SkymonkeyONE

That's the beauty of having so many different canopies on the market; there is something for everyone. The things that make some people think "ho-hum" really make some people incredibly happy. I found the Nitro/Nitron to be very, very similar in flight characteristics to my old Cobalt and the original Crossfire. I found the Blade to be very, very similar to a Crossfire2. Beezy is a great friend and he will bend over backwards to make a customer happy. Chuck

As a member of the defending Hog Flop champion team, I would very much like to be in attendance. Not sure if Katie and I will be able to make it yet though. Chuck

Nope, tandems don't hurt my back at all. As a matter of fact, like another person has already posted, it's when I am NOT jumping that my back hurts the worst. Chuck

Betsy is correct. Everyone is going to come out of events with different perceptions and experiences. No need to bash Steve for relating his personal experiences. That said, I am friends with all of the guys on Evolution and they are all fantastic skydivers. Everyone has his own personality and it's too bad that one person's ribbing got to Steve (and whoever else might have been offended). I am sure there was no malice intended. Chuck

What was the focus of this thread? Oh yeah....the guy wasn't impressed. Seriously, there are plenty of people who "just don't get it" on their first few flights. Generally, it's because they are falling out of the sky like a bomb. Yes, they are cruising across the sky very, very fast, but their freefall is not that long and they never experience the "quiet" of an efficient flight. Some people nail it right away and still don't really care for it; such is life.

My advice? Don't give up red meat.

BendyWendy just got here to our house here in Fayetteville. My cat, Ellie Mae, is sitting up here on the computer desk checking out Wendy's dog. My dog, Billy Bob, is non-plussed by the event. The weather is perfect here in NC, but is likely to get the rain on late Saturday. Another out of town friend, Stephan Lipp, is on the way. Chuck

On the certificate? Absolutely. Ours are totally suitable for framing.

Nice one, Dave!

Incredibly interesting to say the least. Alex Thomson is a great friend of mine (who I taught the BMI course to). Having him involved with that means there will be some advanced nig-noggery in FULL effect! Cheers to Alex, Chuck

Very stylish, but the leg wing is too short! I can't wait to see the finished video product.

We use a professional 8 1/2 x 11" certificate that we have printed up. We then apply a custom label with their name on it which we affix in the space provided. The school manager/owner signs in the bottom left spot and the tandem instructor signs in the bottom right spot. We generally put our D-license numbers on there beside our name.

Uh, no she's not.

I just remembered that it is Sean Sweeny, son of (also) retired GK Mike Sweeny.

I will chase them to two thousand feet and then I am going to deploy and save my own life.

Nope. Sorry, but there is a 2nd Generation skydiver at Raeford (now a GK actually) who was jumping Spongebob two years ago. There are photos of it here on the forums somewhere.

You could have mis-stowed any drogue 3-ring on any rig if you laid it in there like I did. Everyone knows that to get it to lay in there flat you lay it one way then counterfold the mechanism the other way, as a unit. On a Racer with "stock" drogue releases which you must hang onto(like a Vector II, Eclipse, etc) , many Racer rig owners lay the mechanism so that the three release cables (two drogue release and one drogue cutaway) stick out to the side, out from under the main pin flap. This, so that if your drogue releases work their way out on you, you can simply tug them back into place as the ends are visible. I have done this since right after we bought my rig and it worked great. Anyway, with the new retractable drogue release handles on my rig (like a Sigma), there is simply no reason whatsoever to put your system together so that the cable ends are showing. Well, on the jump in question, I layed my drogue 3-ring in there the way I had been doing it out of habit, but unfortunately I layed the large ring over in the opposite direction of my other two. On drogue deployment the initial "set" snatch pull force was directed not into the fold of the drogue bridle, but on the opposite side, toward the smallest ring. Yes, my system was properly assembled, but it was not layed into the channel in it's "straight" configuration. The force of the drogue set onto the wrong side of the bridle caused every one of the three cables to be pulled through the grommets. I have 550 tandem jumps and generally always pack my own rig. I had no reason whatsoever to lay my release system in there that way, but now know that it is very possible to have a total with inflated drogue in tow should you do so. After examining all the other types of rigs we had laying around, I can promise you that I could replicate the "pulling the cables through the grommet" deal on all of them that had 3-ring releases at the drogue. Lesson learned.

Slacker! POPS meets are the shiznit! FYI: I will be 41 in two weeks.

CSS has a labor day boogie? Just so you know, it is supposed to be raining most of the weekend here in NC.

I recommend standing on top of a chiba-chiba bus driving and full speed and simply throwing your PC into the girders of whatever bridge you happen to drive over. Yes, please get video.

Age: 41 in under two weeks Sex:M AVG: 0.2496

Actually, every Saddleman seat I have ever seen was of the same cheap construction as a Mustang. I have a custom embroidered Lepera Sillouette Solo on my sled nowadays, but used to run a Corbin "50" gunfighter.

Mustang seats are incredibly poorly constructed as compared to several other, much-better seats (LePera, Corbin). Mustang baseplates are plastic and the covers are simply stapled to them. LePera has steel base plates and the covers are riveted on. Corbin has fiberglass baseplates and the covers are also riveted. Mustang is the K-mart of aftermarket seats.

Just had my first tandem reserve ride. It was a total which I fought for several thousand feet before finally blousing my reserve at just under 3k. It sucked incredibly badly to not be able to pull either drogue release nor my cutaway due to the way my drogue attachment 3-ring malfunctioned. I attribute it to my own stowage error. Firing my reserve into my inflated, unreleasable drogue-in-tow sucked, but everything worked out fine. My passenger had no idea that anything had happened.

Won't you be an eighth year senior this year, Dave? Don't worry, that's not quite as pathetic as my cousin, JayBird (Pajarito on here). Good thing he married a doctor!