azureriders

We live just East of Baton Rouge and are interested in some tunnel time. Any info on where the nearest ones are located and reviews on them would be appreciated.

That is exactly what my instructors taught me to do

Exactly, and that was my question, about the gear limits not my experience. Thanks for the very informative info. I still wonder why a container would be made with a harness so large that it would only fit someone over the TSO limit, unless the manufacturer expected it to be overloaded. Thoughts?

I think a tandem or two is fine for several reason that have been mentioned above, but I do not recommend Tandem Progression at all. After four tandems you are basicly dumped into the middle of AFF with four jumps remaining. I know several that have gone through this and none of them have done well when they started the AFF part, myself included. Tandems are great for sensory overload, canopy control, etc, but IMO do nothing for body position and freefall skills.

Ok, I have been waiting for the chance to ask this so here goes. Is it just me or is there a lot of overloading going on around and is it not hard to avoid. I am jumping a wings container DOM 10/04, label reads This container is limited to use by person up to 254lbs, fully equipped, up to 150 knots. My exit weight is 275, +0-5 on any given weekend. I bought this rig second hand and it fits me great, as far as comfort, hip ring placement, etc. But now for the kicker, I have tons of left over chest strap to stow and my leg straps are sinched up about as tight as the padding will allow, and my legs are quit large for my weight. There is no way this rig would fit someone smaller than me and would fit someone WAY bigger than me. Now whats up with that?????????? This rig was also custom made for a guy that is +-5lbs of my weight A little extra info, 275 is not my bare foot weight (235#) plus 20 or 22lbs, it is actuall scale reading with me fully clothed, jump suit, wallet, helmet, etc, you get the point, so that is my weight plus 40. For those of you who are concerned enough to go off on my experience level, I started with a manta 288 and worked my way through the rental gear with very close coaching, no skiping sizes, and with good landings on ea before moving on. I now fly my 230 very concervative and plan to stay that way. However, I am also open to your criticism

I know vediots that are still shooting 35mm stills on tandem jumps and having no problems selling them. How does 2.3MP compare to 35mm??

Nice chart, and amazingly close to some real life numbers I am familiar with. I was not saying you were wrong in the first place, just to be clear. I just get tired of everyone screaming that business owners are rich, corrupt, etc, when in fact lots of business owners are do no more than trying to keep their heads up in a dog eat dog world, but you know exactly what I mean if you have been in business since 74

Not meant as a flame but if the cost did go up $1.30 do you really think it unfair for the DZO to go up by $2.00. Also, you calculations are based on a full load, what if the average load only has 12 people. I know then the fuel cunsumption would also be less but not on a linear equation so therefore the DZO's cost per ticket would be greater than your calculation. I see and agree with your point, some people will use any excuse to up prices and take advantage of people. However, one must always look to the other side and not just assume that because he owns his own buisness, that he is getting stinking rich. Just my biased opinion from a buisness owner of 19 yrs. Mike Igo at Gold Coast is currently charging $20 bucks for 14k, normally 15k on the last load of the day. I have been looking for an increase as he did several months ago to $21, but he came right back down as soon as fuel prices did the same.

wow, a speed reader, I am impressed

You may be very suprised at the reply time of an email to RWS with a rigging question. I have got answers in as little as 30 minutes.

Probably not the issue in your case but the way it was discused at saftey day it will not necessarilly affect your cypress powering on without any error message. We were told to inspect the cypress unit by feeling it through the lower part of the reserve trey, after a hard landing, while the main was still unpacked. Supposedly you should be able to feel any cracks that are in the unit. Of course you are right, if this was a problem with the main surely you could find sign of where the acid came through the reserve trey.

Cypress batteries?? This was discussed at our DZ on saftey day. Seems that it is possible to crack the cypress housing on a rough landing. Although the case that was discussed was acid on the reserve. If I were you I may be concerned about your other ride? Just a thought, from a newbie

An eye for an eye and a push for a push. I would just push him back. You know, as soon as I got in reach of him on the ground, swing my fist back and then forward as hard as I could and when it contacted his nose, then I would push for all I was worth. No, I probably would not have went that far, but I would not have found it funny either. I maybe a newbie, but I like my right to spot.

http://goldcoastskydivers.com/ I am fairly sure will give him a tandem ride, and we jump year around, although we do get a lot of wind days this time of year.

I went through Tandem progression which required fourt tandem jumps. I was (still am) a gear freak and can't learn enough about the things. By the time I made my fourth Tandem jump, the forth jump of any kind for that matter, I could locate all the handles on my TM while harnessed to him in the plane. Of course I never had any reason to try this in the air and doubt I would have had the experiece to do any good in the event that I did. This includes the drouge, both drouge releases, cutaway, reserve, and the little ball hanging on the RSL to deploy the reserve on the right side. TM's, did I miss any?

Bill, I have read your canopy check list article in the safety section of DZ.com. I have been planning to begin working on this as soon as I get my own gear, which I will have in the next few weeks. Two weeks ago the winds were a little gusty/squirrelly and blowing just below my personal cut off. I was watching them extremely close all day as well as asking my old Instructors for their opinion of me jumping them. My third jump of the day I was on final, going to land 20ft or so off to the right side of another jumper chaining his lines on the ground. As I was getting fairly low I caught a gust or something and very quickly drifted to the left, putting me on a direct collision course with Bill. My course of action was to apply a slight amount of right toggle; just enough to leave Bill untouched and hopefully keep the canopy over my head. At about 20ft off the ground my heading was clear of Bill and my hands were up, but all of a sudden my decent rate increased very quickly. I immediately flared hard and fast but as my hands reached my waist my feet had already met the ground and began my PLF. At first read I know this sounds like a diving canopy, but the amount of right toggle was very slight and others watching said it did not look as if the canopy was diving at all, maybe another rouge gust was the comment made more than once???????? I know a flat turn would have been better here but as I have not practiced them I decided not to attempt one for the first time, under pressure. Questions: 1. Given my experience, should I have tried a flat turn based on what I have read about them? (It did cross my mind at the time) 2. Given my course of action, should I have toggled left and went 'with' the drift instead of fighting against the drift? (the air and ground was clear in both cases and also crossed my mind, but at the time going with the drift, was in my mind like going 'with' the wind) 3. In my case I am sure I had plenty of altitude to perform a 10 degree flat turn and miss Bill, but if I would have been a little lower would I have been better to break turn and PLF into the Accuracy Approach, or wait a bit longer and flare turn to a stand up landing? (I think I know this one but thought it good for conversation) 4. I have also read some of Brian Germans works and believe that airspeed is important in turbulent areas. Given the wind conditions of my example, how much danger does braked/flat/flare turns put you in, in regard to collapse in turbulence. Obvious answers to some other questions: 1. Practice up high before this happens and you need it. 2. Don't be landing with in 20ft of someone when you know the winds are not favorable. (Our landing area is no less than huge) I plan on asking all these questions Tomorrow at Safety Day, but thought it would be good to get some input here as well and I thought it relevant to this awesome thread. Hope this fuels more discussion, for the good of us all.

These would be very easily made with the proper (or make shift) tools. Lead can be melted on a gas cook top and smelted in a variety of molds. Check with some hard core fishermen that make their own sinkers. I keep seeing comments like this one, or "fold and sew the top" but if looks are really important to you, check some sewing sources for the technique of blind stitching. If you know how you could sew across the last side of a pouch by hand in only a minute or two and make it look exactly like the other end that was sewn and then turned inside out.

For a while we were jumping about 30 miles north and +400' from where we were taking off. We would set our visualls for the offset. However, the landing area there is flat and flat all around with no hills, just 400' above take off, so it caused no problems with the pattern.

i didn't think about this till today and thought i'd ask here before asking my instructor. hahaha, change your way of thinking... ask your instructor. thats what they are there for. Mark, I agree that is what instructors are for and as said by so many before, always ask your instructors. However, I don't believe that it is a bad idea to ask here first. Zero, Don't misunderstand me, if you are with your instructor and have a question, ask him. I am not suggesting that you wait until you can ask DZ.com first. Now, all too often I found my self sitting around and bam, there is a question in my head, why did I not ask my instructor that. Asking here first is a technique that I used, and still use, very successfully. You must however remember one thing, never believe a damn thing you are told here, by me or anyone else, and especially me. You can however use what you are told here to fuel your mind with questions to ask your instructor latter. Ask here first and the answers you get may add more questions for you to ask your instructor later, questions you may not have otherwise thought of. As for your original question, I am aprox. 265# out the door so I have no idea what you are talking about

Below is a comparison of the prices that Frontier is advertising and what I paid at Gold Coast. I think everyone here will agree that they are both on line with average. Gold coast offers free coach jumps and training video, costing me only for the coach/videot slot, pack job, and tip to the video editor. That is the only way that Gold Coast wound up on the cheap side of the chart. Other cost could also be added to this. If you don't buy your own rig (they cost money too) you will be looking at $250 plus in gear rental between AFF graduation and your A license. What if takes you 14 jumps instead of 7 to graduate AFF (don't think this can't happen because it can and does) thats another $1200 plus. You will need more jump tickets if you are not done with you A liscense proficiency card by jump # 25 (also happens a lot) I work hard for my money in a company that I have owned and operated for over 12 years and that I started from scratch when I could not afford a $2000 work truck must less a $2000 jump coarse. So don't tell me that I got more money than brains. My brains will not let me spend a penny with out shopping the market and I Just recieved my A license after jump #32 and my wife is currently level 4 AFF. I think I am qualified to say that if you should not be suprised if it costs you triple what you are expecting. -------------------------------------------------GOLD ------------------------------FRONTIER-------COAST First Jump Coarse------------40----------------100 Level 1 AFF------------------285----------------179 Level 2-----------------------185----------------179 Level 3-----------------------185----------------179 Level 4-----------------------150----------------179 Level 5-----------------------150----------------179 Level 6-----------------------150----------------179 Level 7-----------------------150----------------179 AFF Total--------------------1295---------------1353 6 Coach Jumps--------------450----------------276 3 Training videos------------195----------------138 Additional jump tickets------240----------------240 A license total --------------2180---------------2007

Ever think he may do business a little diferently on a monitored forum? DUH?!?! I think what Freefly was saying is that you should post a message on EBAY warning people there of his business tactics, but of course being that you did not buy anything from him on ebay, you can not do that. I deal with ebay a good bit myself and find that a positive feed back does not always mean a whole lot. Most sellers will not leave you a feedback until you leave one for them, so guess what happens if you leave negative, you get one right back. Most people know this so when they are not happy with a seller they just opp to leave no feed back at all instead of risking a negative for theirself.

I know and agree with this, and also that larger groups fall slower therefore the largest to smallest within each discipline. I guess my question was could one larger group of one discipline overlap fall rates with a small group of another discipline? If that be the case I stand corrected already as I don't believe the solo belly flyer was falling nearly that fast and the exit order was correct as it was.

Our DZ follows the same basic exit order that most on here seem to agree with. RW largest to smallest, FF largest to smallest, AFF, Tandems. A load from this weekend, in the order of exit 1) RW four way round, 2) solo belly flyer, 3) Hybrid including 6 or 7 belly flyers. I realize that hybrid belly flyers arch hard and fall fast in sake of their FF counterparts, but do they truly fall faster and therefore have less drift than the solo that went ahead of them. (I don't think so) Does the fact that they had more belly flyers slow them down more than the RW four way and therefore they should have went first (I still don't think so) IMO the correct order would have been 1)RW four way, 2) Hybrid 3) Solo Belly, but then again I don't know enough about the fall rate of a Hybrid to say this for sure ergo my questions. More info: Jump run was into the wind. I was in the first group so I felt safe no matter. I knew we had more drift than the solo and even if the hybrid should have gone first I could not see them drifting all the way over the solo and to us. The hybrid was also packed with experience, a lot of which I have the utmost respect for and no doubt in my mind they gave a good separation (although I was gone by that time so who can say for sure) I have learned a lot from a few similar threads in the past and Kallend's model is great. I would appreciate any input on this to further my knowledge.

I can see how that would work but I have never heard of it before. Is the 'spider slider' in use on any in production canopy? just curious?

Same thing happens with ebay adds, here is his ebay profile.