VTmotoMike08

Damn, $27 per jump is the highest I have ever seen. Is it even that high in California where the fuel standards are higher? It is, however, worth noting a few facts when talking about prices at Mile HI. 1) $2 of every jump (student and experienced) is donated to a charity. Tdog, I know you know this, and everyone else can do a search. Its been discussed at length. 2) There is no other turbine DZ (or at least a good one) within hundreds of miles. I think there is currently a C-206 in CO Springs, but that does not cut it for most jumpers. There are a small handful of skyride DZs with cessnas that no upjumpers take seriously. Dare I say there is not another otter DZ within 400 miles??? (not a checked fact, but my estimate.) Management has up jumpers by the cojones and they know it. I have seen mile hi have over 100 tandems on a good Saturday. I have also seen 7-10 student FJCs. Often (when I jumped there), the king air ran with only tandems and several open seats that could be filled with upjumpers. With all these factors (especially the huge student numbers), I bet they could easily afford to still have those $22 jumps if they canned that silly donation also. Stated as objectively as I can, while still stating facts. Flame proof shied, activated.

Someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe 7 cell canopies (spectres) pack up slightly smaller than 9 cell canopies (safire 2's). It seems to make sense because 7 cells would have less ribs, stitching, etc. So a safire 139 and a spectre 150 might be very close in pack volume. A safire 149 would likely have more volume than a specre 150. Right? So, I would tend to believe the manufacturer. However, you would not be the first person "overfill" a main container. But doing so can damage the container also. Do you already have the safire 2 149? How could of a deal is it? There are lots of thing to consider.

I have limited experiance, and I dont fly a tiny parachute, but I remember getting this comparison from my instructors: Large student canopies = school bus or station wagon Medium (135-170, tapered) average canopies = ford mustang Sub 100 Xbraced canopies = Lamborghini diablo Fittingly enough, seeing that you can kill yourself in a station wagon, but its a lot easier to do in the Lamborghini Thoughts?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acme_Corporation "The Acme Corporation is a fictional corporation that exists in several cartoons, films and TV series, most significantly in the Looney Tunes universe, where it appeared most prominently in the Road Runner/Wile E. Coyote cartoons, which made Acme famous for outlandish and downright dangerous products that failed catastrophically at the worst possible times."

Send it in with a case of good beer and a nice note! What skydiver could turn that down?

Saw one once that said "ACME Air Brake"

must... resist... temptation to feed... troll

There is a serious conflict between these two statements, enough that at first I thought you were joking about this foolish idea. I can think of a few people other people that you might be putting at risk: -Everyone else on that jump who could get konked in the head with a barber char -The guy with a beard who gets his face slashed -Everyone on the ground when that parachute that you seem to have attached to the chair malfunctions (my interpretation of what seems to have been said in your other post when you said "the chair lived". Is this correct?) Anyone got any others? I am still entertaining the possibility that this is a joke until I see the video. Yes, people have jumped with cars and other large objects before, but it was done by professionals with thousands of jumps in a controlled environment (over the unpopulated desert with all the permits in place). Did you really show up at a new DZ in a different country and start talking about this crazy stunt? If that is the truth (which is suspect it is not) then it is not surprising that people were unwelcoming to your ideas And if you are looking for more attention, you should start another thread asking the canopy experts here what they think about you jumping at a 1.5:1 wingloading with 185 jumps (From your profile)

Seems to me that the manual that comes with this handy device would contain the answer to this and likely all other questions regarding its use Or to say it shorter: RTM

I wish my health and fitness club had one of those on sight!

To the OP: What are you trying to have done my Mel? Is it a line set? If so, I recommend contacting JR Sides at Chambersburg Skydiving Center. He met with Mel a few months ago and learned all the latest and greatest techniques for making lines sets. He can make a lineset for pretty much anything, including the Cobalt that I see you have (I have a Space). JR made a lineset and a slider mod for my canopy last weekend and the workmanship was excellent, and very quick. He is reliable and will not disappear. He is also a good source for just about anything that you need done.

I'm gonna go ahead and say that I am above average because I have a few hours in the tunnel and have learned from a couple very good tunnel coaches. I am average or slightly below compared to someone with my jumps and equal tunnel time.

The door monster had a good grip on me for my first 20 or so jumps. I was also pretty nervous in the plane.

Is that the DOM and jump numbers for the entire system, or just the container? How is the overall condition? How many years are left on the cypress? If it is also 1998, it has only about 2 years left. Jumps on the reserve? Provide just a little more info and I am sure you will get some good responses. I only have about 2 years in the sport, but I consider myself fairly savvy about gear pricing. My initial inclination is that $3700 is a little steep for a 10 year old rig.

Someone with more experiance can say for certain, but isnt this part of the reason that reserves are packed in a FREEbag? So that even if the reserve bridal got engangeled, the canopy could still have a chance at coming out? That is just my limited understanding of part of the reason reserve freebags are not attached to the canopy. I might be wrong and I would love to know.

Because that is an inconvenience that would piss people off, then they would go jump at your competitors dropzone that does not have such a silly policy. But I am an up-jumper, not a DZO so I guess my opinion doesn't matter

I am not an instructor and I am not familiar with that canopy. Is it an older F-111 canopy? If so, I believe 1:1 is the generally accepted practical maximum for any canopy made of all F-111 material. I have landed an F-111 canopy loaded at 1.2:1 and it was not really something I would like to do again.

You could also go ahead and become a member of USPA for about $50 and read Parachutist magazine every month

Theres already a wealth of good information in this thread but I will just add that my first 200ish jumps were on a sabre 190 with overall good results. For me, about 1 out of 20 was "harder than I would have liked" and about 1 out of 100 I would consider a "slammer". I could attribute both of those slammers on getting nervous because I was slightly low and not coming out of my track all the way before pulling. And you can usually pick up a used one for a decent price. Overall, I would recommend it.

Can you please elaborate on the "1/2 psycho pack"? I am familiar with the psycho pack but I don't really know what this means. Although I have never tried psycho packing this canopy. I thought the purpose of psycho packing was primarily to make it easier to get the canopy into the bag ("psycho bagging", really). I did not think it was supposed to really influence the opening as long as you do everything else right (quarter the slider, clear the stabilizers, etc) But I have never had a problem getting the canopy into my bag, the different fabric is really easy to pack, I can get a nice clean fold every time. But perhaps by understanding of psycho packing is incomplete. ___________________________________ Have you tried pulling in a full track? Ya know, some things just seem too weird for me to try it. Yes, on Atair's website it says their canopies open best from a track (Source) but that just conflicts with everything I know about body position on deployment and I really have no desire to try it. The next thing I will do to try and improve my openings will be to get the smaller pilot chute that is recommended. If that does not work, I will be getting an experienced rigger to sew a pocket onto my slider. The space/ cobalt sure is a strange canopy. I really love how it flies, but there is some funky instructions on how to get it open correctly. I am happy with it, but I will look into a more "normal" canopy that requires less special attention when packing and deploying for my next purchase (in a long time from now).

Yes, they are different! Cheers, MEL Not according to this post: Line specs for Atair mains The important part: >>"viper and impulse/alpha/space are to use the newer cobalt line sets." CobaltDan or masterrigger1, will you comment on this? I would be very interested in whether they are or are not the same because I also have a space 170 and it will need new lines in the near future as well. I was actually going to make a post almost exactly like this one in another few days! Masterrigger1- PM sent I Love how it flies and it has a super powerful flare, but gotta figure out how to get it to open softer. Not trying to get to far off track, but having my line stows a little tighter seemed to help. Rolling/ tucking the nose did not seem to help and when I rolled the tail very tightly, it open into several linetwists! I've gotta get around to that smaller PC and see how that works. If anyone else has any good info on how to pack this canopy for softer openings, I would love to hear it.

Well, here are my thoughts, whatever they are worth. The S&TA is more likely to say something if they are at the only DZ in the area. If someone gets an earful from the S&TA and there is another DZ right down the road, then see ya! They will be off to where they can do as they please. Perhaps the DZO does not want to drive people away and lose money so they tell the S&TA to go easy on people. But if they are the only DZ with 200 miles, then the jumper in question just might decide that it is not worth the drive to jump their small canopy and stick with a bigger one. Obviously, how much the jumper enjoys flying a particular canopy vs other disciplines will come into play. There are many aspects to your post but that was just the most obvious one to me.

I have a friend who was packing when he was too young to even hold the canopy himself. He said he used a step stool to stand on and had a packing paddle that he would use to reach down and flake the fabric! I think he needed some help folding it and putting it in the bag. He was stowing lines at a very young age before he started the other parts.

Gotcha. I can see how line shrinkage would be a bigger problem on smaller canopies than on larger ones. But I am still curious as to why HMA has not replaced spectra line on most canopies? Spectra (microline) basically replaced dacron lines a while ago, and it seems to me that HMA could do the same to spectra. Why is spectra (microline) still used on the majority of canopies if HMA is "better"? EDIT: I hope my questions are making sense. I just really want to understand the different types of lines.

I don't understand that. If the lines are not cascaded, wouldn't that make for overall more line length? But I do not know anything about volume per unit length of different line types. If anyone wanted to go into a detailed conversation about all the different line types (spectra, HMA, vectran, dacron, others?) , that would be awesome.