write crap, well, this is a risky and dangerous sport and they'll always manage to find material.

NO WAY ! Even with the current format I get very little work done. A chat room would end all my career prospects.

Considering she was jumping a BOC and was spinning out of control while pulling, I think it was a blessing in disguise that she couldn't pull the main since throwing a PC while unstable could have resulted in a far worse situation. If she was spinning flat how would a throw out make the situation far worse than a spring loaded PC ?

yup! I saw it in Rochester, NY. Pretty good. It doesn't cover Skydiving as a sport, rather it uses Skydiving and Base jumping as a backdrop to talk about the science behind risk. Though in the middle it goes of on a tangent from it's main theme to cover the experiment on Leonarod De Vinci's parachute model. I would rate it as good and a should see, specially for the bit that covers BASE. The theme was interesting from the point of view of people who want to understand why we take the risk. The Skydiving footage wasn't all that grand. But then again, the movie wasn't really about Skydiving. It was just using it for the backdrop. It could have used rock climbing and made the same point.

I was most impressed by a 50+ lady who was just getting off AFF and getting into coach jumps.

Well you are going to be hanging out at DZ.com then why not the DZ too. It's cool to hang out where ever you feel comfortable.

Goto http://www.skydivingmagazine.com/booksvcb.htm and look for: Skydivers 'Flying with Their Pants on Fire' By Tom Craighead. Here are more than 330 pages of entertaining stories about the author's 45 years of skydiving. The author relives the past by interviewing Dan Poynter, Bill Ottley, Mike Johnston, Bob Hallett, Bill Richards, Guy Wright, Ernie Butler, Nate Pond, Ben Rayner, Kim Emerson and other cornerstones of sport parachuting. The book provides real insight into our sport's roots by documenting its early years as well as the not-so-distant past. Softbound, 332 pages, 8.5 x 5.5 inches. $19.95 It's quite interesting and talks about how Skydiving took root in the US

I'm haven't taken up BASE jumping yet. Still trying to read up on it. I wanted to get a feel for what is the comfort level when it comes to the reliability of BASE specific gear. In other words, how many of the injury/fatality statistics lend themselves to BASE specific gear not functioning as expected.

Looking for a comparison between the DVDs/Videos of Crosswind and Dive In. Which one would be good to have ?

Thanks for this post bill. It's excellent. Need to move it to somewhere it'll exist and can be easily reached..

I've never flown a Spectre but I do own a Tri. I've got some 170 plus jumps on it and have never had a problem with it. It's helped me make some good off landings, some of which were tight for the experience level at which they happened. No problem with the packing. Got whacked a bit twice but I'm certain it was my packing that did it. Looking at your experience level I'd say you are still too early in the game to really make out the difference between a Spectre's and a Tri's flying characteristics. The slight differences in glide and responsiveness that you'll notice will probably be more psychological than real. As your piloting skills improve you'll realize that you can fly both these canopies equally well. By the time you reach the point where you understand canopy piloting to some level of competence you'll have many more choices to look into. Right now, go for the one you are getting a good deal on. Ofcourse, controlling the fabric on a Tri while packing is easier but then that shouldn't be much of a deciding factor either. It's about gettig used to it. You can sweat now or later, that's your choice.

Well, you could speak to Tony Suits.