SkymonkeyONE

Nope. Not nearly as cool. Unless you were standing right there watching when Stony belly slammed right on his face, then you don't get it. Total commitment. Chuck

Old, original S.U.I.T.'s and classics had a single zipper and were hard to get in and out of. The Classic II had double zippers. Arm wings on both go straight from the wrist to the waist with no grippers. The GTi had larger wings, but no grippers. It took most of us about one hour to mod grippers onto them for additional lift. Leg wing might have been a smidgen longer on a GTi as well. Both are great suits for First Flights and if I had any more of either of them I would never sell them. Chuck

Scotty Burns have both a Colugo and an Aura and he says he absolutely loves the way the Aura turns and flys. Chuck

That's a misnomer, bro. I've never done a ten tandem day where I got tipped ten times; particularly not $20 a pop.... Like others on here, I've been tipped as high as $100 (in Hawaii), but what seems most common is $20. I NEVER expect a tip, no matter how awesome I thought it was or how much I had to work to safely get that 250 pound galloot to the ground in one piece. People pay a lot of money to do tandems. Some people save up for a very-long time to be able to afford it. Ultimately, we could all use a little extra beer money for a job well done. Chuck

I'm assuming you put this piece together after we talked about it a few months ago. Good points all around. My one point, though, is that while you mentioned to me a general lack of "wingsuit discipline" at SDAZ, you still reluctant to create a proper wingsuit organizer slot to "herd the cats"...I find that odd considering the roster of FS and FF organizers who rotate in and out of there. Chuck Blue, D-12501 AFF/SL/TM-I, PFC-E, BMCI, PRO, etc, etc, etc.

Lions don't practice...

Do you plan on staying on the dropzone the entire time? Are you going to be driving your own car there, or are you going to be flying there? If flying, are you going to rent a car or are you planning on hiring a ride to the DZ and just stay on site until you are done? Do you plan on staying in a bunkhouse on the DZ or are you going to tent it? If neither, are you going to need a hotel nearby? If staying on a dropzone for the duration, you are going to want it to have a good bonfire scene, a snack bar/ restaurant and definitely a bar (at least I do). Is the school "tandem driven" in the winter season? Do they have enough staff to accomodate AFF guys as equal priority or are they going to make you "sit on the bench" and wait till the tandem load slows down? Is there a tunnel on site or nearby? Does that tunnel cater to AFF students efficiently? Consider ALL of these things before making a decision. Wherever you decide to go, be it AZ, FL, CA, or TX, just make sure that dropzone covers all the bases. I currently call Skydive Arizona home (weekends anyway) and I can promise you that it covers ALL the bases. I've also lived/worked at Skydive City in Z-Hills, Raeford Parachute Center in NC, and Skydive San Marcos in TX. All have great student programs and check most of the blocks I listed. Z-Hills is slammed in the winter with foreigners; it's super-fun that time of the year. Entire european dropzones shut down and bring all their students/ fun jumpers there for months at a time. No bunkhouse, but trailers are available for rent on the DZ and hotels are super-close. Excellent camping crowd, too! Orlando tunnel is about an hour down the road. No bunkhouse at Raeford, but the biggest tunnel in the USA is five miles down the road and the bar is AWESOME! TONS of part-time staff, so ripping through the student program is not difficult. Stamping the A-license on the forehead, a current national fad, originated at Raeford by yours truly and Tony Thacker in 2003. No, it's definitely not too cold to skydive in NC in November. You won't get ass-raped on prices either. www.jumpraeford.com is the website. Raeford is the only dropzone I've ever been to that is dog friendly. There are many, many dropzone pooches. All you are asked to do is pick up after the animal and not let them run free if they are "trouble makers". At skydive San Marcos in TX we treated our students exceptionally well and had a fantastic program that took the student all the way through the cat F,G, and H jumps in a well-thought-out manner. Skydive Arizona also has such a plan. There is a good bunkhouse at San Marcos, but no real bar, and no drinking on the dropzone at all until after close of business.Food is only sold in the snack bar on weekends generally. Austin is a half hour down the road, Texas State university is 15 miles away, and the best BBQ on the planet is 12 miles away in Lockhart. No close hotels though..... Good luck, Chuck

I'd pass on that option. Why jump a canopy that dives like a crossbrace, opens like a crossbrace, but has less power/distance potential than a crossbrace? I skydive for a living and I don't have any use for a Katana or anything like one. I have an 80 square foot Xaos 27 for AFF/swooping, etc and a 97 square foot Sabre2 for wingsuiting (which also swoops great). At work I have two rigs with Velo 90's, but am trading them for Storm 120's because they make more sense for the type of work jumps I do all week long. FWIW: I do around 850 work jumps a year. To the original poster: you did not mention how much you weigh. I wouldn't want to give you a sizing recommendation without knowing that. I will, though, say that 120 square feet is a LARGE crossbraced canopy, so unless you weigh like 250 pounds I'd be looking at significantly smaller canopies. Chuck, D-12501 AFF/TM/SL-I, MMPCI, PRO, PFC/E

FANTASTIC!!

That was a great article.

I work at a place where I make around 850 jumps a year and spend seven hours per month in the tunnel. It's very physically challenging for my 50 year old ass and it is WORK. If I won the lottery my intent would not be so much volume of jumping, but quality and general fun. I'd fly my ass to all the ESA-type boogies in exotic locations around the world. I'd make new friends and influence others! I'd be able to again-afford all the record events I've been missing for the past few years. If money were no issue I'd be flying to those events in my own turbine airplane as well. must buy lottery tickets....

This just makes me miss the WFFC again. Damnit. Now THAT was worth the time and money I spent every year.

I know where you work now, Louis, but that still doesn't mean you couldn't ask if you could sit in on a couple of days of instruction at tryouts. chuck

Just a quick update to this thread for anyone who's been living under a rock for the past three months. Todd did his entire AFF in about three days here in AZ and left here with an A license. Great kid. There are tons of video and pics of it in Parachutist and elsewhere online. Chuck

I've found out through MANY trials and tribulations what works for me. I'll preface this by explaining why I get so much "practice" at it: -8700 jumps under small and even smaller parachutes -2800+ wingsuit jumps with a Sabre2 97 loaded at 1.8 -many thousands of AFF/ etc. jumps under sub-100 crossbraces loaded between 2.1 and 2.5 You are going to have spinners if you jump heavily-loaded canopies.....period. You have to be prepared for them. For me, the hardest thing to work out was screwing myself over by trying to kick out of the spin during the last stages of the opening sequence. Every time you do that you are simply adding to the dive. If you are spinning up to the left under your canopy (which is diving to the right) and you try to kick out to the right, you are going to induce or exacerbate the dive. Assuming that you have done this and have found yourself on your back spinning faster and faster, you'll never get out of it unless you first harness steer in the opposite direction to get your wing back above your head. That is the MOST important thing you can do to prevent a chop. While it may seem/ feel entirely counterintuitive to you at the moment, that simple act , if implemented right away, will fix you right up. Once the canopy is back over your head, you can then go about the process of working out the line twists. This is PARTICULARLY important when you are flying a wingsuit. Ultimately, it is pointless to try and start dealing with the twists until your canopy is flying straight and level back over your head. Chuck

Man, I'd sure love to run into Andy again. What a great guy. Chuck

I totally agree. I used to do a lot of video back in the caveman days when we jumped big-ass VHS-C cameras and "real" film SLR's. Too many hard openings under the Sabres and Monarch's of the day left me nearly incapacitated. So much so that I took a couple of years off from jumping nearly-altogether. When I was still working full-time at "sport" dropzones I only allowed my name to be put on the video roster as "last resort." Not that I"m a bad videographer; it's just that I prefer to save my neck for tandems and AFF. It's been a really rare thing for me to injure my neck on tandems under today's excellent canopies. Chuck

Is this Louis Delair? If it is, then why the hell don't you just strap-hang with Windmiller and the boys at GK tryouts (which started today)? I'm sure they would accomodate an active duty USMC Major. Azul sends.

+1 I'm gonna go ahead and state the obvious here: EVERY dropzone ought to be working off of the four-page ISP card and EVERY student should be issued one and taught what it is in their FJC. Also, every first jump student ought to be issued a real logbook and it ought to be properly filled out by their instructor during debrief after every jump. If everyone were doing it correctly, then it would not be such an issue for a "travelling" student. Personally, I'm totally cool with travelling/ visiting students and so long as their paperwork is in order I'm all about letting them continue with their progression from their last successful jump. Here's the caveat: Most travelling students don't show up with correctly documented proof of their progression or are uncurrent (more than 30 days since last jump and not in possession of an A-license) and that raises a lot of problems. If you fall into this category then do yourself the HUGE favor of making sure your ducks are in a row: -Make sure your logbook is properly filled out with the particulars of your jumps, whether or not you passed the TLO's, and what your next category jump should be. -Make sure you have a properly filled-out A License proficiency card indicating where you are at in your student progression. -Make sure you are current! Hope that helps, Chuck Blue, D-12501 AFF/SL/TM-I, PRO

So, how do I find this adjustment tab? It's a red piece of plastic stuck under the padding at the cheek on one side. It's adjusted sort of like a CYPRES loop, then you stick it back under the padding. Easy to adjust. Chuck

If you are a Raeford guy then you ought to know you can't swing a dead cat there without hitting a Master Rigger. Finding one that actively runs a loft is another thing altogether..... Have you talked to Kevin Carver (RatBoy) yet? I'd say talk to Tim Tennant, but I know he's way too busy doing other things these days. Chuck

It was good science fiction. EXCELLENT visuals. I particularly liked that the "good guy" in District 9 was the "bad guy" in this movie. He played the roll well. Matt Damon did a good job, too. There were some parts of the "science" that were a bit too much of a reach, but I liked the show. Anyone see Oblivion? I thought that was a great movie as well. Chuck

Peanut lives!!

Horrible news! It's sad to lose such a nice person. Can't remember where I first met Jen; maybe Dublin? Maybe WFFC? BSBD Chuck

They used to run one at least once a year up at CrossKeys. No idea about any other "formal" courses run by individuals, but there are three different parachute demonstration teams based out of Raeford/Fort Bragg and it would not be hard to get the training you need there. I'd contact Michael Elliot of the All Veterans Parachute Team based at Raeford. Chuck