Rdutch

The first one I packed myself, and I don't know exactly why, but it came out of the container and spun up before it hit line stretch, I dont stow my lines too short on the bag and I take a long time closing my container to make sure everything is clean. I guess its just one of those things that happen, Also I felt a burble from one of the 10 way I was filmeing as they tracked under me. The second one was done by someone else, and I have no clue what caused it, I will put the video up. I have it on Email, so I just have to send it to someone to put up for me. But the second one was just flat out nasty, it looked like the lower skin inflated and then the whole thing just spun up fast as hell, spinning me all over the place, That is one reason why I like shooting Video, the extra altitude! Ray Small and fast what every girl dreams of!

Yesterday morning, first load, Im filming a 10 way, deployment comes and wham, major line twist and its spinning the wrong way and getting worse, try to kick, but there is nothing going, so bye bye main. Then the most beautiful sight, my PD reserve is open and flying straight. Follow my main and freebag, the main land's in the wood's (blackberrybushland) and the freebag lands in the middle of a little league soccer match, where I land next to it, that was cool the kid's loved it, and everyone else. After an hour in the bush looking for my main I make it back to watch the second cutaway from the team I was filming. (To add no one from the team even notices my cutaway, they are paging me for the video while Im half a mile away, lucky Paxton was on it and followed me down) So now the team is 2 for 2. On the way to altitude on jump #3 were joking around how they come in 3's and who is next, so good jump, break off, I dump and wham (I will post the video as soon as I can figure out how) the worst spinner I have ever seen, live or memorex, its just winding up and slinging me all over, what is in my mind? "No way Im cutting 2 in a row away" So Im kicking and slinging and kicking ect. I finally get it free way too low, with my dytter screaming at me and my heart beating. I land and I am royally pissed at myself, I cleared it way too low, small canopies, no matter how high you deploy (In my case 3500ft) give you no room to play around (from the video we counted 14 seconds I took to clear it, try and spin a stilletto 107 or any canopy from 3500ft foot 14 seconds, that is too long), I chopped the mild mal, and rode the nasty one down. I learned a good lesson, and I am mad as hell at myself. Trust your instinct's and dont listen to yourself (Ie: I dont want to cutaway 2 in a row). Most of all trust your reserve. Everyone that saw the vid of the second one, wondered why the hell I rode it out, and after I wondered the same. Hard lesson, but lesson learned. Ray Small and fast what every girl dreams of!

Lol, Im still laughing just thinking about it. The header should read "Intentional Cutaway turns into accidental reserve deployment" Actually you know what this is funny, so I will let Tb99 explain, but feel free to ask or comment. Oh yeah this all happened on the ground and oh yeah he owes beer BIG TIME!. Ray Small and fast what every girl dreams of!

Here is my opinion of the Saber2, taking into account I have over 2000 skydives, so I am a little experienced, and I jump a Velocity 90, and a 96, I also have a stilletto 107. I have jumped every size velocity sold except the 75. Now from that you can see I really enjoy high performance canopies, and I can honestly say I love the saber2, I can get more swoop out of a saber2 107 than I ever could out of my stilletto 107, The Saber2 openings are excellent, and it is a real easy canopy to pack. Also it isn't square, as someone mentioned, it is tapered. As far as an overall good canopy you cant go much better than a saber2. If I could trade my stilletto 107 for a saber2 I would, the only reason I haven't is because I would rather have 2 velocity 90's. Dont believe my opinion about the saber2? Call PD tomorrow, arrange a demo and try it out. If you dont like it, then look for something else. But you should be very happy with it. With the jump #'s you have this is a fine, safe canopy with a lot of potential, Remember most learning (canopy flying) is trial and error, so forgiving and responsive is a good thing to look for. Take your time, and believe me any canopy can be fun. I watch the Pd test jumpers all day, people like Vladi Pesa, and Rikster Powell who all jump tiny Velocitys, have a ball jumping a whetever 190-210-or even a 120. It's not the canopy as much as how you fly it, if your bored of a canopy after 50 jump's then its your learning curve, not the canopy. Most of all be carefull, its better to take 6 month's of learning to do something, than to spend 6 months wishing you had. Ray Small and fast what every girl dreams of!

I suggest the saber2, its an all around nice canopy. Do some searches this has been talked about a lot. You can Call Kolla at Performance designs and arrange a demo of it also, so you can try it before you buy it. Ray Small and fast what every girl dreams of!

There is no doubt the Vector (Meshless) Pilot chute is better, And to prove my point there is plenty of video documenting, the difference. The Vector pilot chute works optimally no matter which way it hit's the air. With any mesh bottom canopy it was to work somewhat top up. as to infliate. Vector pilot chutes used to be mesh on the bottom, they evolved from that, and developed a better system, Call RWS and I am sure you can get a copy of the video, or at least arrange a viewing of the video they made testing the differences. As far as packing ease, that is a difft story, but what would you want, an easier to pack chute (Not really cause with practice its a really easy pc to pack) or one that will fly whatever direction it is facing? But both and all are tso'd and work, so as far as that goes your technically are safe either way. Also you have to fly the container with the pc, you cant buy a Mirage and put a vector pc, or a javelin and a racer pc. For the reserve sytem's. Either way apples orange's its all choice, they have passed the Faa regulations and all are sufficient. But Only Rws offers the skyhook. Ray Small and fast what every girl dreams of!

Just wanted to thank all that had sent Email's, and wishes. We as a community have stood together and let Chris know how much we care. This is one thing I have to say saddens me. Someone took money from the Jar for donation's in the skydive Deland restaurant. An estimated $100 This person is the lowest form of ???? in the world, I hope to god we find out who you are so I can personally teach you a lesson on ethic's. I dont think that whoever did this is a dz.com member, or even someone smart enough to type, or read. But this is low, and karma is final, you will get what you deserve, and I hope I am at the end of the what you deserve! Ray Small and fast what every girl dreams of!

QuoteRay, If it were not for a ProTrac I'd be in the same situation. Fact is you do not have to log anything unless it's for license, rating, or currency. The only thing I'd ask you is how do you keep track of freefall time? I log each jump as 69/28:52:23. 69 second jump plus total + 28 hours:52 minutes:23 seconds. If I get behind a few jumps it's tough to catch up without spending a great deal of time doing so.

I watched Bob H, and Pedro teach a 320lb 6'10 student aff, they both wore 35+ lbs of weight, and now the guy has over 100 jump's. The only problem is buying gear after was real expensive for him. But call Deland, they can hook you up. Ray Small and fast what every girl dreams of!

Regardless off neccesity or not, there is no way I will or can get all my jump's signed without great hassle. Ive done over 200+ jump's this month alone, that is a lot of walking around asking people to sign for me. I also log my jumps by the day now instead of the jump, Ie: 24 Jumps Norwegian Team, I log the aircraft and time ect but that is about it, for something special like my 43 jump day I got signatures from all the team. As far as fun Jumps I just get a print out from my dz, and get an instructor to sign the # of jumps I log, like if I did 50 fun jumps inbetween fun jump log's, I log 50 jumps jan-march then have an instructor look at my print out and sign it. Makes for interesting conversation when I go to a new Dz. Ray Small and fast what every girl dreams of!

Unfortunately I didn't see it happening, If I had I would have at least moved away from right on top of him. If I had a way to post the video I will. Im still having a problem with that. Ray Small and fast what every girl dreams of!

Damn it, I have this damn Xupiter installed on my computer against my will. Its obviously spyware, I went to the xupiter site and ran the remove program but it's still there, I did a search and tried to delete all the files but they return immediately. I went on google and there is 100 sites on how to remove it, and all of them are a super pain, involving MSCONFIG, REGEDIT and then still deleting single file's. Someone should go to Xupiter and kick their ass, this should be illegal! Im trying Adware 6.0 right now I hope it work's. Ray Small and fast what every girl dreams of!

Hey why dont you start a new post on this topic, as not to hijack the thread about the new rig, (Congrat's by the way, there is a killer picture of the rigs in use in the Lobby at RWS, maybe there is a link to the pic and you could get it to show everyone which rig is your's)! Ray Small and fast what every girl dreams of!

Yeah same here, sorry we didn't have time to have a beer and shoot the shit! Maybe next time. Ray Small and fast what every girl dreams of!

Okay, Im doing a regular 8way video jump this weekend, and I'm doing the usual, allow the block to turn, stay as close as possible, watch block build get steep as posible, when wham! The guy just undeneath me's pilot chute just decides it wants to feel air, just missing me as his canopy inflates in my face as he deploys. So im stiting in the air checking my short's, and everyone tracks off. On the ground, after I take a few deep breath's, we check his gear, its just fine, all we can assume that maybe on the exit it got clipped and pulled out a little, you can see on the video that it slowly comes out a little at a time, unfortuantely I missed it until It was too late. Good point: We discussed what happened and how it could have been avoided, other people on the jump noticed it, and didn't know what to do, they thought it couldn't be put back in at that point, and just hoped it wouldn't come out. It was decided, that if that ever happen's again the dive is to be stopped immediately, and the problem pointed out, especially with a videographer up top. Another mior way to avoid this (Potentially) a few gear manufacturers are offering a freefly handle mod, kind of like a pull out but made for a throw out. I have seen a few of these and even jumped the Relative Workshop one, It takes a little getting used to but it does make your pc a little more secure, as a note I had the (misfortune/fortune) of packing a wing's freefly handle this weekend, I say misfortune because it is so secure it is hard to install, but with practice it get's a lot easier, and its only so hard to pack because it is so secure, the wing's freefly handle is definitely in there when it's packed right. I can't comment on the other manufacturer's because I never packed them, the vector one I jumped was packed for me by a packer. Ray Small and fast what every girl dreams of!

Ok, I wont go into details. But I want to know the general Idea of the skydiving community on this. If a manufacturer has a problem, for example: a line attatchment tab that tear's, soft cutaway housing's that have hard pull's, anything else that can contribute to someone dying due to gear failure. When should the Manufacturer release the information? Investigating the problem takes time, of course, and it cost's money. But with something as dangerous as skydiving, should we have a zero tolerance policy? I know in the past there has been many problem's, skydiving gear was designed by humans and humans make mistake's. And in the end after a few accident's, or fatalities the product was no longer sold, or was modified. My personal belief is one Fatality is too many! So if there is even a question of a problem, then something should be done immediately. Someone from Precision just posted that they tried to get the Faa to do something about the atatchment tape problem they had with their reserves, and the Faa replied that there wasn't enough fatalities to warrant anything. Am I the only one that thinks this is crazy? No one makes a perfect Rig, but I want to know if there is a problem with mine, when the manufacturer find's out. This is a dream, but we as customer's and Skydiver's should stand up and demand it. We are lucky to have a place such as this forum, where we can hear about and discuss thing's, if not we would all be in the dark, not everyone has the oportunity to hear about thing's that are happening. Anyway Im getting off track, All I want to know is when is a manufacturer required to release information about a potential fatal problem? Ray Small and fast what every girl dreams of!

Thanks will do. Were you a former cadidiot too? Hey tell Marty Jones, Major Defendorf (Spelled wrong Im sure) and all the rest, Ray says hello. Oh yeah about the Closing loop thing, I use a Tandem closing loop, it lasts a lot longer. Ray Small and fast what every girl dreams of!

QuoteThe whole time I was on student gear I had huge bruises on my inner thighs!Quote Are you sure it was from skydiving? Ray Small and fast what every girl dreams of!

Im offering video and stills for the raffle. Who else out there want's to contribute? Ray Small and fast what every girl dreams of!

How about I email it to you? Ray Small and fast what every girl dreams of!

I have a vid to show how do I post it? Ray Small and fast what every girl dreams of!

What I jump has no influence on this being wrong. If I had bought a Mirage, and it was affected by this and I was told I would have to cover the cost, it would be the last mirage I would buy. You mentioned Raven's, Do you think it is ok for a manufacturer to sell a faulty product, especially a life saving product, and then turn the cost to fix a problem over to the person who bought it? Just to note,, this isnt a Mirage problem it is a Capewell problem, Im not blaming Mirage for a faulty product. But they sold the product so they should handle it, and then deal with their supplier themselves. The fact that this problem existed for so long without them telling anyone is another story. Any company that knowingly puts its customers at risk to save a buck is not a good company. Anyone that works for Mirage that would like to publicly debate this issue with me, I would invite them to state their case. Anyone that spends their money on something that is supposed to be a safe product deserves to know immediately, if there is a potential problem. One death from this is too many. This should have been handled immediately, the first time it was heard of, a notice should have been published. So any rigger out there could inspect the pin's, and possibly prevent a potential accident. Ray Small and fast what every girl dreams of!

Let me get this straight. You have a problem and you want the consumer to pay for the repair? Makes one really consider how much they might want to purchase a Mirage, that is what I call customer service. Eat the cost and fix your problem. Ray Small and fast what every girl dreams of!

D'oh! ! I'm not there yet. I am doing a lot of bigger-way stuff (8 to 12, not 80 to 120) and I dirt dive to see how fast the transitions will fall. A nine way that rotates three pieces really drops when the pieces break and rotate. So I go out and work on staying proximate, but I have noticed that I'm so focused on framing, that sometimes I miss what's going on and "see" it for the first time on the video. Like I've said, I'm envious of the amount of 4 way teams in SoCal and Fla. I look forward to having my camera suit flying get so instinctive that I can focus on counting points. Damn. You guys are good! One point, if you shoot 4way, go for the competition 4way suit. A lot of people shoot 4way with flip flop suits, but nothing performs like a suit made for 4way video. Huge wings to ride the worst burble you can find, and booties to get you where you want to be faster. This week my 4way suit was getting fixed so I broke out my tandem suit. No comparison Ray Small and fast what every girl dreams of!

The flap is easy to replace, but to make it is a difft story. Ray Small and fast what every girl dreams of!