SkymonkeyONE

Why do YOU care, post whore! LOL!

It must also be noted that a lot of the most experienced dot.commers will be tied up most days organizing and instructing. I will be at the BirdMan tent, BillVon, Winsor, DJan, etc will be in the "free organizing" tents. I am sure we can pull together some great talent for more than one jump, but probably not any regimented back-to-backs like we did at Eloy. Chuck

Pita bread is tasty, but I hate cucumber sauce, so no real Gyros for me. I have always wanted to fly a Benson Gyrocopter, but the last one I saw got flown into some trees. Man, there are some tall pine trees in north carolina! Katie is short, but very nice. I am loving her.

And that will do exactly what you DON'T want to happen; end up with only low-timers who feel like being regimented. Personally, if I want to do "real" big-ways at the convention, I will simply go jump with Ponce's group. Best to just see what truly-qualified people are standing around the tent on "the day", then work with what we have. From personal experience, I can tell you that while there are a lot of people on the "I will be at Rantoul" list, rarely will we have more than about ten people in the tent. There is simply too much shit to get into at the convention to be tied to one location. Chuck

PR? Me Pensaba que te ires al America del Sur? Que Paso, amigo mio?

Yes, you can totally collapse your canopy by holding your toggles fully down for an extended period. Most student canopies, like your Navigator, are desensitized and will not abruptly drop off. Our navs require that you take several wraps to get them to collapse, but yes, you can do it if you try hard enough. Back in the eighties, we used to all do this on purpose, just to get whipped around. Hold it long enough and your slider goes back up your lines. Not a smart thing to do under your decision altitude, but not unsafe under a "square" parachute. Letting up on your toggles abruptly will cause your canopy to dive in front of you as it reinflates, sometimes creating slack in your lines. I would never consider any of this under an Elliptical canopy, especially a very small one. To see some nice video of what we used to do for fun, dig up an old Wally Gubbins video. Chuck

You will have to ask him. I am not sure he intends to run a "real" BM-I course there. Call and ask. Chuck

DeLand is home to BirdMan International. Jari, Kim, Arlo, Ray Dutch, Vladi Pesa all come to mind. Just call BirdMan and ask for a reference. Chuck

While "simply knocking the baffles" out of your slip-ons will certainly make your skoot louder, you pay the price by losing a ton of bottom-end torque. Smarter business would be to buy a REAL set of pipes that sound good AND give you more power. I guess it all depends what you want your motorcycle to do. I laugh at the masses who waste their money on fat Samson pipes and especially old "fifty dollar drag pipes." Pulling the baffles out of fat drag pipes is incredibly stupid on the performance side; your bike NEEDS back pressure. Personally, I have been running Bubs "Bad Dogs" two into two performance pipes for the past seven years. They rule in terms of real power production. Vance and Hines Pro Pipes make equal power, but they are incredibly ungainly and drag on everything when you turn right. Hooker makes a totally tunable two into one that makes great power as well, but I am still a total ThunderHeader fan when it comes to two into one pipes. Incredible sound AND fantastic performance. My sled: 87 FXLR, boyce Pro Street engine offset kit and wide swingarm, currently running a 190 out back, 10,000 pound Tsubaki racing chain cause I ain't no poseur with a fat tire and a skinny belt. Still only a 30-over 80-incher, but Tilley heads shaved .070, Manley Black Diamond valves, Keith Black 10,5:1's up top. Super E with a Thunderjet, Crane Hi-4 race ignition, Bub Bad Dogs, Andrews first and third gears, Barnett Brute Force clutch with steel hub, M6 tensioner. I ain't sucking. Very, very low; quite long with a 38 degree rake and a 2001 springer front end; very fast. Chuck

yawn......Yep, that's an old pic of Lew.

Where did his G3 go? The one with fifteen logos on it? Chuck

I am there; any outside slot, any size jump. Chuck

What, exactly, was the purpose of this exercise?

I can't believe that anyone would consider cutting away just because their pilot chute would not collapse. If the drag created by your PC is enough to collapse your canopy, then I would say you have well exceeded your limit of advance when it comes to basic parachute safety. Seriously. I jump very small mains as compared to the general skydiving population; both are sub-100, but I am positive that I could easily land either of them with an inflated PC on a straight-in approach. I know that your 55 would probably be more affected by an inflated PC, but then I wouldn't be jumping that main for anything other than just a one-time "I did it" novelty. If it's truly that big of a concern, then I think I would probably jump a removable system or just a disposable system. Derek jumps a heavily loaded VX, so I want to hear what he thinks as well. Chuck

We have a lot of guys here at Raeford with Painball equipment and when it's shitty outside, they all go into the woods behind the main hangar and fight. Hadn't thought about taking them up on a jump. I can tell you that I won't be doing any of that, not with my gear. Chuck

I did not see where I answered this, ever, so here's my list: Alabama: Moton Field, Tuskeegee (Skydive Opelika) Buddy's grass strip Elmore Field, Wetumpka Pell City Birmingham (Legion Field) Fort Rucker Georgia: Thomaston Cedartown LaGrange for a DC-3 boogie (Sugar Alpha) Germany: 3rd AD SPC in Hanau the german DZ on the other side of town in Hanau North Carolina: Raeford GBSPC on dropzones all over Fort Bragg Carolina Sky Sports The "old" Air Ranch The "older" Air Ranch South Carolina: Barnwell Chester Orange Lugoff, back when Burke ran it Florida: The "original" Z-hills, later "Phoenix" Skydive City Deland NAS Boca Chica Skydive Palm Beach Panama City Beach Clearwater Starke New Jersey: Cross Keys New York: The Ranch Navy Pier, NYC Washington DC: FedEx field California: Perris Elsinore Texas: ElPaso (Biggs army airfield) Sam Houston Park, downtown Houston Honduras: LaVenta Comiagaua Peru: Mazamari The Dominican Republic: San Isidro Guatemala: Puerto San Jose Poptun Tikal (landed a 3-stack in front of the main pyramid) Puerto Rico: Roosevelt Roads Spain: Rota Illinois: Quincy Kentucky: Fort Campbell Mississippi: Tupelo I think that's close to complete

How you doin?

That is correct. I got so drunk I could not put words together, much less complete sentences. Still, no double-vision or anything, so it's all goody in the hoodie. Chuck

0:5:0 Weather was positively shitty on Saturday, but OK today. I spent the majority of the day teaching an AFF FJC, thus the low numbers.

I know plenty of "grown" women who sport around on their Harleys with strapping young lads. "Sugar Mama". Once again, I don't see any foul there either. Chuck

Mark, I just about spit up on the screen! That's EXACTLY what most people think. For the record, my girlfriend is much younger than me, but what the fuck difference does that make? She's legal and I am not "over the hill" by any means. While she was in fact still technically a student, she was a student at my school; no foul. Chuck

Ah, a new post by Bob Boyle with an avatar! FYI: we just signed Bob off of Cat E AFF and onto self supervision. Nice job. Chuck

I got so incredibly drunk that I could not speak. Pure, unintelligible gibberish. It was at that time that I decided I needed to head back to the RV. It was a great night. The weather hosed us on Saturday; only one Otter up before the monsoon, but today was awesome. Chuck

In the meantime, it would be wise for a person looking for "real" instruction to just post his location here and have people answer up. Chuck, BM-I Raeford, NC

Well, it's all apples and oranges when it comes to comparison. Some people want twitchy, fast turning canopies and some want smooth, hard diving, swooping machines. In the end it comes down to personal preference. I can't say that I have ever jumped a crossbraced canopy that turned as quickly as my old Stilletto, but then again that's not what I am after nowadays. I want to open, make it back to the DZ after being next to last out on an AFF jump, then swoop the living dog shiti out of the course. My Velocity does that very, very well. In a wingsuit jump, I have no problem, ever, making it back to the DZ, so my Sabre2 does fine. It's just an added bonus that I can swoop the dog shit out of it due to it's small size and incredible range. Once again: the right tool for the job. See you all in Rantoul, Chuckie