SkymonkeyONE

There is a thread on here called "post your wings" or something like that, so just do a search for it and you will find pics of both of my Wings containers. One has a lot of orange on it.

If you break a steering line on opening, you ALWAYS unstow the other brake to get the canopy flying straight; it is then that you decide if you are going to be able to land the canopy in that configuration. That should have been covered in your first jump course. If you break one control line, unstow the opposite brake and then fly yourself back over the dz with the remaining toggle (to retain strength) and the opposite riser down to your final turn into the wind, then land, flaring with both rear risers. The other option is to simply use both rear risers the whole way down (harder on your arms). It's pretty amazing that you neglected to do so yet still landed the parachute. On larger, docile canopies it is actually very simply and safe to fly in and land on rears. This thread belongs in the safety and training or canopy forum, so I will now move it to one or the other. Chuck

Throwing 1080's might look cool and be fun once in a while to scare whuffos (or yourself), but they are far from accurate and are simply vanity turns that "beer line" swoopers perform. That being understood, the possibility that this guy made his CYPRES fire is entirely possible if he initiated the turn high enough. Troy Ketsdever did a series of tests a while back and got one (in a hip bag he wore) to fire. Chuck

who told you not to "roll" your arms forward? The bottom line is that you want to present as clean a leading edge as possible while allowing your wing to obtain a taut, fully inflated state.

Noice. See you all next weekend at Raeford.

I have heard that many, many brain cells were lost over the course of this trip. You guys suck (in the nicest way). Chuckie

Confirmed. I will be there representing BirdMan for the duration of the boogie. I am running a BM-I course as soon as I get there (I arrive on the 19th) and will be organizing and providing first flight instruction. I will have all the available BirdMan suit demos as well as Pantz in all sizes to try/buy. I will also give an "intro to competition canopy piloting" seminar at some point during the boogie. See you all there. Chuck

I will be at Kamloops (in canada) for the boogie in a couple of weeks doing both BM organizing and running a BM-I course. I will have most of the demo suits and plenty of Pantz available as well. Bring the pain, Chuckie BMCI

News from the front: Stephan Lipp (from Eloy) and I have been pulling all-night vigil at the hospital since we arrived on Monday. Neither of us have bathed or changed clothes or give a crap. Paul is critical, but we stay and hope. He is on a ventilator at 100% O2 and very-high positive pressure in an attempt to stabilize his respiratory system which was scorched in the incident. The high positive pressure keeps his lungs from shrinking up (from the internal burns) and the o2 mix at max keeps his blood oxygenated as much as possible (currently at 92% retention at this mix). He is fed intraveniously and through a tube in his nose. He is kept in an induced coma and a paralytic state to prevent his body from using oxygen in "the wrong places" at this point. He will likely be in this state for some weeks, then will have a trach airway cut in and the vent will be moved out of his mouth and to there to prevent undue infection. He will not be allowed out of this state until his respiratory state has improved some great degree. Should he make it past this state (we can only hope and pray....there is only a 10 percent chance), he will then have to deal with the infection from his now-manifested burns. On a positive note, his heartbeat is strong and his BP remains steady, though pharmacutically maintained. He is strong of mind and body, so he has a much better chance than most of pulling through. It will take everything he has to get through this. Another positive note is that some of the burns previously thought to be third degree are now categorized as second degree. That said, Paul is very, very burned (91 percent of his body). I am here till next week sometime. Stephan is here for an indefinite period. Paul's daughter was here with her mother for several days and was by his side. Paul's ex-wife Julie is here with us and will be here for some time. I have seen some seriously bad things in my life, but this is the worst........period. Paul is one of my best friends in the world and this is very, very hard on me and many others. People deal with these things in their own way. Mine is an internal anger that is grating on me like you cannot believe. Chuck PS: it took over an hour to locate an internet cafe in downtown Philadelphia.

What is the first song in the second video? I really like that. Fun video, Bo. Chuck

I have swooped many a pond with my CYPRES still in with no ill effects. I got caught with an out-of-date reserve in my "pond" rig at PSN 2001 (my fault for not checking the date on my card), so I had to jump my primary rig. I just turned the CYPRES off and hoped for the best. The rig was soaked twice and after the meet when I fired my reserve on the ground to dry it, I pulled the CYPRES out and checked it. It was barely moist, so I dried it off and did a functions check; no problem. Would I recommend that all the time? No, but I competed in two "water" meets with that rig and never had a problem; your milage may vary. I do not have a CYPRES in my pond/birdman rig and that does not bother me at all.

Looks like a nice color combo.

In my opinion, if you are not providing the structure, then it's not freefall. Anyone could land a glider. Thanks, but my two and a half minute freefalls (average) are fine with me at this point.

I do not think that could be accurately possible. The time which you currently see as your "registered" date is only since the last major revision of this website. There are many of us who were posting two versions before this one came to be; long before the date which currently shows up. I doubt there is any way to retrieve the original dates. That said, the "dropzone.com born-on date" wouldn't really add much value in my opinion. The amount of time a person posts on dropzone.com has no bearing whatsoever with their ability to jump out of an airplane without killing themselves, nor should it make any difference in whether or not you choose to take advice from someone on this site. Just my opinion. Chuck

Wonder how much gaffer tape the TM used to keep that dude secured? The absolute smallest I could adjust a Vector harness to fit was a four-foot-eight girl without resorting to duct tape (which I would not do).

That's a perfect weekend to show up!

I load my PD 106's at 1.6

I don't believe that. Slida flappida is incredibly distracting though, and that's reason enough for me to do away with it when afforded that option. If you are jumping a big, lightly loaded main and not pulling down your slider to allow for further riser spread, then killing your slider, while cutting down on a smidgen of wind resistance, is mainly just to get rid of that damn racket.

Kris, that was a total rip-off and you know it. Correctly stated: "Slida-flappida is a disease only YOU can cure." Thank you very much.

The aircraft I am talking about was not a military plane. It was, at best, a "grey" airplane. It was contracted by the military to fly this mission because the air guy at SWC found out he could get it for $50 per hour less than he was paying Raeford Aviation for their Super Otter. The operator, unfortunately, did not have the requisite experience in night, blacked out, message pickup operations and he balled the airplane up in the woods at the end of the grass field. You get what you pay for. It's pretty rare these days that "real" military planes get used for training missions. STI, Evergreen, Raeford Aviation, and one or two others are who flies most of this stuff. Chuck

I have met other skydivers in airports, on airliners, and in restaurants/bars. I met some walking down Duval street in Key West.

That isn't an entirely accurate statement, Chris. There was at least one LET 410 that was being used to fly contract missions for the Army on Fort Bragg; it crashed on a blown MPU (message pick-up) contract flight for my last unit. Unless I am mistaken, that contract plane generally operated out of Smithfield, NC. Chuck

Very simple: Orange top and bottom, Navy or Royal Blue braces and diamonds. Where have I seen that before? I am now personally fond of a single racing stripe on one side and everything else a solid color. I am also really fond of dark bracing on lighter canopies. I think that looks really good on the Team Extreme canopies. At any rate, contrasting braces are almost a must in my opinion. On stock canopies, I would steer clear of gawdy colors like Lime green or pink. Eric's old 120 looked OK with just the ribs and diamonds green, but Ramon's canopy is simply rude. Chuck

Both JP (Furnari) and Billvon are BMI's.

Yep, in a GTi or a Classic, it's easier to just tie the legs in an overhand knot and let them hand between your legs. All you are trying to prevent is tripping on the booties or trashing your leg-wing and booties on landing. Skyflyers and S3's have a hole between the legs which we simply poke the unzipped leg-wing into. Much faster than snapping it up. Chuck