SkymonkeyONE

I don't know where the aircraft will takeoff from, but I can tell you that it SUCKED riding the bus over to the airport at Panama City. It was like a 30 minute ride over there. Hopefully it will be closer at Wildwood.

"stick your pelvis out like a no-armed man taking a leak at the urinal. You don't want to pee on your feet, do you?"

I have only been taken on a couple of real "rides", but have never gotten in a side-spin scenario. I seriously believe that those mostly happen to "drogue happy" people who are intent on getting it in the wind in five (or less) seconds no matter what. If you have a weak exit and you start reaching back for your drogue right away, then you have effectively taken away one of your control surfaces. If I get taken over on an exit (for any reason) it's not a big deal because I am flying my body until I am face to the wind before I ever reach back for the drogue. The absolute worst rides I have been on were with small girls doing the "cat off the roof" impersonation. Chuck

Mikeal Stevens regularly jumps a Xaos 27 53-foot main. Luis Cani ended up jumping the VX-46 with a LOT of lead after his first "safe" landings in an effort to see what might be the maximum viable wingload. Those weighted tests were to work out the math on what smaller main he might be able to get away with. I knew/figured some time ago that they were eventually going to do the 39. It actually kind of surprises me that Precision didn't do it first with Mikeal Stevens. Mikeal has jumped the 46 before and had no problem with it whatsoever. The smallest jumped non-braced 9-cell is still the Competition Cobalt 65 as far as I know. I put about 50 jumps on that main. As to "commercially available" crossbraces, Icarus and Precision will both build you pretty much any size you want so long as you convince them you can handle it. There are several 60's out there and at least one 55 square foot VX being jumped.

Puhllleeeeeze. You are such a boozehag.

Off topic, but I will say that Ron Hill, while argumentative, adds an awful lot of signal to these sometimes noise-saturated topical forums. He is a fantastic skydiver and was a good instructor up in NC when he was in the service. But, alas, this isn't a "Ron bashing" thread, is it? Let's not let it turn into one. Back to the topic at hand: I have trained more than a couple of students who truthfully filled out their waivers and stated that they were on anti-depressants. Only one was "sketchy" in my opinion and that student ended up running off on me before he made his recurrency jump (he was on anti-psychotic medication). I consider myself a very-good judge of competency. If I am training someone in a FJC and they are simply not getting it, then I am not about to drag that person up in a plane and endanger them or myself just for $30. If they cannot parrot back the dive flow to me to my satisfaction or retain enough of my class to pass the oral exam, then they are not skydiving. Just last year I had to tell one student who had sat through my entire seven hour FJC with seven of his classmates that he was not going to be able to jump. I didn't feel bad at all because this kid was DUMB. I swear I thought it was a joke because this kid didn't know his ass from a whole in the ground. Chuck

Looks like Katie and I, plus Joe Bennet and Becca will be sharing a room.

I have seen left-hand BOC's and SOS handles on a few rigs. Norm Kent jumped that way for quite some time.

The advanced comp will take place before the weekend; the PRO takes place on Sat/Sun.

Unless I am mistaken, he is still jumping an original Sabre. That said, the Sabre2 is a fine choice as a next canopy.

Chris you silly motherfucker! Hope you are doing OK and can get back up in the air soon. I miss doing Stuka Dives with you. Chuck Blue

Absofreakinlutly! I've never had an Infinity Flap come open before deployment. I, on the other hand, have. I have seen my buddy Scott Sheck's (Infinity) main flap flippity-flapping throughout entire skydives, but it's a "larger" rig. Again, on smaller, tight-closing rigs I have not seen this problem (neither post-98 Jav nor Infinity), but I have definitely seen it on every type of larger "tuck under" container. Either way, it was never an issue on any of the rigs I have owned in the last decade due to their compactness. True, any rig whether up-facing or tuck can be so sloppy that this can occur, but every instance of flap coming unsecured I have witnessed has been with tuck-under flaps.

I have been instructing a very-long time and I used to always tell dedicated, "I'm gonna finish" students that the smartest first purchase was a properly-fitting jumpsuit. It gets fitfull when you are trying to work out basic freefall issues and you find yourself fighting an entirely different-flying jumpsuit. Nowadays, I still tell them they ought to get one jumpsuit that fits and stick to it for a while, I also strongly recommend that they go out and buy an audible. Some people disagree with me that students and young up-jumpers ought not be exposed to them (another distraction), but I am all for them when used properly. Chuck

Up-facing main pin flaps are infinitely more secure than "tuck under" varieties, especially in the larger sizes. I never had either of my personal Jav flaps come undone (XRS and RS Ody), but the larger student Ody's we had at Raeford came open on a regular basis. Conversely, the flaps on the student Wings containers we have at the Green Beret Parachute Club have not once come undone. Ultimately, it obviously comes down to personal preference, but if I were buying a "larger" rig, I would steer away from a rig which is known to have main-flap and riser-cover closure issues in those sizes. Chuck

I jump a PD 106 reserve in both my rigs and have a 97 (Sabre2) in one as a main and a Velo 79 in the other.

I have been skydiving for over 23 years and have never seen anything like you describe. I will further add that I have been a SL instructor for well over 15 years.

Over 1000 jumps for me, but then again that is because there were none on the market before that point.

The only time I will skydive in Tevas is if I am also wearing my bootie suit (which is normal for me on tandems). I don't skydive in them without booties because I can't stand to have them "blow out" or flip under on sliding landings. I destroyed quite a few sets of sandals before I figured out that it just wasn't smart. Chuck

Got it. When doing barrel rolls, remember to get very "flat" and tap your feet together when you invert. This keeps you from tail-spinning down and away. Chuck

Tape is always up.

That's a really good exit shot of you, Arvel! I didn't know Joey-D was getting yellow on his new suit; that's him, right? The second shot is clearly of Joey-D (Padawon Monkey). noice

Then why were you diving head-down in your wingsuit? Just to see if you could do it? Myself and several good friends frequently go into steep, speed-building dives at mid altitude in order to "flare" out and get max lift. Doing so also really confuses the people happilly flocking along with you. They can't understand how you can dive down WAY below them, yet end up hundreds of feet in front of and higher than them. Chuck

Tonto, are you quite certain that you had the suit hooked up correctly? Is it possible you had it hooked up differently right/left? That would obviously cause problems and I have found more than a couple of people hooked up incorrectly when I inspected their gear prior to a flight.

I will do front flips, diving out toward the rear if the customer asks for it, but I don't volunteer the information up front. I have them sit on their heels like a catcher and stay that way for a count of three after the exit, then have them arch hard. On exit, I push over them and "crunch" down around them for three seconds, then I pull back on their shoulders as I arch out of it. I normally get two rotations out of it before I stable out and deploy the drogue. The faster speed you build up gives you more power with your control surfaces. It's that control potential which make me, as a smaller TM, comfortable doing that maneuver. I would guess that only 15 percent of my 500 tandem passengers have asked to do flips. Chuck

Sort of "Farmer John": not neccessarily "under" the mudflap, but below it with thumbs under the MLW. If I am doing cat B, then I will have them in the door just like my AFF students.