SkymonkeyONE

Well, Jim, one of my dad's best friends, was the first person I know who started making kill-line PC's. He was also the first person I know to install soft-links on risers. He has been the southern conferece director of USPA and has been a master rigger most of his life. The stuff he makes and sells is absolutely first rate. Want to know specifics? Just call and talk to him, but be forewarned that he can talk four hours at a time when he is excited about something technical. What a great dude, and you would not believe the lake house he has up near Talledega, Alabama. His son, Dave (aka "Sky Dave") is a very well known jumper in the southern USA. Who at Quincy in years past can forget the big blue bus? Chuck

-Dave Davenport: given the task of taking me away and teaching me to skydive when I was a 17 year old kid. Not permitted to bring me back till I was safe. An action guy in every sense of the word; canopy designer and manufacturer for some time; and currently designing body armor, etc, for Eagle Industries. -My dad, Buddy Blue, D-597. 66 years old and still skydiving his ass off. Hell, he still does tandems when no other TM's are around! Over 9,000 skydives and a many time conference style and accuracy champion in the 60's and early 70's. -Rixter Powell, PD test pilot and pro vidiot. THE original swoop lord......PERIOD. Rick rarely competes anymore, but he still completly rules. Rick had the only zero-p Excallibur that was ever made (solid pink) and was the first person to regularly throw one-riser dives to final when everyone else was toggle whipping. Nuff said. Chuck

Please do a search and find the "what is your name and what do you do" thread. We did a HUGE thread about a year ago which addresses this same topic. OK, I did it for you. Click on this link: http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=27846 Chuck

I would chop any of my sport rigs that had this happen, but I have landed a demo rig this way and my tactical rig also(rigger packed no less). I too had a friend get fucked up that way under a pretty heavily loaded main, so I would never consider it under either of my tiny sport mains.

Mark you calendars kids, my demo team will be doing a demo into downtown Houston (hookin the bruthas up!) on 11 November during the Veterans day parade. That being said, myself, Johnny Mulford, and a host of other miscreants will be arriving in town via commercial air on 10 November. We will be doing the demo out of a C-130 from somewhere. Needless to say, I want to hook up with all my Texas brothers and sisters both nights I am there. I will call Eric Butts and give him the warning order, but just let it be known that nig-noggery will be in full effect during my stay. More to follow. Chuck

What?? The "i" and the "u" are transposed?

Are you talking about the first jump he put on that Onyx 95?

Outstanding. The chief chef at my dad's DZ down in Alabama goes about 300 pounds and jumps his ass off. Check out the "staff" and "photos" sections of http://www.skydiveopelika.com and see for yourself. Chuck

Rob, Most everything you can buy nowadays is perfectly suitable to any kind of skydiving you might want to get into. Still, some have problems in the smaller sizes and some have problems in the larger sizes. I have two tiny little javs (Odyssey RS and 1998 XRS)that are bulletproof, but the larger ones we use at the school have main flaps that won't stay shut. You will find that problem in other rigs also, commonly on the tuck flaps. For the money, Infinities and Wings containers cannot be beat. Both are outstanding rigs in the size you need and can be had at least $500 less than other more "popular" rigs like Odysseys and Mirages. I also really like Microns, so in the end it all comes down to what feels best on your back. Try on every rig you can get your hands on and see which one fits best, then buy. Be advised that there are plenty of gear vendors out there and they all want your business. Some get better deals on certain equipment than others, so shop around before you plunk down your hard-earned cash. Chuckie

I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy.

Is that right? BWAHAHAHAHA! Not sure that applies all the time, does it, Pammi? Shut yo mouf!

What would you do if………………… A steering line broke at 200 ft? -rear riser the landing. No problem. Your altimeter was hit and knocked off on exit? -watch the other jumpers and pull on them. Solo? Wait for my Dytter to sound. I rarely look at an alti anymore anyway except when doing AFF. You lose sight of the formation in a cloud and you are at break off altitude? -Turn and track and the predesignated altitude, pull on time. You experience a hard opening, dislocating a shoulder, rendering one arm useless? -Steer and flare with one hand. Been there, done that. After opening you look up and your main was packed w/ a step-through? -Go ahead and land it. Done it before. In free-fall, your shirt flys up, covering your cut away and reserve handles? -Deploy my main as usual, then watch the t-shirt fall back down when you slow down. Your helmet comes un-latched in free-fall? -Reach up and tighten it before it flies off, barely missing a beat. Velcro on my factory diver comes loose fairly often in the wind tunnel after too much time in the cone. Your full face helmet visor fogs up in free-fall, or under canopy? -My factory diver, which I rarely wear, is "non flip". If it fogs, I rip the lens off, or just pull the helmet up a bit. You look across a formation and notice that someone’s main pin has come out of the closing loop? -Give him the "pull" signal, or fly over and pull him out. After all of the floaters have climbed out (Twin Otter/King Air jump ship), you are sitting up near the pilot, and the pilot yells for an abort/go-around for traffic? -Holler "abort" and start pulling guys back in. Happens fairly frequently on "one pass" dropzones. In free-fall w/ other jumpers you look down and see an open canopy directly underneath the group/formation? In light and variable winds, you watch four other jumpers land before you in four different directions? -Clear my airspace and swoop the HP corridor in the direction I called before I got on the plane, regardless of wind direction. You accidentally land in water, too deep to reach the bottom, 200 feet from the nearest shore? -shuck my gear and my shoes, make a mental note of my position using shore references, then start dragging it to the shore by the bridle attachment point using the UDT recovery stroke. As a combat dive supervisor, I doubt I will have a problem in this area. You land in a tree, suspended 20 feet from the ground? -Wait for qualified help to come help me down so I don't ruin my gear or get hurt trying to get down myself. Your reserve pilot chute launches just after your main opens? -if it went straight up to the rear, and not through the front of the main, then I would try my best to maybe land it. If it were not flying good and the reserve was in the back, then I would chop it. If my reserve made it through to the front and was flying OK, then I would land it. If that started getting bad, I would cut the main away with my hook knife, so as not to collapse my reserve.

Justin, rear-risering for the sake of saving your life is something that everyone ought to know, under most conditions anyway. An example of someone who probably ought not try to land this way on the first try is that guy jumping a sub-100 square foot main who breaks a control line on opening. Personally, if that happens, even I might consider chopping. Still, larger canopies are no problem to land in rear risers. The key, whether for swooping or survival, is to grab both rears in the same manner and in the same place. Larger canopies can have a fairly long (comparatively) rear riser stroke, and as such are less prone to stalling. The smaller the canopy, the more prone to stalling on rears they become and, also, the more twitchy they become. For "survival" under smaller mains (like if you broke a control line at 500 feet; too low to chop), I recommend grabbing both rear risers at about head level, palms facing in, with the meat of the webbing under all four fingers. (still in survival mode here). make easy turns onto final, then let it fly straight in. As you approach flaring altitude, rotate your thumbs back towards the rear, levering the rears down only far enough to get you on plane, close enough to the ground to put your feet down and slide. Don't even consider flaring a small main to a full stop landing; just be ready to slide it out on your ass, feet in front of you. Flaring a canopy to a full stop with rear risers is a very tricky proposition, often resulting in bowtieing and stalling the main at too high an altitude. It is not hard to fully stop under a lightly loaded main, though, and given a bit of practice up top, is not that daunting a task. I actually landed a Monarch 135 on rear risers BACKWARDS (toggles were not looped on properly and my friend had hooked it up backwards on purpose). Dumb, yes, but I wasn't about to chop a perfectly good main; I had still yet to have a reserve ride. Chuck

Mark, I am stuck in North Carolina until at least January dealing with some personal business. No, I won't be at Perris for that or the wingsuit boogie; both of which were important to me this year.

Marc, seeing as how you flew it out, there was obviously no foul. The end result of that phenomenon generally varies according to how much ground airspeed you have left. If you were about to run out of steam, then it's likely the parachute would have just dived you into the ground had you kept your hands up. In slow airspeed scenarios where I encounter a gust that picks me back up, I will generally sort of do a deep, "milking" flare to settle straight down. The point being, if I am going to be dropped from height of ten feet, I would rather not have any forward velocity to compound my problem. Carry forward speed, but have no lift, from that height and you are going to generally ball it up and get evidence on your container (or injure yourself). Like I said, I would just as soon saw my lines and sink it straight down, then prepare for a PLF if neccessary. When the same "gust lift" thing happens near the beginning of a surf, I will fly through it and land as normal, like you did in this instance. Chuck

I would say that was a lesson learned. I don't know anyone who hasn't balled it up trying to swoop, so don't feel bad. In order to prevent the same thing in the future, simply try the same maneuver at altitude and check your alti for how much height you lose. Chuck

This will easily pan out if those who say they are coming actually show up. I have no doubt whatsoever that the record can and will be broken here. We are also doing an 8-way camp here that weekend (coaching by either Chris wagner, Trinko, Talbert, or a combination of all), so come on down and lets mix it up. Chuck

You are not truly in the mix until you stumble home at 7am and piss in your cat's water bowl. Hey, it was ten feet to the bathroom..... Needless to say, the old lady was NOT impressed.

We had an odd Sunday at Raeford. One Otter was down for a hot section, the other was contracted to the GK's for part of the day, so we ended up jumping the two cessnas early, then the CASA all afternoon. Majdi came over from the coast and seemed like he had a good time, though he did not have sense enough to ask if he could crash in the Raeford Hilton or anyone's RV (sort of like Pammi and Merrick the first couple of times!). I hooked him up with Stephen Lee and the rest of the Vertical Express guys on Sunday morning. Chuck

The SkyKat site is fine, as is the business and it's owners. I was having coctails with all of them yesterday evening. Chuck

Well, that would put me at 175 which is still almost 100 square feet smaller than my demo main and 200 square feet smaller than my tactical main. While a 175 is very large by my "HP" standards now, it used to be a racy size. I still test jump a lot of new mains that I set up for friends just getting their first equipment and have absolutely no problem surfing the dog piss out of something in the 175 range. Also, I did my first four stack under a 175. Chuck

Chimney Rock is not that close to anywhere. You are five hours from Raeford from there, maybe 20 minutes closer to Louisburg from there, and I am not sure how close to anywhere else. That being said, Chimney Rock, Lake Lure, Bat Cave and all the other sights are beautiful. I was married underneath the covered bridge at Lake Lure; right next to the Magarita Grill on the little road to the Bottomless Pools. It is beautiful in the fall when the leaves are changing. Chuck

2:5:0 Didn't jump Saturday because something came up.

You did make it sound as though he was an instructor, two of us thought so....... Hook Agreed. You made it sound like he was in the food chain. If he is just Joe Shit the Ragman from the DZ, then why are you sweating it at all? You either want to wrassle the dude or you don't. The only problems I have seen are instances where less-than-honorable tandem bitches or other instructors go hitting on their passengers or students. Want to wrassle an instructor? Wait till you have that A-license and have no real ties with him. Chuck A long-time instructor who doesn't hit on students; ever.

Yes, what YOU said, but don't forget a bit "T" tail so the back floaters don't have to worry about bashing their heads as they hop out and away.