SkymonkeyONE

F-111 lends itself to better "sinking." Jumping Sabres and the like, or even more performance-oriented mains, into tight areas is not the hot ticket. Those mains, while certainly capable in some demos, will put you and, more importantly, the spectators in danger due to their higher glide ratio when you have close "crowd lines". I have been into many a stadium (and I mean real, pro-type, bowl stadiums), but have never done so under a main smaller than 200 square feet. What impresses crowds most is the ability for an entire team to get into an area that tight, then land ON TARGET without injury or falling down. Having your teammates ass-surf into the end zone because they could not maintain stack discipline looks very unprofessional. Still, there is certainly a place for swoop demos (like at airshows and on the beach; places where you can set up a proper "runway"). Myself? I have had a PRO ticket nearly since there was such a thing. I got my original ticket on a Laser 7 250 and have since completed all the jumps on StarTracs, Vector tandem rigs and as small as a 75. Once you have the basic skill set, the accuracy portion is not a big deal. It's the additional stuff (flags, smoke, odd landing areas with tight glide clearance) that will make you nuts. Chuck

That would make a better avatar than the one with the pin in your lip.

Matt, I have us some fence posts to dig in so that the GK's (who return today) don't park all on our plantation property. Let's hook it up!

I refuse to jinx myself and the others by even thinking of such a thing. If it happens, it happens, but the weather is such a factor. Also, you never know who will NOT show, so I am not holding my breath. Still, I am sure we will have a blast one way or another. Later Bro, Chuckie

There is good video of fire swooping at Tahoe. I would of course have to use my "old" canopy for that. Chuck

WOW! Dove lives!

Trivia: Does anyone else here know that McDonalds is the largest contributer to the NAACP? In their favor, cook and wait staff notwithstanding, there is just no other fast food joint with a better breakfast. I am all about The Hotcake Special. Other than that, I can't stand Mickie D's. On another fast food note: Hardees has become my junk food joint of choice in Raeford. They have a roast beef sandwich nearly as good as Arbys, plus now that they sell chicken you can get mashed potatos and gravy exactly as good as the best in the world, KFC. That being said, I always substitute mashed potatos and gravy for the lame-ass fries they have; yummy. Chuck

Rob, did you just say that you had 14 Strong reserve rides? I have to tell you that this makes me cringe. Whether it be line-overs from idiot packers not following the manufacturers explicit (no pro packing) instructions or structural failure (again, why are you continuing to use this gear?), I think I would have figured out how to avoid reserve rides by now. I am certainly not digging on you, as you are still alive, but all I can do is shake my head. Even without that being said, like Derek, I have no desire whatsoever to get a Strong type-rating. I have three of them here at the school I run and I hate to task anyone to jump them. While they are perfectly maintained, they are sloppy looking, the mains fly like crap and have heavy toggle pressure, and the deployment bags are scary. Thanks, I will keep to our Sigmas, and so long as we are not backed up too much, I won't ask any of my other TM's to jump them. Just my opinion. Back when the only other option was a head-down profile in an old Vector, the Strong made sense because of it's head-high attitude; it just made for better video and stills. None of that applies now with the Sigma; it's plenty easy to video and flies very flat. Anyone want to buy some nice Strongs? Chuck

Chris, the answer for ankle protection in your MX pants is to sew elastic to the bottoms, just like on a double-zipper jumpsuit. Pull your pants on, then pull whatever shoes you are going to wear over the top so that you don't tear up your elastic. As to shoes, wrestling shoes are fantastic, as are drag racing shoes is you want light weight. If you are a "runner", then make sure you have something with an arch. Personally, I generally compete in a pair of navy coral dive booties. They cover the ankles, but are extremely lightweight. The proper protection of legs and ankles is important when the course you are jumping ends in less-than-desirable surfaces (perris, ASC, etc). That will not be a problem in Panama City, as the courses will be run on the beach. For those of you not in the know, there is no finer, whiter sand in the world as there is on that beach. It is like confection sugar. Truthfully, I doubt I will even wear shoes in this meet; certainly not in the boogie/festival jumps. I may compete in my MX pants, but only because all of my sponsor logos are sewn on them. Other than that, I will most certainly be jumping in my Tony Suit swoop shorts (long below-the-knee shorts like Team Extreme wears, only more stylish in my opinion). Chuck

Regardless of what my canopy thinks, I do not jump my smallest mains in high winds or ANY turbulence. When conditions are not good for exploiting those canopies, I change to a safer canopy or just don't jump at all. In 22 years of skydiving I have seen many, many examples of people making the wrong decision when it comes to jumping in less-than-favorable conditions. A decade ago I would not have sweated it at all, as we were all jumping larger "square" canopies, but I have plenty of "proficiency" jumps in high winds and now know better than to risk it just for the sake of jump numbers. Chuck

Actually, to me it looks like he piled in because he was fixated on making the entrance gate even though he was technically WAY too steep to get it around the corner had he done so. In the end, his dig was not sufficient, resulted in a high-speed stall, and he pounded. A perfect video example of the same "too-steep-but-MUST-make-the-entrance-gate," all or nothing, rear riser stall goes to Andy Farrington at the 2002 Fantasy of Flight. He hit so hard after his stall that his shoe flew off and nearly hit the video guy! Lucky for both Andy's, they walked away. Anyway, Andy Anderson reads these forums, so maybe he will give his interpretation of that incident. Chuck

Getting an AFF ticket with 360 jumps is phenomenal; you ought to be proud.

In our experience, people don't pay the skyride people a penny more than they would pay here at our dropzone. The customer pays skyride, then they show up here to make their jump. Once the jump is complete, we have them sign their faxed reservation as confirmation of their jump. We then fax the signed copy back to skyride for US to get paid. WE (the dropzone) make slightly less per tandem doing it this way, but that's OK because it brings us business we would not ordinarily get. Once again: there is no price increase (at least using our dropzone) over what you would pay if you just walked in off the street. The dropzone gets paid slightly less, but we make up for it in the additional traffic. I hope that explains it. At any rate, it's working great for us. Chuck Blue D-12501 Raeford Parachute Center School

That chick is a pig anyway...

Weren't you there, Lisa?

done

They actually have two F-27 Friendships (for the demo teams), but are looking to replace them. Chuck

Actually, if you are following the ISP then you are going to get the exact same amount of canopy time. You are a STUDENT until you get that A license, no matter what your dropzone is telling you. True, you may be cleared to "self jumpmaster" sooner as an AFF-based student, but each and every student must complete each and every block on the new A-license proficiency card in order to get off STUDENT status. That being said, the SL-based students have the possibility of checking off all the canopy blocks while in the "under supervision" catagory, while the AFF student does not. Every skydive, whether it be SL, tandem-progression, or AFF counts towards that 20 jump total, so there truly is no real winner in the AFF versus SL debate nowadays. Period. By the way, we teach AFF-based ISP here at Raeford Parachute Center, but have three other groups of people who train students on our dropzone by various other methods. So long as they all complete the new A-card without pencil-whipping, then they are fine. The card mandates at least a semblance to ISP in order to complete it. Chuck Blue D-12501 AFF/SL/TM/BM-I, S&TA, PRO RPC School, NC

You paid a LOT of money for your practices. Lucky for you, you didn't learn any bad habits and passed the course. I have, unfortunately, seen plenty of people waste their money by making practice jumps with former AFF evaluaters (not on the "current" list) who have been doing AFF forever, but not with "approved" doctrine. While they could stay relative and deal with the maneuvers, their "bottom end" technique was flawed and they failed the course because they blew off the pre-course and assumed they had it dicked. Unfortunately for them, the course director briefed a different dive flow than they had practiced (over and over) and both people "took the short course," which is to say they failed. They were PISSED to say the least, but attention to detail is what gets you through the course. USPA doesn't care how you do it on your dropzone; they are going to test you to course standards. Bottom line here is that if you are going to have to spend money on train-up jumps, make damn sure it is with an AFF designated evaluater who is current and is up on how the course is currently being run. Chuck AFF-I (among other things)

Also, as to "shutting it down," I can tell you that you had plenty more distance left on your rears before you needed to transition. You were zooming past Brandon. Also, I can tell by the speed at which you were running at the end that you didn't complete your flare. You can get away with that easily if you intend to slide, but if you are going to walk/run/try to avoid tripping on your face, then you need to flare completely. The video didn't show it, but I could definitely tell. Anyway, like I said earlier, it was a clean rear riser entry so you should be happy. Resist the urge to transfer so soon and you will go MUCH farther. Chuck

I like the video, but your "540" is actually more than a 720 with a 90-left correction at the end. It's the opposite correction that killed your distance and speed, but your rear-risering was clean. Can't really say that your accuracy was off, because you may have missed Brandon by a foot and I am sure that the point of the swoop was to get the video. You came out of your turn plenty high as was evidenced by your lack of "dig" and your ability to get to your rears cleanly, but in the end this was a perfect example of why we on tour don't throw turns more than 270 (with few exceptions). The dramatic spiralling descent was for naught because you lost the great majority of your speed by coming out of that spiral off-heading and had to induce a major correction to get back on target. While cool to watch when perfectly executed, it is far less often "the thrill of victory", but more likely "the agony of defeat" in competition. Andy Anderson and Mikeal Stevens throw turns like this on tour. Chuck

OK kids, here's the poop: Due to a high number of recent requests the PST has chosen to schedule an official qualifier on April 24-25, 2003 at Skydive Sebastian in Sebastian, Florida. The PST will provide the courses, chief judge & staff controller for anyone who meets the tour’s basic requirements and would like to qualify and/or compete in the upcoming Panama City events. This scheduled qualifier has no skills camp or coaching available with it and will cost $99 per candidate. This taken right from the website. What this means is that those of you (Ramon, etc..) that want to compete are going to have to get yourself over to Sebastian the week prior to the meet and qualify. Two of my guys here at Raeford are making the trip, so you will not be alone. Chuck

I am going to have to disagree totally here. Our dropzone is one that participates in the program and it has brought me (the RPC manager) not less than seven customers who were all satisfied (to say the least) with the service they received here at Raeford. While it's true that the service might have you driving past closer dropzones to get to one of their participating centers, that is not the fault of the service. It's the fault of the potential customer for not looking at all the other available services which might lead you to a closer dropzone. Hell, even looking at a Parachutist would have you driving past other (non- USPA) dropzones, so where do you draw the line? At any rate, our dropzone has benefitted from participation in the program. Another point is that the price people pay (to my knowledge) is no different than they would have paid me if they had just shown up anyway. Feel free to PM me for more on this subject. Chuck Blue D-12501 Raeford Parachute Center School

Yep, that's Sean Sweeny ("sweeny" on here) jumping spongebob. I think he jumped him about six times that day; it was funny. Matt ("mattm" here) jumped a stuffed monkey all day. Chuck

Like Dave said. Radio stations are free enterprise and as such can play what they want (or what their parent company wants them to play). If they want to play "sit of my face, Stevie Nicks" by The Rotters over and over, all day long, then that's what they will do. Chuck