jacketsdb23

There are two types of canopies with the most fatalities......those flown by inexperienced canopy pilots.....and those flown by the most experienced canopy pilots, who in some cases, think their skill outweighs the laws of physics. Sorry - but i've seen so much crap by our "leaders" in the past month that it makes my head spin. No wonder we have canopy problems in our sport...our leaders make terrible examples. Losers make excuses, Winners make it happen God is Good Beer is Great Swoopers are crazy.

Does anyone else think that there will be carnage on the pond with both "power" events now on the water? Seems like this could get pretty dangerous quickly. (more so than it already is). Losers make excuses, Winners make it happen God is Good Beer is Great Swoopers are crazy.

You will probably find that you like the velocity alot. It's a good transition if you are ready for it. Determining when you are ready for swooping or xbrace canopies is more than just jump numbers. Its an attitude, its competence, commitment to excellence and a discipline. If you are going to make the switch, dedicate your time to it while you are in the air by yourself (hop n pop). Have fun and be safe. Losers make excuses, Winners make it happen God is Good Beer is Great Swoopers are crazy.

I'm glad you take your risk management equation and apply it to everyone. Look, AAD's are a great thing for the sport. You're a fool if you rely on them, but certainly not foolish if you think twice about jumping without one. Some of us have others to think about. My two hands work great for getting a parachute out, until they don't. Nothing wrong with deciding to stay on the ground without an AAD. To tell folks they shouldn't be jumping with one because of that stance is ridiculous. Losers make excuses, Winners make it happen God is Good Beer is Great Swoopers are crazy.

I would, and I have. And not because I didn't like the people. In fact, I like them a lot. But yes, folks had canopy's that were way over their experience level (Xfire 2 @ 150 jumps). Losers make excuses, Winners make it happen God is Good Beer is Great Swoopers are crazy.

This is going back a few years, slightly before my time, but....whatever happened to the wheel of carnage? It has been banned for long enough....bring it back. Fess up, who has it, and how do we get it back to Byron? Losers make excuses, Winners make it happen God is Good Beer is Great Swoopers are crazy.

Like everything...life is balance. Skydiving people like to talk skydiving. Non-skydiving people usually have no idea what you are talking about beyond the basics. My wife does not skydive. She has been bored out of her mind more than once when hanging out with all skydivers...because lets face it, get to many of us together, and it always reverts to skydiving talk. That gets old to people not involved. So my suggestions: 1. Its OK to have friends outside of skydiving. just don't expect it to be all skydiving talk when you are hanging out with them. 2. Its OK to have friends inside skydiving. heck, its important to your overall enjoyment of the sport. Your non-skydiving friends will soon respect the fact that on Saturday/Sunday you will be skydiving. They may call and invite you to weekend getaways, camping, fishing, surfing, snowboarding, etc. If you dog them to many times you'll stop getting those calls. Ultimately, the balance and how you live your life is up to you. But don't get upset when nonskydiving friends don't want to hear about skydiving anymore. Balance is good. You'll never skydive enough to satisfy all your skydiving buddies, and you'll always skydive to much for those who are not interested. I think an old song goes something like this: You can't please everyone, so you got to please yourself. Losers make excuses, Winners make it happen God is Good Beer is Great Swoopers are crazy.

I may be alone in this, but skydiving is a big boy/girl sport. Lets stop doing a disservice to the students and pretend its acceptable when they S-turn on final because they are the only canopy in the air. Or the 360 spiral because they are at 1000ft when they should be starting their base leg. Or let them get away with landing in the wrong area. I'm not saying ground them, but make it completely clear that it is unacceptable where they landed, or how they flew final approach. We can't have two rules...one for students, and one for some determined jump number when we think they should know better. From jump #1 students should follow the same rules the Instructors are following (or should be) for canopy flight. Losers make excuses, Winners make it happen God is Good Beer is Great Swoopers are crazy.

I get paid with the satisfaction of knowing I'm helping a new jumper into the sport. The beer money ($30) on top of that is an added bonus. Losers make excuses, Winners make it happen God is Good Beer is Great Swoopers are crazy.

I say pull them down. I got a ring stuck on my brake line, very similar to Ian's problem and I was not lucky enough to be able to fix it. I was forced to land my velo on my rears (which I was comfortable doing). Losers make excuses, Winners make it happen God is Good Beer is Great Swoopers are crazy.

To me, we might have faced another fatality due to a student who chose not to pull handles. Can we please stop blaming AAD manufacturers? Keeping them honest is fair. Skydiving is not for everyone. Even those new to it, i.e. students. Lets make damn sure that we as instructors are doing our part to say NO if thats what the student needs to hear. It sounds like the student saved his own life, as it should be. Don't pull low unless you are. Losers make excuses, Winners make it happen God is Good Beer is Great Swoopers are crazy.

+1 Losers make excuses, Winners make it happen God is Good Beer is Great Swoopers are crazy.

Did you check out the night tours? I'm not sure if they advertise those with the normal packages, but I know they started toing night tours a while back. Losers make excuses, Winners make it happen God is Good Beer is Great Swoopers are crazy.

You have some restrictions when you stow the slider. There is a noticable difference (there was on my Velo 96) when you remove the slider completely. I never removed it when I was jumping my XFire, but I'd imagine that if you are dedicating time to canopy flight that you would recognize a difference with the slider completely removed on a 99. Losers make excuses, Winners make it happen God is Good Beer is Great Swoopers are crazy.

You are wrong. Us new jumpers are bad ass for several reasons: We actually have to think about where we are going to land and fly there. The real old farts just got a round out and hoped they landed close to the LZ. (i'll give in that they were much better at spotting, we suck these days) Of course, we also have the option now to swoop past the old farts still jumping their massive canopies. We start jumping a wingloading of 2.5 at 25 jumps. The old farts were too fucking scared to jump anything smaller than a Challenger 220 (Hi Dad!! ). My grandma would jump something smaller than that. Our toggle fires could kill us if we can't get the damn slider off the other toggle in time. Good idea to cut away when you are spinning on your back at 1500 ft with the napkin above you. Oh, and I landed my velo 96 on rears with a stuck toggle a couple weeks ago...so we are definitely bad ass. Jump on board or go buy yourself a Delorean and visit Doc Brown. Losers make excuses, Winners make it happen God is Good Beer is Great Swoopers are crazy.

I find the removable slider easier to deal with. I'll also add that I don't like the ideal of connecting my main parachute to my rig, in any way. I used a rubber band and ball for a while. I always cut the rubberband half way through. There are other options like magnets, tabs on the risers etc. I currently use full RDS during swoop comps/practice and the removable slider only during work/fun jumps. Make sure if you decide to go with a removable slider that you re-install correctly while packing. The removable slider adds another element to packing. Edit: OFFTOPIC Assuming your jump numbers canopy selection is correct, I would question your choices. A 99 at any wingloading is inappropriate for 300 jumps. /OFFTOPIC Losers make excuses, Winners make it happen God is Good Beer is Great Swoopers are crazy.

Is Nick flying the Petra there? Losers make excuses, Winners make it happen God is Good Beer is Great Swoopers are crazy.

You are right. My whuffo comment wasn't directed at you. Its some other threads that have people treating swooping like a red headed step child. Unfortunately, you would have the same problems with other disciplines in skydiving if it received the same lack of attention to detail that "swooping" does. You can't get in a wind tunnel on your canopy. That being said, swooping and canopy piloting seem to be different. I don't see the same number of injuries/deaths in competition as I do in General Swooping. The two competition deaths that I'm aware of had nothing to do with the "act of swooping". One was turbulence that collapsed a canopy and the other was a double mal. Competition pilots appear to put the dedicated time and energy into their discipline that most do not. I'm trying to follow in that path of dedicated time and energy into canopy piloting. Swooping and canopy piloting may be semantics, but I believe its a mindset. One is more beneficial to the long term than the other. Losers make excuses, Winners make it happen God is Good Beer is Great Swoopers are crazy.

No guarantees that will end successfully either. Swooping is not a death wish. Just like skydiving itself, its risk reward. For every person you name that died swooping, we can name two or three that died not swooping. Some people on here are starting to sound like my whuffo friends when they discuss swooping. I would think skydivers more than most would "get it". Losers make excuses, Winners make it happen God is Good Beer is Great Swoopers are crazy.

Jumping without an altimeter isn't a big deal. I would by no means do it on purpose. But I have given mine to others on a plane and have forgotten mine before. It happens. Its funny...the couple times that I have forgot my altimeter is always first load of the day. In most cases I had my audible as a backup. People make me laugh when they say "don't depend on your audible". Its not depending on it, but its a useful tool...and damnit, I use it. Yeah, my eyes work too. Losers make excuses, Winners make it happen God is Good Beer is Great Swoopers are crazy.

I was asked if i thought about cutting the brake line to land on rears in full flight. That thought did not cross my mind. I do carry a hook knife and had it with me. I thought about only two options: Landing it the way I did, and getting rid of it. Some additional variables: It was very windy. Typical for Byron, but it was blowing between 15 and 25. I'm very comfortable on my rears, and while I don't often land on rears with brake input, I took my chances...and landed it well. The wind was certainly a factor that helped me decide to not cut it away. That being said, i'm not sure that I would have chopped it in 0 wind...but i might have. Losers make excuses, Winners make it happen God is Good Beer is Great Swoopers are crazy.

This happened to me yesterday on my Velo 96. One toggle got hung up on my RDS grommet, basically locking it in place somewhere between half brakes and fully unstowed. I took a couple wraps on the good toggle and was able to steer and land on both rears. Not sure this would work for everyone, but i'm pretty current on my rears as I land frequently on rears only even with good toggles. I would add that landing on rears with some toggle input is not the same as landing on rears in full flight...so be careful you don't stall the canopy if you ever try it. Be safe. Losers make excuses, Winners make it happen God is Good Beer is Great Swoopers are crazy.

I would rather die than live my life with this line of thinking. AAD's have made this sport more idiot proof than its ever been, and now you want to hold them liable for something they were in no way responible for. Why don't you sue the deceased skydiver for not foreseeing that thy might not be able to deal with an emergency situation? Oh yeah, their dead. Can't get money from them. Losers make excuses, Winners make it happen God is Good Beer is Great Swoopers are crazy.

Let me ask you sacex250, is it your opinion...that no matter the cost, that a aad should tell a jumper if the closing loop has been properly rigged? Let me add to that....if the cost of such a device was that 25% of skydivers no longer purchased the aad because of added gizmos and costs, would the sport of skydiving be better off? Losers make excuses, Winners make it happen God is Good Beer is Great Swoopers are crazy.

The reserve can fail just as a main can. It doesn't happen often, but it does happen. We all know the risks. Losers make excuses, Winners make it happen God is Good Beer is Great Swoopers are crazy.