SkymonkeyONE

Once again, "feel" and totally relying on your site picture might be fine if all you ever do is swoop the beer-line at your home DZ, but if you travel alot, and I do, then you will need some more science on your side if you intend on making it through entrance gates at an unfamiliar DZ. Just my experience.

Red Stripe is "tourist" beer; nobody really drinks that stuff outside of resorts. Real folks drink Carib.

As I am not a mod in this forum I cannot delete your blatant personal attack, but just know that you are out of line here. Ron is very-opinionated, but isn't out there running his mouth and telling people it's OK to do dangerous/wreckless stuff. Your calling him a dick because of his opinion on this matter is uncalled for. Until you have met Ron in person, you will have to refrain from calling him a dick. I, on the other hand, am a personal friend of Ron's and can absolutely call him one if I choose.

I have been a staunch proponent of Safety whistles since I was a youngster on the family farm. We placed them on the collars of the sows so that you could hear them running at you from behind as you attempted to clip the teeth and cut the nuts off their offspring. After the first chunk of flesh got taken out of my 15 year-old ass, my dad invested in them. They saved me at least a dozen times in the ensuing years.

Actually, both ParaFlite and the French company, Nervous, both build terminal-deployable paragliders and market them for the military.

Steve, you are killing me with all these new accounts.

Before I got my first crossbrace (a VX 74), I had jumped Stilletos (107 and 97 for over five years) there was nothing I could not do on those canopies. Before that, I had two Sabre 135's and two Monarch 135's. Before that, an Excallibur 150, etc, etc, back into history. There was nothing left to wring out on those canopies. That said, the "break-in" period on that first x-brace was much shorter than it would have been for someone who was only barely working their previous canopy. When I did get that first crossbrace, I actually found that I was getting more consistent swoops out of my other main, an Alpha 84. Eventually, I realized that the longer-diving ZP nine-cells were a smarter canopy for what I was doing at the time, so I sold my VX and jumped modified Cobalts for a while. I jumped them for two seasons on tour and had very respectable finishes (over many competitors under braced mains). Ultimately, when I could not get a single ounce more in distance (remember, I compete), I realized that I was going to have to get back under a braced canopy to remain competitive with my peers on tour. My setup is identical, my turns are identical, but it was the edge afforded me by my Velocity that got me the results I needed in that set of circumstances. Again, I still get remarkable swoops out of my Sabre2 97 and don't need to jump my velo to spank lesser pilots under their vanity canopies. Chuck

Not a good idea at all. You see, it's the PGR (partisan US politics/Gun control/Religion) threads and the bashing and finger-pointing they cause which destroy the otherwise friendly "community" feeling of Talkback. Ten people starting ten new PGR threads a day have run amok and have caused chaos to the point of people thinking it's ok to start retaliatory threads to question our guidance. They have created an atmosphere where other new posters think that they must post chatty stuff in the specified forums. No amount of "sticky" posts at the top of the screen have made a difference. You want more guidance? That is what you will get if and when TB comes back online. Rec is a great place to spout pious garbage; not here.

Another thing: your arm handles are not your first course of action in a spinner, your zippers are. I can unzip in the same amount of time it takes to pull those handles. Your handles get used when you jam a zipper or blow a wing out

Just like your cutaway cables on your rig, you need to keep the cables on your suit clean and slick. I wouldn't hesitate to put some WD40 on them. Also, make sure you are pulling down/out and away.

You got that right, brother. It was not that long ago at all that a 150 was considered to be a very small canopy. When I first started jumping 150's (F111 nine-cells) people thought I was out of my mind. Same thing when Sabres came out in the smaller sizes. Nowadays, some people will arbitrarilly advise young jumpers that such canopies are great first or second mains after student status. That's nuts, but I read it on here and hear it in the field all the time. The bottom line here is that very, very few people have any business flying anything more HP than a Sabre2, Pilot, or Safire 2 and then not loaded beyond about 1.5:1. Very few skydivers these days keep a canopy long enough to exploit its full potential, instead "trading down" due to vanity, regardless of inexperience. Read some of the downsizing plans that people on here have posted and you will see what I mean. Many, many people list having put as little as 50 jumps on a main before they traded down. People will spit out as many cockamamie excuses as they can dream of to quantify their purchases, but in the end they are just asking for trouble. Wearing the label "freeflyer" does not mean that you "must" swoop, or "must" have a x-brace. Jumping the right tool for the job makes much more sense. I jump my Sabre2 as much as I do my Velo. There is nothing I can do under the Velo that I cannot do under the Sabre2. Yes, I lose some distance on swoop, but I turn it the same and land it the same. Chuck

Nope, in that instance dumping high on the first load then making several "practice" landing turns on the way down, all the while judging your altitude loss with your alti to form an educated guess as to what your final turn should be would be in order. How's that for a run-on sentence? Throwing a final turn at a new dropzone when you "feel" the setup is right is a great way to find yourself in the "hurt locker."

It is incredibly unlikely that someone is going to "max out" any canopy in 200 jumps.

Nice pics, Ari! Dude, I can't wait till my new suit from Nancy gets done. She is a very cool chick and makes great stuff.

Packing is not making a living skydiving. Yes, you can make more money packing than you can in the air, but guess what, you are on your knees in the shed and I am in the air. Packing is harder on your body than meat hauling, too. I get great satisfaction taking new people into the air by whatever means: tandem, AFF, SL, whatever. If you are not interested in the "giving back" aspect of the sport, then I would say that you just need to get another "regular" job during the week so that you can better defray the cost of your fun jumping. I do not suffer that affliction; I love to teach. Another perfect example of such a person is Paul Rafferty. 16,000 jumps, five 8-way gold world medals, and the biggest jump whore I know. He loves being in the air and would just as soon haul meat or do AFF as spin 8-way or freefly. He loves to teach.

This wasn't a talkback topic anyway, and yes, it's equally relevant here as well as the canopy control forum. I am reading a lot of stuff here from people who really believe that a site picture is all one needs to accomplish a safe turn; I disagree. If a skydiver jumps at one dropzone his entire carreer and only ever turns one way, then yes, their site picture is going to become attuned to those landmarks and other references. Try taking that approach at an unfamiliar dropzone (or over water) and you will be completely hosed. Your alti, regardless of accuracy inconsistencies, is incredibly important to gaining any type of consistency in your landings. Without it, you may be able to repeatedly pull off "safe" landings, but your accuracy will generally suffer and any attempts to improve your performance landings will be less effective without empirical data to work off of. Yes, I can safely land my canopy without an alti (I did last weekend at Lake Wales), but I prefer to use the same setup on every landing and I use all the tools available to me in order to best accomplish the task. Chuck

Noice, Hansie.

Hello Mel*, if you right click on that picture, you can save it straight off this site. See you guys this Summer. Also, yes, Katie looks great in her new suit. Chuckie

Actually, both FTS (now APS) and the company now known as Flight Concepts both also produced 11-cell canopies.

You can "fix" an original Classic by adding two, longer front zippers on either side of the center one which extend down to the front of the thighs (like on a Classic II). That will alleviate any headaches you might have from having to slither into that suit in its present configuration. "Wow, nice three-zipper suit you got there..." "Chuck Blue told me to do this." No charge for the advice, Chuck

Perry is a funny motherfucker. You will figure out the "Scary" when you meet him. That said, he is a brilliant wingsuit pilot and shoots fantastic video and stills. If you have any trees that need taken down he can accomodate you in that respect as well. Chuck

Looks like a great fit, Chris! Noice.

If you have deployed your pilot chute, then whatever you end up with (PC in tow) must be treated as a partial malfunction and you need to cutaway before pulling your reserve. The only time you go straight for your reserve is in the event of a total malfunction. These days, the only way you can have a total is to either: not be able to find your deployment device (hackey or pud), or not be able to pull it (jammed by means of "monkeyfist" or bent pin with a pull-out). I have neglegted to cock my PC on a couple of occasions (once recently.....in a wingsuit), but on both occasions the main ended up deploying because of my "elbowing" the container to free the D-bag.

Green slime? I though you must have been talking about Stefan's hot tub!

Ron is exactly correct here. Nobody is bitching about any governmental threads which directly relate to skydiving and it's continued existence. Those threads are entirely relevant and we are all fine with them.