SkymonkeyONE

That list is flawed as well, Kevin! MonkeyBeef#13

Dude! That was the funniest card I have seen lately. For those of you who were not there, Greg went and found a "on the occasion of your Barmitzvah" card and "X'd out" the original message on the inside and, with a sharpie, wrote "whatever" under it. On the left inside part he wrote "Damn you old!" It was classic. Also, the gift he gave him (an Altimaster II) was wrapped in a dirty sock closed with gaffer tape and was put inside a "it's a girl!" bag. Nice.

it's a dropzone.com holiday boogie mouse pad from, I think, two years ago.

That is also the first place I heard the term used. Lance "Swoop" Kerwin tandem video.

Are you jumping a Cessna and doing a hanging exit? If so, I find my old SL students had much better luck if I told them to extend their legs and point their toes at exit all the while maintaining a good arch. The tendancy on hanging exits is for students to have lazy legs and, upon release from the strut, allow their arms to stay out there like "Superman." This head-high attitude leads many people to flip over backwards and, in many cases, flip over sideways to the right as they "look" for their BOC (which, of course, they cannot possibly see). The "Big X with arch" exit works much better. All this assuming you were talking about a 5-second delay as part of an IAD or SL progression. If you are talking about exiting the side door of an Otter or something for you clear and pulls following AFF, then I will still recommend that you exit poised, with very-positive legs and don't go looking for your handle at pull time. Simply "arch thousand, reach thousand, pull thousand (or "throw").

My first "swoop" (turf surf back then) had to be under a Bogy 150 I was testing for Dave Davenport; that was late 1984 or early 1985. At the time I (and nearly everybody else in the sport) was jumping a 200 square foot main, but he needed someone small enough to "live through" the landing on the 150 for testing purposes. I volunteered. Turf Surfing evolved when we found we had residual speed left over after planing our canopy out when we flared. It wasn't much, but we thought it was stylish. The original "swoops" were simply straight in landings where we put our feet down and slid these then-"tiny" mains to a stop. We were lucky to slide maybe 20 feet. eventually, we began introducing speed-inducing turns close to the ground to make us to farther across the ground. Back in the day, once we figured these turns out a bit, people were toggle-whipping the piss out of their Raider 220's and were daring enough to jump as small as a 150 (VERY small back then). I recogn I could go around 100 feet downwind under a Bogy on a good day, but most folks back then would be very happy with dragging their toes 30 feet. The PD Excallibur (I owned a 150), the ParaFlite Evolution, and a couple of foreign designs (Blue Track, Pintail, Reflex) made it such that people got away with jumping stuff as small as 120 safely (in experienced hands). Some people like Jack Jeffries and Rickster Powell then began throwing some crazy turns and doing stuff like flying down the ditch at DeLand and then popping back up right before piling into the crossing bridge. Chuck Blue D-12501

I have been involved in them all the way down to two people, but the biggest "muscle pump" I actually enjoy is three-way. You, if you worked down to it, can take some very tight grips on a three-way and get incredibly pumped up. This is a very popular thing at CSS boogies. The timid need not apply.

IAD is Instructor Assisted Deployment. It's very similar to SL progression except that you don't have any gear to change around when it comes time to do your own pulling. On both systems (SL and IAD), you do five jumps where your chute will begin to deploy almost immediately after exiting the aircraft. Three of those five are jumps where you demonstrate your ability to pull on your own by executing "practice pulls". In most cases, it's your sixth jump where you deploy on your own using an "arch, reach, throw" count. That jump is executed from the same altitude and in the same manner as your previous three, only you don't have a SL or an instructor doing the actual deployment. From there, you work your way up to higher and higher altitudes and wait longer and longer until deployment (10 seconds, 15, 30, and 45 generally). As your jump altitude gets higher and your freefall times increase, you are required to perform more complex tasks.

I agree. That and just taking my mind off of whatever is itching at me. In other instances, say room clearing (CQB) where you really can't afford to take your attention away from the task at hand, simply visualizing yourself already into the action (past the point of entry, or after exiting the aircraft in skydiving) really helps. Skydiving is far from the most dangerous thing I have had to do, but yes, I still (after more than 23 years in the sport) occasionally get slightly antsy in certain situations (reeling in a jammed RDS in a swoop meet; drogue-out total malfunction on my tandem; pull-time in a wingsuit when jumping a velo).

Now see, Jeff, that's the problem. If it were simply the traditional cream pie then I would be fine with it. I don't know what moron decided that pieing people with saurkraut and shaving cream would be "funny" or "cool", but it's NOT. It's not supposed to disgusting; it's supposed to be a real pie! In the absence of a real pie, a pie tin or a paper plate filled with whipped cream is perfectly satisfactory. Keep your mayo/coconut/salad dressing concoctions for your own consumption because if you touch me with something like that I am gonna stomp a fucking mudhole in your ass. Seriously. I am TOTALLY cool with the traditional cream pie and do my best to adorn my deserving friends with them, but I would never fuck someone over like I got done to me on my 3000th. Chuck -I don't like saurkraut!

Nice post. Out of the two candidates who were "able" to win in our electoral college system, I don't really give a rat's ass about either. My quality of life did not noticeably change throughout my entire 21 year military career. It didn't matter whether a democrat or a republican was in office, I was still gonna get paid and get promoted based on my time in service and my qualifications. I got pay raises regardless of who was in office. I was deployed overseas at least six months a year regardless of whether the president was rep or dem. This election did not and will not affect me one bit, nor will it affect the great majority of you. Chuck

Guess it's a good thing I am a heterosexual who just married a hot white woman.

It's on video.

What yo name is?

Maggots! Maggots! Maggots are falling like RAIN!

Yep, Tim is older than John, but John has a MUCH larger noggin! Hey Hoov, you know Tim is about to retire, right? Time to check out the sparkles.

The event will be held out at Laurenburg-Maxton Airport again (ugh..) and there is very little infrastructure out there. An RV would be a very smart thing to arrive in if you are going, but primitive camping is OK too. This event used to be open to guardsmen and reservists as well when it happened at Raeford.

Both of my CC's turned faster in front riser dives than my H-mods (with the same amount of input) and required different flying styles.

Hey, whatup with me moving from 13 to 14? Scroll back up and read the thread where I was honored with Sonic status. I am CLEARLY MonkeyBeef#13.

Very true. By the time you get to the A-license level (which is truly when you graduate student status), the costs are remarkably close, at least here in North Carolina. Both students end up with exactly the same skillset at exactly the same time: 25 jumps (here in the USA). Chuck Blue D-12501 AFF/SL/TM-I, BMCI, PRO

Sorry, but Dave doesn't jump PD. What he meant was not that every canopy will eventually give you a hard opening; just that every canopy can give you a hard opening. That is a simple fact. Sloppy, short stows or an uneven body position at pull time can easilly cause line dump. You dump your lines and your canopy is going to smack you.....period.

You need to understand a couple of things. First, with repetition comes confidence. Second, if you don't like teaching then why are you getting a rating? With everything except tandem you are going to have to spend far more time talking than you are actually skydiving. Personally, I really enjoy the classroom aspect of teaching. It gives me great satisfaction to see peoples faces when they finally "get it." The better job you do on the ground, the better they are going to do in the air; simple fact. Don't sweat it. Chuck

I put a LOT of jumps on Atair stuff when I was jumping them and never had a bad opening. I had a Viper 150, Alpha 84, a Cobalt 85, H-modded 85, 75, H-modded 75, CC 75, and a CC 65. The H-modded 75 was my favorite of them all and it is still being jumped here in town. In my opinion, the H-mod is the best $150 a person can spend on an open-nosed canopy. That said, I still think my old Alpha 84(actually an Atair "Impulse") flew better than all of the newer Atair stuff I had. All of my canopies opened at least as well as my two Stillettos, but all dove longer and swooped farther. I jumped Stillettos (a 107 and a 97) for six years prior to moving away from PD for a couple of years. A Stilletto is a fine canopy, but I wanted something with a little more dive. Since I didn't want a Velocity yet, I went with the then-new Vengeance. I didn't really like the Vengeance so I sold it very-quickly and got an Alpha. Back then, it was Alphas and the then-new Icarus crossbraces that won all the swoop meets. In today's world, I would have moved from the ST to the Katana and been very happy. That said, I would never recommend a Katana as a first Elliptical. It's all about using the right tool for the job. I keep a Sabre2 97 in my wingsuit rig and a Velocity 79 in my swoop rig.

Aubrey and Bosco travel with all sizes as far as I have seen.

You mean Loic Jean Albert, but I won't hold that against you.