SkymonkeyONE

Hey, it's all about dropzone RV life! I have very little cause to even go into town anymore other than to party with other people. Shit, I have a house in town that I might see three times a year to make sure my tennants haven't booked, but besides that I have no other cause to be there. I sure as hell don't want to move back all the way on the other side of town from the DZ! Chuck

Back in the late 80's, it was common to toggle whip and then later, riser snap. It was also stylish to swoop with both feet under you and drag both sets of toes. Problem was, if you didn't get around the corner you were going to pile both knees straight into the ground. I saw plenty of double femurs back then. The worse I ever did, though, was have to dig out of a low turn under my Excal on a video jump during a Carolina Council meet. I was wearing Tevas and, being stylish, had both feet under me. I lost most of the skin on tops of all of my toes. It hurt like a motherfucker for quite some time, seeing as how I had to wear army boots all week long.. I skipped off the ground (and water) a fair number of times since then, but it wasn't until last year that I ever broke a bone. The worst thing was breaking two fingers on my dominant right hand practicing for the PPPB Quincy swoop meet. I still jumped all week long with the fingers taped, but let me tell you, it sucked. A sane canopy progression and easing into the more advanced maneuvers will keep you out of the hurt locker. If nothing else, it sure will increase your chance of not biffing. Chuck

Well no snow here, but we did get a nice ice accumulation. The storm did most of it's damage well north of here, so we didn't even lose power, though about 30,000 in Fayetteville did for some time. Now, only a few hours later, only about 7,000 lack power. I wonder how Nathan fared out in the MonkeyBago? Chuck

Chicken shit! I, on the other hand, have nothing to hide from my fellow sophisticates! Chuck

Opelika, Alabama to Fort Worth, Texas to Dallas, Texas to Arlington, Texas to three different places in the Philadelphia, PA metro to Denver, Colorado to Bowie, Maryland to Opelika, Alabama to Coram, Long Island, New York to three different places around Colorado Springs, Colorado then back to Opelika, Alabama then off to Germany for two years and here to Fayetteville, North Carolina. I have been here in NC since 1984; much longer than any other place I have ever lived. Of course before I bought my first house here I lived in 12 different houses, trailers, or apartments as other people's roommate. Chuck

Raeford Frigid Air was a very competitive 4-way team until they disbanded a couple of years ago. I don't know of another all-female team that had an average as good as theirs. Chuck

Right 270's the great majority of the time toned down to a 180 if the corridor does not permit it, or 360 if I am high, yet traffic won't let me get where I need to be to do my 270. 3200 jumps with about 500 on a CC or H-mod 75 Cobalt at 2.34; a CC 65 at 2.6; or a Xaos 69.5 at about 2.4 something. Chuck

go to the website. The simple answer, though, is yes, we jump with ear muffs on our head in order to get a number, then regularly afterwards if we feel like it. It is a band of layed back, in it for the fun, skydivers who get together at boogies and party and jump together, exactly like the Rodriguez Brothers. As a matter of fact, the two bands are very similar and many, many people are members of both loose-knit organizations. Chuck

That's a good estimate. I don't mind that at all, seeing as how I never dump below three grand anyway except on demos. Chuck

It's has been easy for me to make $1000 a month just on weekend instructing during warm months. Any faster pace than that, though, and I was seriously compromising my fun jumping. Chuck

Actually, quite the opposite is true. Under the USPA ISP, you do all of these things at altitude during your student training so that you have a good idea of what your canopy is capable of, very early on in your jumping carreer. I am all about teaching these techniques to students, having them accomplish these tasks over and over at altitude, of course. Chuck

LouDiamond (Scott Campos) is a friend of mine. Yes, he looks like Lou Diamond Phillips. You skygals are gonna like him. Chuck

In the MonkeyBago.....

"You been heah FOH OWA!"

I love my muffs. I am gonna permanently attach them to my oldest frap hat. Chuck yes, I am a muff brother

Oddly, I ended up spending my life doing exactly what I envisioned as a child. Chuck

The german army parachute team used to do their matted lithographs of some of their more odd antics. One year they had a photo of an 8-way, all wearing roller skates. I have seen it done in person and on video and the only thing I would tell you is that you had sure as hell better be leaning forward in the harness. I witnessed two examples of people flaring and coming down leaning too far back, thus busting their ass completely on the asphalt, wearing only a pair of shorts. Chuck

Like Sebazz, I do it for a little of everything. I got my SL rating because I had enough jumps and my dad made me get it, thus taking some load off himself. The fact that being a Jumpmaster, then Instructor got me loads of free jumps was a great perk for a young soldier with no money. Well, back then we skydived for free anyway ($7.50 per month dues at the green beret parachute club), but dispatching a load of students was a sure way to get to the head of the manifest list and get on the first loads. I found that I really liked teaching, so I have always maintained all of my ratings, even when I wasn't really jumping hardly at all. Teaching keeps me "turned on," as does the act of making any type of live student jump. Later, I got myself a tandem rating (because my dad needed more meat haulers) and found that I really liked that aspect of the sport. A nice benefit to that was that I could actually start getting paid. I still do a lot of free tandems for the demo team I jump with, but the majority of them are as a paid employee of the dropzone; same for AFF. The bottom line is that I still love to teach, love the free jumps, like getting paid, but would (and still do) give my time freely. Chuck

Six hours of freefall, but there are those who pass the course with considerably less under "special" circumstances. There are plenty of courses in Arizona and here in NC where you will find such people. All have amazingly long hair for active duty soldiers. Chuck

As this clearly belongs in the canopy control forum, I will put it there so that others may find it later. I like Derek's idea; I will steal it and use it in future classes as I see fit!. Chuck

Probably the same reason you can't buy 24 inch wheels stock on a Cadillac Escalade; it's an aftermarket modification done created by a master rigger. To "put" the mod on at the factory, one would then have to pay royalties to the creator. The CC is different enough that it does not require the payment of such royalties. There are drawbacks to any modification. In the case of the H-mod, it makes your canopy quite snivelly. You can undo the snivel by switching to a smaller slider like Roq did, but I like my main snivelly. I can tell you this for certain: If your main is snapping you on opening, the H-mod will not only un-fuck that problem, but it will also make your canopy dive better and swoop longer. Chuck

I believe that probably 80% of the stuff that is attached is probably not work safe or borderline NWS. That being said, if I worked at a place where I knew I was going to get my ass in a sling for such stuff, I would just pass on opening anything there and wait till I got home. Chuck "this post is work safe"

Hey Lisa, we did buy our tickets 40 days ago! Hooty HOO! Chuck

My brand spanking new Excalibur (1989 I think) did NOT have high riser pressure nor a short control range. It flew like a bat out of hell. It did have a pretty quick recovery arc. The only other ones in North Carolina other than mine were the ones that Bill Legard, Mike Naye, and their other two teammates on "Candy Assed Mommas Boys" had. The only problems were it's large pack volume; it was tight in a pre-Sunpath J1 Javelin; and the fact that it wore out it's useful life pretty quickly. If you loaded it heavily (for the day), it was too small for you after about 400 jumps and you had to pass it off to a smaller friend. I sold that entire rig to my vidiot, Rixter Neely, who still has it in Mississippi. As previously stated, there was only ONE zero porosity Excallibur ever made. It was a solid neon pink 135 and Rixter Powell jumped it for a VERY long time. When we fellow Excal pilots saw that thing when The Deland Gang was here training for the 4-way event at that years world meet out of GK aircraft, we immediately called down to Florida and tried to order one. We were absolutely not interested in PD's new Sabre when we knew the Excal to be a superior parachute. We were all told that the canopy was just too hard to sew and that they had wasted a lot of fabric getting Rixter's main together. In the end, we relented and all ended up retiring our worn Excals and bought Sabres and Monarchs. Very sad. Chuck

This brings up a good point. I posted it a long time ago, but just in case you missed it, the first eliptical canopies to get "H-modded" were heatwaves and Alphas. Chuck