dragon2

We have some stilettos and sabres here with thousands of jumps on them. You can get really good deals on canopies with 700+ jumps on them

I know of a few bad landings with tempos, all were overloaded 120s that stalled too soon. One guy had 2 reserve rides in one week (and a couple thousand jumps total of which a lot on small highly loaded CRW canopies), he landed his 120 fine the first time but stalled it on the 2nd ciel bleu, Saskia

It definately works I had the same problem once, a good smack fixed it

If you want/need a sidemount camera and/or have a box specialy for this camera I'd say have it repaired (if $$$ within reason), if not, i'd buy new. ciel bleu, Saskia

Over here the order of dummies, c&p, 5 secs, 10 secs has now been replaced by dummies then 10 secs first freefall, not sure when you get to do the other jumps but later on. The c&p is one of the most difficult jumps to do stress-wise so doing it later on seems a good idea to me (not an instructor though). I know i couldn't quite get the hang of the dummies and they asked me if i would pull after 5 secs if they threw me out at 5k. Hell yeah! So I went 5 secs-10 secs-9000ft etc, did the c&p much later. It worked for me so I'm all for the change in curriculum.... ciel bleu, Saskia

For you guys it seems to, but for us, not so much. I don't particularly care if it's the North Sea, an ocean or two or just a few lines on a map separating seller and buyer. In general Americans seem overly paranoid regarding borders to me, and in general, Europeans, Asians etc do not or to a much lesser extent anyway. Why most of us here went to the euro, probably the same reason you all have US dollars, it's easy. But it is also easy to google up an exchange rate ciel bleu, Saskia

It seems to depend on the canopy... My safire goes much further on rears than using brakes, my vengeance seems to like brakes better, my spectre definately did. Might also be related to wingloading, the safire i load the highest. If I slowly float along with the wind for a long time i can get pretty far. The safire however doesn't float that well. ciel bleu, Saskia

I always check mine, and it's not mechanical (neptune). Jumped a skytronic alti once and it read 800ft off in the plane. Nice warning not to trust it in freefall. It read 4000ft when at 1000ft under canopy ciel bleu, Saskia

It's a well-used circa-2002 Safire (not Safire 2) Then you do know that a safire 1 is about a size (8%) smaller than a safire 2 so it actually is a 160 right? ciel bleu, Saskia

That's a load of $%%^* ya know. I sell some stuff to the States every now and then, although granted the dollar-euro is now way more in favor of me buying FROM the States. But man are you guys paranoid or something??? The civilised world doesn't end at your borders He wasn't disparaging Europeans. Not disparaging? Now English is not my first language, but I read that as "Europeans are trying to screw you". Which is offending to me. ciel bleu, Saskia

Meh, luckily not all my buyers think so, it is very possible to find a good deal on something here even with currencies being what they are and with shipping, mostly for special stuff like Lightnings, or main canopies that are harder to sell here due to canopy rules, like 135-120s. But i really mean the paranoid thing, I get that sometimes when I want to buy something too. Ooooh foreign, oooh bad. Sigh. And you Americans, would it hurt you to take a stab at converting currencies yourself every once in a while, I'm not gonna take an offer like less number-of-dollars than number-of-euros Yeah, most of you do appear to think very nationalistic ciel bleu, Saskia

Never feel dumb because you don't know something! Much better to ask someone than to do it wrong! Or, admit you're not sure about this or that rig and have someone else do the check but watch ciel bleu, Saskia

Because often there's a way to get an extra step like that to lead to a mal... You just haven't found it yet Why do it if it isn't necessary, just uncock the last bit after bagging, or not, mine opens just fine when I don't, the little bit of creep doesn't seem to affect my openings one bit. I'm always wary of "tricks" ciel bleu, Saskia

I never did mind being the party pooper... When I could barely hold a stable sit i was jumping with one up jumper, during tracking I spotted another guy????? Turns out another up jumper followed us "just for observing" he asked before if he could join us and we had told him no. So he just dove out immediately after us! "My" up jumper was fairly pissed he'd been hovering near us the entire jump I was too busy with my sit to notice him before break-off. So okay I could hold a sit, another jumper and I went up in the plane for a 2way. Whaddaya know it ended up being a five or six way on the way up. Without me though I went solo! Call me a wuss, don't care! I have some more jumps in the meantime, now I get -preferably right before boarding- oh yeah I'll be jumping with you because the tandempassenger you're videoing is my . I've let that happen a few times, not anymore, not unless I have 200% trust in you. I do not mind changing the plan on short notice, provided it is doable (a 3 way wingsuit flock becomes a 4way, usually fine, or, i'm jumping solo and I hook up with someone else in the plane for a 2way, great) and I know and trust the jumper(s). Otherwise, no. ciel bleu, Saskia

That's a load of $%%^* ya know. I sell some stuff to the States every now and then, although granted the dollar-euro is now way more in favor of me buying FROM the States. But man are you guys paranoid or something??? The civilised world doesn't end at your borders ciel bleu, Saskia

It definately helps your canopy fly better. I'd say from a 170 and down you'd want one for sure. Bigger canopy, not sure the slight benefit outweighs the negatives; it is a high maintenance item (replacing the killline every so many jumps) and more potential for a mal (forgetting to cock etc). I'd buy one when you get to a smaller size canopy and/or you want to wring all performance out of your main, like pulling the slider down behind your neck etc. ciel bleu, Saskia

I don't buy the 7cell vs 9cell argument either... I think your friend was lucky he got away with flaring the specte like he did, probably because of his lack of weight. When i sold my spectre 150 to another jumper he tried the single stab flare and promptly went up a few feet looking very surprised. My spectre was way newer than the one he'd been jumping before and was in way better trim. Also a spectre and a springo are very different canopies, a springo is a french stiletto type canopy and french canopies typically have a short toggle stroke so yeah real easy to stall it flaring like that. That's just stupid he should've figured that out higher up and besides going down so much (almost half!) in size and to a more hp canopy all at once is stupid in itself in my book regardless of weight. But AFAIK it has nothing to do with the number of cells. ciel bleu, Saskia

Funny you not mentioning your own reason for downsizing here, ie, the canopy will collapse with a low WL ciel bleu, Saskia

Also are you sure you were not opening in a (slight) track or in a head-low position? ciel bleu, Saskia

I never had the kicking problem myself, and I'm no instructor, but I'd think 10 secs might be a good idea because it gives you more time to RELAX, provided your instructors say you can go of course. That, or keep doing the 5 secs until you fix this. Maybe more freefall would help, a tandem, AFF1 jump or a few minutes of tunneltime? Or just keep at it, you'll get it I had an exit problem where I would blank out (sensory overload), and "wake up" under canopy. My exits were sorta stable but not great. Did a tandem after 3 SL jumps, the tandemjump was not related to the problem, just because we had a jump-in at another DZ and otherwise i couldn't go, but after that jump I was over it

I'm all for self regulation too. However, apparently self-policing isn't working very well. See how you talk when you've seen a couple broken bones or worse from people bouncing right in front of you, people who thought they were special and wouldn't listen to fellow jumpers or went to another DZ to jump their canopy anyway. You can self regulate all you want but there's just no talking to some people. I'm not 100% in agreement about all aspects of our national rules but they seem to have severely limited serious accidents by lowtime (ie,

Nice story. Personally I don't buy it, I'm glad we have canopy rules here to prevent this kind of thing. Hopefully you'll be fine on it. ciel bleu, Saskia

Um, it's nov 3 now? ciel bleu, Saskia

Not all canons have 1.6x crop censor.. He's not considering a 5D is he. ciel bleu, Saskia

Canon over Sigma if you can afford it. Fixed over zoom if you can afford it. A 20mm is probably not quite wide enough, esp on a Canon. ciel bleu, Saskia