SkymonkeyONE

Check your PM's, April. Bottom line here is that before anyone can compete in a PPPB pro event, they either have to compete in a PPPB Intermediate competition and do well, or "test out" during one of the training camps before a Pro event. There are not many people afforded that opportunity and you may also not compete in an intermediate event one day and compete in the pro event the next day. They make you wait till the next meet. Still, it's a good working system for people with no blade experience. Intermediate courses have higher entrance gates (two feet higher) and the runs are about 20 feet shorter and do not carve. The only event they generally run is the "speed" event for intermediates, but I hear that they will also do distance at the PPPB intermediate comp this spring in Perris. Running airblades is absolutely nothing like swooping the beer line at your local DZ, so many a good swooper sucks very badly in this form of competition. Anyone interested in competing at any level on the PPPB circuit should go to either of the websites that cover it: http://www.para-performance.com, or http://www.airblades.com. April, give me a holler. Chuck My webpage HERE

I have seen the little blocks low on the risers; Jim Slaton uses them, as do some of his teammates. I use velcro slider keepers; both on all of my jumpsuits and ones that you can take on and off your top reserve flap for when you are jumping without a suit. I am pretty sure I gave Bryan Harrel at Elsinore the one he has; I make them for tons of people around here. It's only a five minute, one beer job. My webpage HERE

I wear sunglasses exclusively; never goggles unless I am completely helmetless. I normally use standard croakies to keep them from falling around in the plane, but besides that, they stay perfectly snug under either my Bonehead Mindwarp or my frap hat. I used croakies on my sunglasses when I jumped helmetless for a while, but lost a couple of pairs over the years, so I just generally wear goggles on those instances now. My webpage HERE

The problem comes when you put such a small canopy in there that there is no way to properly tension the closing pin. If it is just barely in there, then you will have a greatly increased posibility of premature openings. Once the closing loop is as tight as it will go, if your flaps are loose they will catch air in a sit, stand or any inverted position. Even on a so-called "freefly friendly" rig, if your main is swimming around in there, you are just asking for it. Chuck My webpage HERE

Canopies are sold new on links. Canopies should be sold used on links. As for the supposed hour long, $100 pain in the ass it is to totally hook up a main; that is a bunch of crap. I WISH someone would show up and offer me a hundered bucks to do that. I just completely reassembled my competition 75, without links, onto slinks and new risers the other day. Took me 15 minutes flat. My webpage HERE

As previously discussed by several people in this thread already, a smooth release will help you to maintain that speed you worked so hard to build up with the "double front" you just did. A canopy has it's own natural recover arc. That is the distance, and length of time, it takes for your canopy to recover from a turn or "other" speed inducing maneuver such as "double fronts", a one-riser dive, or a "stall surge" like some tandem masters use nowadays. You figure this out at altitude by making a couple of hop and pops from around five grand or more. It is up there in the clean air that you first try any new landing maneuver. At altitude, pick up a heading on the ground then throw the move. Hold it as long as you think you would need to on your final approach. How do you know what altitude to start your move? Simple; check your altimeter at altitude, throw your speed-building move, then see how long it takes for your canopy to "come around the corner" on it's own, both time-wise and altitude-wise. Do the math, then on your actual approach, throw your move at around that difference in altitude above the ground. That should allow your canopy the opportunity to do the work for you. It has been stated here that when doing double-fronts, one should hold them down until you are either scared or at around five feet AGL. The "scared" part is actually true, at least in my experience. The actual safe altitude varies wildly according to the natural recovery arc of your main. A mildly loaded Sabre 2 is going to come around the corner quite quickly on it's own; a VX loaded at 2.8 is going to aim straight at the ground and take a long time to come around, thus one would release the risers smoothly at a much higher height. Also, as previously stated, one should always keep his or her hands in the toggles at all times. If your canopy bucks in a riser dive, then your brakes are set far too tight. A bucking canopy will not do a very good job of cleanly building speed. Likewise, a snapping release of those front risers will only shorten your swoop, as your canopy will be induced into an "artificial shortening" of the recover arc, which will generally mean that you will pendulum out from under your main, be laid back in the saddle, the the canopy will fly back over your head and not do a good job of stopping at the end of your surf. As for the proper transfer from risers to toggles upon riser release at the beginning of your swoop: I generally only have to "tap" my toggles, to get fully around the corner and on plane. If you have to "dig", then your surf will be similarly shortened as if you "popped" off your risers (artificially induced shorter recover arc). The main mistakes novice swoopers make is that they release their risers too soon; they hit their brakes anyway, thus planing themselves out three feet above the ground; and they continue to apply brakes even as their canopy would hapilly fly along without the parasitic drag they are inducing. That being said, most will grab double fronts after a too-high turn to final, let up too soon, let up in a "popping" motion, flare too hard to get around the corner, swoop too high off the ground, then subsequently bowtie their mains as they try to shut it down from three feet up. All of those things should be addressed in your search for that smooth swoop landing. Of key importance to me is the position my "landing gear" is in during my swoop. 99% of the swooping pictures you will ever see of me will have both feet under me and off to one side at the start of the swoop. This is so that if I catch some dead air, a contrail, etc, I will just do a modified PLF and roll out of it on one side. Once I am "around the corner", I put one foot out front, and have the other, toe down and under me, until I slow to under 20 mph ground speed. From there, I put the rear foot back under me, in trail but offset to the side a tad, like on a slalom ski. I skid every landing to a stop in that configuration. I NEVER run out landings, and might have to take three steps on a sketchy landing. I have been swooping since there way before the term was coined for parachute landing purposes. I, and my contemporaries made all the mistakes for you younger guys so you wouldn't fuck yourselves up as many of us did "back in the day". Those willing to set aside their egos and approach the smooth swoopers will be far better off than those who just "must" make the same mistakes over and over. I used to do some very nutty stuff by todays standard and lost plenty of skin trying to be cool. One key thing I would like to really have you avoid is doing double fronts and then attempting to drag both toes under you with your body squared straight to the front. Botch your turn or riser release in that mode and you will most easily tear your body up. Problems with that are: a- flaring late and piling straight in on your knees, thus inviting the old double-femur. Flare kind of late and only go down to your shins and bust up your knees and lose skin on your toes (if you are jumping in Tevas or barefoot). None of these is the hot ticket, so think ahead and stay with your legs cocked sideways as I suggested. Hope that helps someone. Feel free to PM me with any more specific questions, or just ask again in open forum. Chuck Blue D-12501 My webpage HERE

Yall have failed to recommend The Ranch. Their is NOTHING like that place as far as good vibes and cool people go. Planes run wide open from 0730 till dark every day I have ever been there. Also, there is more shit to get into than you can shake a stick at! College town right up the road with tons of bars; rock climbing; and last but not least: the craziest campground on the planet. My webpage HERE

Yes, April, I will be at Havasu as well as Perris for the end of year meet. The only meet I will miss will be the blade raid in Utah, as only one of my teammates got his name in before they let in "the good old boys". The first meet there is an intermediate-only meet for people who need to qualify for Pro competition. Your guy will have to do that first. Also, I was just fucking with Pammi. My webpage HERE

Merrick, what the hell was that woman thinking?! I say put the huck-a-buck on her ass! My webpage HERE

Since you brought it up, YES, you owe beer. A smart monkey just wouldn't bring it up. My webpage HERE

Uh....NO!.. Think National Geographic boobies and see if that makes you horny. My webpage HERE

HOLY SHIT! "remember to breathe and not piss yourself" My webpage HERE

Yeah, you can still get parapack. All of the rigs used by the Icarus team (team extreme) are parapack; both their old yellow Infinities and their new red Javs. I personally like it, but haven't owned a container made out of it in a very long time. Chuck My webpage HERE

Yes, the D-bag stays with the container, as do the risers in most cases. My webpage HERE

We did this thread about a year ago. Anyway, I have "HOOK IT!" laying around somewhere. It used to be on my Vette before the "drunken redneck incident". Chuck My webpage HERE

maybe he slipped and fell in himself? My webpage HERE

Right ON, Michele, Welcome home. Chuck My webpage HERE

Kreg, it's all good, brother. Don't sweat the small shit; find you a sugar mama to pay the bills! Chuck My webpage HERE

You mean Pammi who never once stopped and said "hello" at Quincy, even though she was camped 100 feet behind my RV? Chuck My webpage HERE

Clay, do NOT put skydive atlanta business cards in anyone's pocket in Auburn, AL. My dad would murder you if he read that. Chuck My webpage HERE

QWITYERBITCHIN, boy! Suck it up and drive on in true viking tradition. Chuck "blown zoo on many a teammate after pulling all-night drunks" My webpage HERE

I sense that nig-noggery might be in effect here. My webpage HERE

That is exactly what it's all about. Chuck My webpage HERE

2:6:0 The weather sucked all weekend, but I had Friday off so I am counting the jumps I made that day. My webpage HERE

Stacy, some people just NEED exiling from RV's. I will have my RV way out away from the others this year; probably up on the hill. My webpage HERE