SimonBones

Probably wouldn't even notice if it fit comfy. I bought a custom rig and have about 900 jumps on it so far. Couldn't even tell you how much it comes off my back. I'll have to find some video and actually look. 108 way head down world record!!! http://www.simonbones.com Hit me up on Facebook

I have. I poop out of it. I think his rig is fine. A rig that comes off the back just a tad on the bottom allows more use of the shoulders for flying and don't really see how it presents a problem if the legstraps don't do the climb up the leg. There are dozens of people who have completely floating rigs. Let's be honest, how many of those were in any fatality reports in any recent years? Tandems don't count. You're rig is fine. Move on. 108 way head down world record!!! http://www.simonbones.com Hit me up on Facebook

Shit I know I turned on my AAD. 108 way head down world record!!! http://www.simonbones.com Hit me up on Facebook

Try this on the ground. Sit at the edge of something (like a table or bench) where only your butt is on it and your legs are dangling so you can assume a sitfly position. Have someone push up from the under side of your foot to simulate the wind pushing your legs up. What you will find you probably do to keep your balance and not get pushed back is lean forward (shazaam backslide). This is the source of your camber problem. You are leaning forward OVER your legs to balance yourself upright. This puts your feet back and under you. To correct this muscle memory on the ground, have this person keep pushing your feet up and practice instead balancing be leaning back a little, curving your shoulders back, and applying leg pressure with your quads. You have been flying lazy legs and use your upper body to compensate by leaning forward. The difference between balancing freeflying and belly flying is the difference between active and passive muscular input. On your belly, you're told to relax, go limp, arch lazily and you will be balanced on your belly. This is not true for sit/headdown positions. For sit/headdown you are always applying an active muscular input to with your legs and arms for balance. In sitflying you apply this input with your quads pushing down your legs, and your shoulders pushing down your arms (most people don't have a problem with that one). In head down flying you are applying active muscular input with your ass muscles to spread your legs wide out (straddle) against the wind pressure trying to push them together. Practice that balance thing all with your quads and take your upper body completely out of the equation by leaning back. At first in the air you may feel a bit off balance since it is new and you've developed a bad habit, but once you get used to it, your learning curve will improve greatly

Again, wow. I don't think the data is available, but maybe for the future we should ask USPA to publish in their fatality reports whether or not the jumper was wearing a jumpsuit. I'm sure that it would reveal that the REAL cause of death in all incidents was a lack of a jumpsuit. None of this canopy collision or low hook non sense. A jumpsuit would have prevented these. I hear they also prevent heart attacks in freefall too. Haven't their been a bunch of BASE fatalities too because those crazy bastards won't wear jumpsuits? I think I'll drive down to the beach and warn the beach goers, surfers, and boogie boarders alike not to make contact with the water without a wet/dry suit. That would be fatal. 108 way head down world record!!! http://www.simonbones.com Hit me up on Facebook

WOW!! Your cool!! So he wears cycling shorts, WTF is wrong with that??? Why would you not want to jump at his DZ???? You scared it is a bunch of gays???? Your comments are very ignorant!!!! Fact check that if you want to. How ignorant do you have to be to think that people jump wearing blindfolds just becuase he wears protective gear of his choosing????? Full disclosure i am not gay and dont give a shit what you or anyone else thinks. I just dont like ignorant comments!!!! I am sure you impressed you skygod friends thought You are so cool! Now this shit is just plain priceless! Gay cycling shorts... Over sensitive closet cases... Trying hard not to pee my pants... Damn those skygods who won't accept my gayness! Funny! 108 way head down world record!!! http://www.simonbones.com Hit me up on Facebook

How is this thread still alive? Is the horse dead yet? 108 way head down world record!!! http://www.simonbones.com Hit me up on Facebook

First, it is always important to listen to your instructors and have them explain things to you rather then trying to learn on an onine forum but I've got to say WOW... there is a bunch of nonsense written here . There is nothing wrong with jumping in shorts or without a jumpsuit. That's how I do my tandems. Usually in shorts and a tshirt (maybe long sleeves if it's chilly). On a hot day, I'll do lots of my fun jumps in shorts and tshirt... freeflying and all. I'll often put my suit on during track dives (extra power!!!) and VRW stuff, but enjoy dude, the air feels great. If you're going to wear a tshirt, tuck it in to try and keep it from going over your handles. It stays held down under the harness most of the time, unless your doing some sitflying and the shirt is really baggy. Then sometimes just the front part of your shirt will come up a bit. A jumpsuit does not save your life. Video starts with us freelfying in shorts/shirt: http://www.dropzone.com/videos/Freeflying/Jive_Jam_May_2008_781.html 108 way head down world record!!! http://www.simonbones.com Hit me up on Facebook

Well I'll be driving something like 15 hours each way and I'm psyched that it's just 2 weeks away!!! I can't wait to get in some great freeflying. Anyone else? I've never been to CSC but I'm sure it will be a lot of fun

Here is a good tip in minimizing your liability as a TI, know when to say "No". There will be times when you are assigned a big fat pear shaped chick to take who is just under the limit. You can take one look and often know, "she will not pick up her legs on landing." Know when to tell manifest "no" I'm not taking that passenger. There will be times another TI refuses to take someone and manifest will come to you (sometimes in front of the student) asking if you will take them because they need someone else (add boo hoo whining from the student about how everyone else in their party is getting to go). Sometimes an overzealous student will beg you to "do like 50 flips" and call you out on your skills. Put aside any guilt for the passengers you don't feel comfortable taking, say no to students requests for things you may not feel comfortable doing, and don't let yourself be pressured by manifest or the DZO into doing something you feel uneasy about. This will minimize a lot of your liability even if it pisses a couple of people off. 108 way head down world record!!! http://www.simonbones.com Hit me up on Facebook

I wonder if either publication is mad about it. I know when I send in photos to Parachutist it is made clear that they don't want to publish anything that has been sent to another publication or has been posted online etc. 108 way head down world record!!! http://www.simonbones.com Hit me up on Facebook

Interesting, I just recently had a partial blow. I was doing a tandem on a Rage 360. After opeing I noticed a line over on the left side which cleared itself quickly since it was so close to the edge. I told our rigger to check out the canopy for line burn and just by chance he found a small seam blow out on the top center cell of the canopy. After looking at it from the inside of the cell it he determined that the stitching had come undone and ruled it a manufacturers defect. Maybe one more jump on the canopy and the rip could have been much much bigger and as catastrophic as yours. Maybe your canopy had a pre existing flaw that went unnoticed and finally gave out big time. Just a thought. -Simon 108 way head down world record!!! http://www.simonbones.com Hit me up on Facebook

When I went out there last year I found cheapest rates from Boston to Shannon. I think I only paid $430 round trip. Check it out 108 way head down world record!!! http://www.simonbones.com Hit me up on Facebook

All I can say in response to this is (going back to a previous point) that dedicated training and imrpovement in freeflying does require a lot of solos and small ways. Many skydivers when getting into freeflying will avoid solos at all cost and would rather try and rope people into a big "sitfly" zoo dive. I still take the opportunity to do solo jumps (when I can) because there is ALWAYS something I can work on to improve my freefly skills. Getting good takes time and dedication. There is no shortcut. Lots of times I just manifest myself and go to the loading area ready for anything. I try and be on every load of the day if I can. I'll go solo if I can, backfly with a tandem if there is one, or just hook up with whoever is there and wants to jump with me. But sometimes that newer up and coming freeflyer asks me to jump with them (happy to) and before you know it, 3 or 4 of his other 'learning to sitfly' buddies pop up and say "sweet let's make it a 5 way (zoo)". This is when I feel like groaning and either step away from the dive or insist on keeping it a 2 way. Either way I look like the bad guy. Am I acting like a skygod who won't jump with newer jumpers or am I just wanting to take my jumps more seriously? I've got no problem jumping with anyone. I'd rather not be on unproductive and dangerous dives. I'd rather not throw away my jump dodging a zoo of corking sitfliers hoping one won't kill me, knock me out, paralyze me, open up next to me and entangle into my canopy, etc. 108 way head down world record!!! http://www.simonbones.com Hit me up on Facebook

A tennis ball weighs about 2 ounces Check this out: http://www.skydivingmovies.com/ver2/pafiledb.php?action=file&id=6943 Posting this kind of information online would be silly because there WILL be someone who goes and makes one, can't catch it, and bam... incident. It only takes one ball going in at the wrong place and causing damage/injury to alert the FAA. Then spaceball flights would be banned for us all. I do disagree that a ball should only be built for 160mph though. I currently have 7 balls built for different speeds that I use for coaching. Everything from 115mph to 170mph. The ball in the video above was 140mph. Some S-L-O-W sitfly training. Bottom line is that you shouldn't be worried about the specifics because you shouldn't be making one without some experience with all of it first. It's quite a whole different beast, but explaining that now would take pages and I've got to get out to the DZ. It sounds like there are plenty of people here who would be happy to work with you in person. This would allow them to gauge you skills properly and do some ball jumps with you to specifically fit your learning needs. Once you've done some work with a ball master as far as chasing, catching, spotting, etc then you will probably be given direct insight into all the theory of spaceball building (weights, tail lenghts, fill, etc.). It's a great training tool and I love to teach it, but certainly not online. You will probably have to do a little traveling and meet with a ball master in person. -Simon

WP posts that kind of information on their forum group at: http://sports.groups.yahoo.com/group/SkydiveThePoint/ This weekend will be a Cessna 182 wekeend. Hope that helps

The question of whether or not freeflying is dying off has nothing to do with the existence of newer jumpers wanting to learn some freeflying skills. It's focusing more on the possible decline in organized advanced freeflying. My dropzone has plenty of folks who go out and experiment with sitflying, chase each other around in a sit, talk big about dark side this and that, and bash folks who want to work on belly formations for their lack of whatever. My dropzone (and many neighboring ones) lack heavily in freefly teams, organized events, competitions, etc. For all of you who post this and that about freaks, dark side, and belly bashing answer me this: When was your last state and/or regional freefly competition? Did teams from your dropzone compete in the state and/or regional competition? Where there enough teams so that there was a loser (4+)? Do these teams plan to represent your DZ/state/region at nationals? My guess is that most of you do not have these things going on in your dropzone or possibly state. When was the last time your dropzone had an event involving multiple levels of freefly organizing? An organizer for novice freeflying, another for intermediate, and another for advanced? Or was your boogie all just bunched together with one freefly organizer who had to cater to all (less challenging) freeflying? My state has its share of 4 way FS teams who compete in the state and regionally. Does yours? Where are the freeflyers? Why is there a decline in the number of competitors in 3 way freefly at nationals? There are intermediate level competitions there. Nobody doubts that there is an abundance of jumpers at most dropzones who love to sitfly and chase each other around. But on a bigger scale, it would appear as though freeflying is dying off. How are the freaks ruling the sky when 4 way FS has more organized competitions and more competitors? As much as I love freeflying, I would have to say that in the current state of things as I see it, we do not rule the skies. 108 way head down world record!!! http://www.simonbones.com Hit me up on Facebook

It's fixed. Turns out the power cable went squirrely and casued the battery to shit itself. I ordered a new cable and battery and voila! She works like a charm

Freeflying video uploaded from Skyfest 2008. Check it out and like it!!!! http://www.skydivingmovies.com/ver2/pafiledb.php?action=file&id=7035 -Mr. Bones 108 way head down world record!!! http://www.simonbones.com Hit me up on Facebook

Well freeflying did seem to still be healthy and kicking at the Skyfest in South Carolina! Check out the video: http://www.skydivingmovies.com/ver2/pafiledb.php?action=file&id=7035 Hope you enjoyses! 108 way head down world record!!! http://www.simonbones.com Hit me up on Facebook

I totally dig that wingsuit shot. 108 way head down world record!!! http://www.simonbones.com Hit me up on Facebook

Hmm... I don't know. With routines like the ones Anomoly puts out, signing up for nationals is a bit intimidating. I certainly can't beat that. I'll just have to try and wait it out until (if) they quit. Then the day shall be mine! 108 way head down world record!!! http://www.simonbones.com Hit me up on Facebook

I think, as mentioned in the other thread, if he was abiding by the FAR's, the other alternative would be that he flew the suicide jumper who opened the door and jumped without having a paying skydiver onboard. You don't need a commercial to take a guy on a ride for pictures right? So what's different? The title of your thread is about a private pilot flying jumpers. Do you mean paying skydivers or suicude jumpers? I think you mean to discuss paying skydivers, but are citing the suicide jumper for your argument. Irrelevant and silly. I'll be honest here. I'm the bank robbing car thief murderer who fell through a fluffy cloud a few weekends ago. And I have to admit it, I liked it. Come lock me up for my crimes against innocent victems. 108 way head down world record!!! http://www.simonbones.com Hit me up on Facebook

I'm with you on this. That shite was hilarious. 108 way head down world record!!! http://www.simonbones.com Hit me up on Facebook

Nope. Walked around the field for a while looking all in the tall grass. It was a bit of a long spot. Oh well I ordered a new one and it will be here Thursday. 108 way head down world record!!! http://www.simonbones.com Hit me up on Facebook