SethInMI

Celebrity Death Match! I loved that show too. Great use of clay-mation. The only show I ever watched regularly on MTV. It's flare not flair, brakes not breaks, bridle not bridal, "could NOT care less" not "could care less".

21 does sound long, I am 6'3" and a 20" MLW was too long for me, I changed it to a 19", but of course it is all about the torso. If you really need a 21, I think an 18 would be too small to be comfortable. One thing I did when I bought a used Jav was I filled out the javelin sizing document and emailed the measurements to sunpath and asked them to convert them to recommended yoke, MLW and Lateral dimensions. You could do the same. Don't forget about the lats, if they are for a skinny guy and you are bigger the rig will be extra tight, and if the reverse is true the rig will be loose and could slide around, esp if you sit or back fly. If you really need a 21, I would just plan on paying for a MLW resize, and then you can focus on finding a match for canopy sizes, and the most important thing, of course, the color. It's flare not flair, brakes not breaks, bridle not bridal, "could NOT care less" not "could care less".

Another option is to buy used. Saves money, but takes time to find the right rig, esp if you want a skyhook. The season in the north is winding down, so you have some time to find a rig that fits you and your canopies and has the features you want. Resale will be much better, as you will likely take a small or no loss on the rig price when you sell (depending on how good a deal you get on the buy). A big benefit to personal gear vs jumping student gear (IMHO) is fit. Any modern rig that is correctly sized to your body will feel a lot better than a student rig, unless you are the lucky body size that the rig was made for. I know some/most student gear has adjustable lats and mlw, but still... Seth It's flare not flair, brakes not breaks, bridle not bridal, "could NOT care less" not "could care less".

From my experience, letting go of the plane is pretty easy. For my first jump I was jumping from a Cessna 182 with a strut, so I was hanging off it with my feet dangling in the breeze. Letting go was pretty much the only option once I got to that point, so I just exhaled and then relaxed my hands. Climbing out of the airplane was a little more difficult mentally; I was nervous and excited, of course, but it was a mix of determination to follow orders and confidence in my instructor that got me out the door. It's flare not flair, brakes not breaks, bridle not bridal, "could NOT care less" not "could care less".

Dammit, Dave you are so practical! I like the idea of the post no-pull look, and a small "fake" parachute would be easier, but my mental image was like this: Find a non-airworthy small parachute (like a 69-79??) and practice kiting it to find out how I could get it up in the air and how far I could run with it. Run with an old rig packed, reserve with styrofoam, main packed into a paper bag with a duct tape bridle. Then about XXX distance from the finish, when everyone is spread out (and be at the tail of the pack so no one is going very fast), get some bystander to PCA me, I get the canopy flying and I go for a big finish. It would all look great, until a gust of wind knocks it over into someone passing me, they get tripped up in the lines, fall and break a tooth, and I would have to cut away so I could finish the race with a decent time. No, not very practical. It's flare not flair, brakes not breaks, bridle not bridal, "could NOT care less" not "could care less".

I have run a Halloween 5k through my old neighborhood in years past, and I am going to do it again this year. It is a small race, but gets a few costumed runners. I thought (of course) about going as a skydiver, but then I thought, could I make it more interesting and kite a canopy for some or all of the run. Having only kited for 50 ft or so after landing a few times, I have NO idea if this is even possible. I am not in a hurry, but would probably run about 6 mph normally, but with a canopy I would be slower. So some basic questions: 1. What canopy would be best for kiting at 6mph? 2. How far would a semi-fit person be able to kite it? (50m, 100m, 1000m etc). 3. Wind on the course would have to be factored in. How would I adjust for that? The obvious adjustment is only flying the portion of the course with the right wind, but how could that be stretched? The more I think about it the less possible it seems, but I still would like someone with GL / PG / Kiting exp to chime in. Thanks, Seth It's flare not flair, brakes not breaks, bridle not bridal, "could NOT care less" not "could care less".

I lost mine to tsa a year ago. I had carried it through maybe 8-10 times, but this time officer wanted to swab it, and then he asked me "is there anything sharp on/in here?" Or something like that. I am looking right at the end of the knife tucked in its pocket, and I debated on whether to plead ignorance or not, (Did he see something on the XRay, does he know I have one and is testing me, or maybe if I say no he will say OK, here you go, have a nice flight). I decided to fess up, pointed to it, he pulled it out, looked at it with the supervisor and decided the knife could not go on the plane. I did not have enough time to check the rig, so I just left the knife there. Seth It's flare not flair, brakes not breaks, bridle not bridal, "could NOT care less" not "could care less".

I do. I only have about 30 packjobs on the combination though, and it seems to work great. I don't know why it would be special though. Psycho pack and Pro pack differ only in the bagging of the canopy, and semi-stowless is about a different way of line stowage. Seth It's flare not flair, brakes not breaks, bridle not bridal, "could NOT care less" not "could care less".

The only one like that I know in the USA is the Ford Transit Connect with a 2.0L I4, but I am not sure if it has not been around here long enough to build a cheap used market. Cute little van though. http://www.ford.com/trucks/transitconnect/models/ It's flare not flair, brakes not breaks, bridle not bridal, "could NOT care less" not "could care less".

FWIW, When I took Lugi Cani's canopy class a few years ago, the swoopers and us regular folks sat together, so I listened to all his swoop coaching. Lugi specifically told the 180 swoopers to go back to 90's until dialed in using his techniques (deep braked setup, df, turn, df), then move to 270s. So I don't know about Flight-1, but there is at least one popular swoop coach who is a proponent of that progression. It's flare not flair, brakes not breaks, bridle not bridal, "could NOT care less" not "could care less".

Well, price is different. 14,000ft-$235: 18,000ft-$350: It would be a longer plane ride, colder when you get in the air, (at about noon on Sunday the forecast is for -10 Celsius at about 18000 ft, so a little chilly). I would not spend the money, you are going to get a great ride from 14,000 ft (our tandem's here only go to 10,000 ft). Seth It's flare not flair, brakes not breaks, bridle not bridal, "could NOT care less" not "could care less".

My record is 17 H&P's once on an H&P only day, all self packed. I only fun jump, and 6 or 7 jumps a day is generally enough for me. It's flare not flair, brakes not breaks, bridle not bridal, "could NOT care less" not "could care less".

This is awesome. Thanks for the tips! It's flare not flair, brakes not breaks, bridle not bridal, "could NOT care less" not "could care less".

1. stow slider behind head 2. unstow toggles 3. loosen chest strap I recently switched 2 and 3. I found for me it was not hard to loosen my chest strap with toggles in hand. Reasoning: if you have a stuck toggle or a canopy control issue that gets revealed when you release your toggles, and you want to cut away, you can do it with a tight chest strap that makes your handles more accessible. Seth It's flare not flair, brakes not breaks, bridle not bridal, "could NOT care less" not "could care less".

I made my cover, took a few hours on a Sunday afternoon. Didn't turn out too bad for a first attempt at hand sewing. It's flare not flair, brakes not breaks, bridle not bridal, "could NOT care less" not "could care less".

Scott, When you "walk the bag back controlling the lines" how exactly are you controlling the lines? Just watching them to make sure you don't step on them? Or doing something active with your hands? Seth It's flare not flair, brakes not breaks, bridle not bridal, "could NOT care less" not "could care less".

I just got a UPT stowless bag, and the recommended way to store the lines involves pulling the rig toward the bag as the lines are figure-8'ed in place. I don't want to drag the rig, is there anyone who uses a stowless bag and does not drag? The way I see to do it would be to grab the bag, set it down 18" from the risers and then just figure 8 the resulting pile of lines. Any confirmation/comments/alternative non-drag methods would be appreciated. tx It's flare not flair, brakes not breaks, bridle not bridal, "could NOT care less" not "could care less".

I think Bill is saying to rhys: "Rhys, you don't trust the PIA, you see a conspiracy and collusion. If you refuse to trust them, why do you trust Aviacom's "inhouse" anaylsis?" It's flare not flair, brakes not breaks, bridle not bridal, "could NOT care less" not "could care less".

docx converted to PDF It's flare not flair, brakes not breaks, bridle not bridal, "could NOT care less" not "could care less".

Daniel, slide 19 of the Board Meeting shows new licenses granted, not total currently active. Even though about 4x as many new As were issued as Ds, this still does not mean that there are 4x as many active As as Ds. Skydivers stop skydiving at all license levels. What slide 19 says to me is many quit before they get Ds or even Cs. Slide 19 does not rule out the possibility that most active skydivers are Ds. I tend to break skydivers into 3 categories: 1. Casual Tourist. Quits before 50-100 jumps. 2. Dedicated Tourist/Casual Instructor. Quits before 400 jumps. 3. Dedicated Instructors. Long time worker builds 1000+ jumps. Also includes video flyers/competitors. At my DZs, a rough guess would put the number of active jumpers in each category at roughly equal numbers, but that would be pretty rough guessing at two Cessna DZs. The majority of jumps done will be work jumps, and they will be done by the people in group 3. It's flare not flair, brakes not breaks, bridle not bridal, "could NOT care less" not "could care less".

The only way to increase pay for instructors is to limit instructor supply, which would be by making the course harder or increase the requirements to take the course. This would force DZOs to increase instructor pay to stop existing instructors from leaving, b/c they could not replace them as easily with new candidates. So instructor pay goes up, student/tandem prices go up, and total number of students/tandems goes down. It's flare not flair, brakes not breaks, bridle not bridal, "could NOT care less" not "could care less".

Kelly, That is interesting, you are saying the Argus cutter is NOT a shear cutter. The susceptibility to jamming of a shear cutter on a non-tensioned material is a MAJOR point in the APF report. Anyone know if the Vigil a shear cutter? Did Argus change from shear to anvil? [Edit] After thinking about the geometry of a circular cutter passing by a round hole, there would have to be some shearing action at the hole, even if the anvil surface was moved up to be in line with the bottom of the hole. It's flare not flair, brakes not breaks, bridle not bridal, "could NOT care less" not "could care less".

I must have missed that pdf the 1st time around, thanks for posting it. The pictures on page 3 are great for showing the cutter differences and the possible/probable failure mode of the Argus cutter. The report author makes the case for the superiority of the cypres cutter design. I am going to print it and bring it to our Safety Day on Sat. It's flare not flair, brakes not breaks, bridle not bridal, "could NOT care less" not "could care less".

Reminded me of the Larry Niven classic essay Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex. http://www.rawbw.com/~svw/superman.html. Super sperm are bad, Mmmmkay? It's flare not flair, brakes not breaks, bridle not bridal, "could NOT care less" not "could care less".

that doesn't make sense... Switching between different canopies (different types of gear). It's flare not flair, brakes not breaks, bridle not bridal, "could NOT care less" not "could care less".