SkymonkeyONE

State Farm. I have had good service out of them; they have paid three claims on my bike and not ditched me. One was a hit and run that cost them nearly $8000 and nobody to countersue, so I was pretty stoked that they didn't try to "total" my bike. I have my sled insured for 20K. Chuck

LeRoy, use PM's for shit like that. What do your posts have anything to do with the topic of this thread?

Correct. Also, if it stays in ground mode while you are climbing, and that bothers you, simply hit the "alt" button on bottom and it will show you big numbers. Hitting "exit" will put it straight into airplane mode if the plane is climbing at all. The unit will not operate as an audible unless you enable that option.

Wingsuit instruction will be available at both our (BirdMan, Inc.) and the Matter tents. BirdMan's tent will be in the same spot as last year; right across the street from Load Organizer tent 1. Not sure where JP will be running the Matter concession from. We will have a higher minimum-jump requirement at Rantoul again, just like last year. It will definitely be at least 350 jumps, but possibly as high as the normally-recommended 500 jumps. That will be determined in-house in the next few weeks. Chuck Blue BirdMan Chief Instructor

She beat me to it.

Just a quick note to say that I will be running the wingsuit seminar at WFFC and have been asked by a number of people to consider running a BMI course there as well. I have figured out a way to safely do it, so interested parties PM me for more info. Looks like the lecture phase will be on Tuesday and the air evals will happen first thing Wednesday morning. I am more than willing to shift dates to accomodate different and potentially better participation. Chuck

Looks like I will be conducting a BMI course at the World FreeFall Convention this year. I will decide on the dates as soon as I get a handle on who wants to attend and when. My thoughts are that I want to do this early in the week after the first weekend, probably Tuesday, when the crowds are down and when then do the air evals first thing the next morning before the skies become clogged with "falling maggots." Three candidates minimum to make it worth my time. PM me for course prerequisites. Chuck

I never cock my PC until after my main is in the bag. I do this because I find it MUCH easier to deal with rolling my canopy down and getting it ready to stick in the bag with the bag farther out of the way. Yes, there have been a few (less than five) instances where it jammed up when I finally did cock it and I had to pull it back out to clear the tangle, but that is over the ENTIRE amount of time that kill-line PC's have been in existence. No, I have never burned nor torn the top of any of my canopies by waiting until after the canopy is bagged before cocking. Has anyone here actually seen (with their own eyes) a canopy that has been damaged by cocking in this order? I haven't. Chuck

No. Vladi was there on the invitation of some of the locals who he jumped with at the Rodriguez Brothers boogie.

Matt, if you are not going to jump your suit for fear of getting smacked, give it to me. OK, sell it to me.....cheap. Seriously, I think you are letting your fears get the best of you. pack yourself a snivelly opening (or pay for one) and get your ass back up in the sky in your suit. Chuck

True. Even if a buddy hooks you up with free first flight instruction, please try to remember that he more than likely has spent a GREAT deal of money on that suit. Don't get pissed if he/she starts expecting something in return.

Like Tom and Terry I firmly believe that there is a lot more responsibility to be beared by packers. Also, like Tom, I would not hesitate to fire the the packer and run him/her off the dropzone if they started a fist fight over the matter. I would also have no problem running the customer off if he/she elevated the matter out of civility and into fisticuffs. If you cannot get satisfaction from a vendor, you simply take your case to the next level of authority. No amount of seniority in any organization gives you the right to act untoward to that degree in the business world.

I just got back from running a BMI course at Skydive Carolina in Chester, SC. The tally was four in, four out, with all candidates doing a superb job. Congratulations to TJ, Blair, and Gus from Chester and Jake from Raeford! Thankfully, the weather held out for us all day Saturday thus allowing us to get not only our air evaluation dives complete, but giving us plenty of opportunity to take up eager boogie goers. In all, I believe we took about 12 people up on first flights, many of whom made multiple jumps in the suits afterwards. Thanks go out to Skydive Carolina for having Vladi and myself over for the weekend. Pics attached

All I can say is that I hope your mate ponied up the cash to fix your Classic. Seriously, if you tear up a leg wing, you have to open the entire bottom seam and have a drop-foot machine to get up in there and sew patches. Another option is to simply "sticky tape the hole and hand tack it around the edges. This, of course, assuming he didn't tear any ribs free on the inside.

Tonto, assuming you land on your feet every time (with your feet OUT of the bootie and properly snapped or otherwise secured up), the only things you are likely to have to keep an eye on are the lacing tabs and the zippers. My original GTi (which I got in 2000) is still hanging in there, but has so many patches and new zippers on it that I am going to have to start calling it "Frankenstein." I can promise you it has over 1000 jumps on it as it was in the demo fleet for a year before I got it, then I jumped it, then sold it to Scott Campos, then traded it back, then started using it in my personal demo fleet. So long as you don't ass-surf your suit (or let anyone else do so) you will be alright. Tearing up the leg wing is really bad and incredibly hard to fix in some cases. Chuck

I will say right here and now that Carbone fucking KILLED it last year at the convention. Outstanding dinner meals every single night, far away from the madness that is the main "food court" tent. He was setup right next to the dropzone.com tent last year. Where are you at this year, Scotty (or Tami)?

On the first weekend of WFFC? Not a chance. Everyone behaves as if their grandmother was watching until at least Tuesday. "Hey, the planes don't start flying for TWO DAYS! Pass the stump liquor!" -overheard at WFFC 2003

You got THAT right, brother!

Sounds to me like you are reaching back for you drogue release and then keeping both of your hands in around the student's shoulders after the pull. Try pulling your drogue release and promptly sticking both hands out in front of you to keep from going head-down.

Exactly. Once rolled down to the point that you get to the bridle attachment point, I simply pull it out a bit so it is clearly exposed. Never a problem at all and no, I don't use any type of extension to pull it out to the side. For clarification: I kneel on the slider end, pull the canopy up to my chest and make sure it stays coccooned, roll it down to the ground, bag it, then flip myself around and stuff in the "counterfold" that I was kneeling on. Lovely and very, very fast.

Neptune. Why? Because it logs more than 119 seconds and I regularly go longer than that on wingsuit flights. Also because I use it as my visual alti and the canopy mode is brilliant. I have my Neptune setup to my correct jump numbers, so that helps me remember what I did when I transpose numbers over to my logbooks. The neptune is so so light it's like you are not wearing anything at all (when worn as a wrist alti). Alti-2's customer service is fantastic as well. I also own two L&B pro dytters and wear one as an audible. I didn't buy the neptune for it's gimmickry, I bought it as an alti.

It was 1990 and I had 1000 skydives when I put my first board together. It was a 44 inch conelly trick ski that I made my own bindings and releases for. It took me four jumps before I was pulling standing up, but I was performing flips in 10 jumps. I taught one person back in '91 who pulled standing up on his first jump (GK John Hoover), but he nearly went in since he flipped over immediately after pulling and the PC nearly went between his legs. If you don't have a proper skysurf suit to wear, just be goddamn sure you are wearing something with a LOT of drag on top and something very tight on bottom. I never bought into the straight-sideways stance "trainer" boards and would only recommend that one start on a properly oriented (regular or goofy foot), shorter (42-44 inch) board. I never, ever kicked by board off. Under canopy I would slide off my rear heel strap and then surf that mother either straight into or straight downwind to a complete stop. Never a big deal at Raeford because we have a perfectly flat and smooth green grass landing area. If I felt I was losing my balance at the end of my landing, I would simply pull my back foot out and catch myself from falling over. I tired pretty quickly of skysurfing because there was no organized competition at all back then. I still have two boards collecting dust in the gear room at Raeford.

The way it used to be taught, and still is in a lot of places, is that it takes 12 seconds to reach terminal velocity after exiting an airplane. Chuck

The Blade I jumped at Moss Point (in my wingsuit no less) was an 89 and it flew like a Crossfire 2. Very quick turns, long dives, strong bottom end.

Not me. Like Glen, if I am going to do a lot of backflying on a dive I will simply exit on my back. Out of an Otter I simply hang out, back to the wind, in the front floater position. I give the count from there and lead the flock, just like a regular tracking dive. I roll over when I get tired of it.