SkymonkeyONE

The ZP used in the Hornet and Heatwave canopies is made by Gelvenor Textiles and is called Nylasilk. It is zero-p, but is not slippery like the stuff that PD uses. Nylasilk is also what Triathalons and Atair canopies are made of. Chuck

Oh yeah, another possible cause that I forgot to mention in my first response: It is possible that your control lines on one side are twisted to the point that you are putting tension on that side (in other words, the brake line is shorter due to the twists). Make sure that you trace your control lines all the way down to the toggles and untwist them, starting up at the cascade. The other thing, which is quite obvious, is that you need to NOT pull down on your right toggle more than your left if your canopy is turning right on landing. If you are straight into the wind, then flare evenly. If you are slightly crosswind and being blown right, then flare with SLIGHTLY more LEFT toggle or just be prepared to do a PLF. The bottom line is this: fly your parachute all the way to the ground. Never just give up and let the wind blow you where it wants. One of our younger jumpers in the club, Larry Sherling, "let" the wind blow him into our covered packing structure at Raeford. He hit a 6x6 post at about 30 mph, broke 27 bones in 82 places and is damn lucky to be alive, much less walking. What happened is this: he caught himself a bit low to complete his full landing pattern, only making it to just past straight-crosswind. The winds were blowing about 12-14 knots. Once at about 40 feet up, he let up on his left toggle( he was in a nice,safe, flat turn to the left) and the wind turned him to the right and directly into the obstacle. He just gave up flying and let the "will of the wind" fly him into a nearly fatal accident. If he had just maintained a little more pressure on that left toggle he would have landed out in the packing area (but still quite close to the beer line). Now, about nine months later, he is walking OK (amazingly), but cannot move his left elbow with more than about 20 degrees range-of-motion. You can't pull a reserve ripcord like that, so until they figure out what to do next, he obviously can't jump. Sorry for the horror story, but THAT is what can happen when you are just a tad complacent. Luckilly, the new ISP calls for more stringent training for our students. Hopefully, you all have experienced jumpers around your dropzone who you can turn to (free of charge) who will school you up and answer all of your questions. Remember, "the only dumb question was the one you never asked". Chuck Blue D-12501

"Catching yourself" is my guess, not having watched your landings. If you catch yourself slightly crosswind on landing, the wind is going to push you off in that direction. If you flare, even evenly, then you might still be crabbing a bit. In that situation you might be tempted to reach out with the hand that is in the direction of your turn or crab. That is not the desired action; you should do the opposite. If you are crabbing RIGHT on landing, then correct with a slightly LEFT-biased flare to stop the slide to right. Do you follow me? Chuck

The equipment in question is everything you need to skydive: rig, helmet, altimeter, etc. It means you can turn your Cypres on. It means you don't put your goggles on upside down. Donning simply means "to put something on". All that criteria should, obviously, have been met in the FJC. Chuck

My wife likes her Flexon, but MOST women I know that have ever tried one on have said that a Racer NOS is the best fitting rig they have ever used. Kate Thacker at SkyKat (www.skykat.com) has one Racer and a new Odyssey and likes them both about the same. You might want to call her and talk about it, she is very cool. Chuck

You have a "square" canopy, so it is plenty safe. This, assuming you follow my guidance about ceasing the tomfoolery above 1,500 feet "just in case". It really is fun stuff; quite the wild ride. At your wingload, though, I wouldn't reccomend letting all the way up with the toggles quickly after a lengthy stall. Also, it is critical that you maintain the toggles at the same relative position; this will keep your main from spinning up. Chuck

Dave, welcome aboard. Perris, huh? I will be out there in early June competing in the Para Performance Pro Cup, so look me up during the meet. I am on the Atair team and jump a neon-orange Cobalt 75 with blue diamonds, wingtips and ribs. Chuck

"Back in the day", (mid to late 80's), we all used to do crazy crap under canopy. Most of us did some variety of CRW after we opened, but also, there was a lot of intentional collapsing and spinning going on. Watch the first couple of Wally Gubbins videos and you will see what I mean. Lengthy stalls are plenty safe under larger non-eliptical mains. If you keep your toggles buried long enough the main will collapse and the slider will go back up the lines. It is a violent, but quite fun, ride. If you let up quick, the canopy acted just like a regular opening. If you popped your toggles up your canopy would dive in front of you and your lines would go slack. Obviously, you cease such fooling around above 1,500 feet. Another thing we used to induce was a spin along the center axis of our mains. By this I mean flying along at full-flight and then burying a toggle as fast as possible. Instead of diving down, the canopy kind of spins like a top along the original flight path; pretty neat. You could get a 360 degree rotation and keep moving along. Sometimes that move would end in a line twist, but if you reached up to your front riser with your opposite hand, you could generally keep from spinning up. Do ANY of this stuff with a tiny eliptical and you are asking for trouble.

Donna (or TY, LOL!), I too get some of my most up-to-date info from the wreck. I also certainly do my fair share of posting there when there is a bonafide question being asked, or an intriguing debate going on. But- and this is a big but- I don't spend NEARLY the time I used to there. I get MUCH more satisfaction knowing that I can monitor the very-different forums here and help people out in a timely manner without having to wade through the incredible amount of nonsense on the wreck. Believe me, I am not thin-skinned. You will notice that when I post on there I don't hardly EVER get screwed with. This, because I don't use the forum as a "social club" and don't come across as a blithering idiot. Granted, it's pretty fun to follow the antics from afar, but I, as previously stated, don't like posting just for the sake of it. You know there is WAY too much of that going on over there. Here, I can stay on all day (because I don't really have that much else to do at work!) and skip back and forth between the forums. I generally spend most of my time in Gear and Rigging, and Safety and Training. Anyway, welcome to our little party. Hope you find it informative and just as entertaining as the wreck. Chuck Blue D-12501 PS: I am SURE Alan likes his ALF number just as much as you.

LOL! Well, I AM Scottish (3rd Generations US), but live in North Carolina! My family roots are in Inverness. Chuck

Agreed. The wreck-dot is pretty awful and I don't recommend it for anything but an occasional check nowadays. I used to keep it logged on through Deja back in their "good old days", but now, since you can't post straight from the new Google site I don't bother. When I feel I MUST respond to something on there, I do it through newsone.net which, for some reason, does not do a good job of updating the archive in a timely manner. It it a shame that that newsgroup is so full of mindless banter, as there are some people that monitor it who really do want serious answers to serious questions. A typical thread there might get one serious answer out of 20, which really pisses me off. But, then again, that is the sole purpose of what seems to be the majority of the "regulars." There is a sub-strata there which refer to themselves as "ALFs". ALF meaning Annoying Little Fuck. They award themselves numbers once they achieve a certain level of obnoxiousness. I for one am not impressed. Thank God I found this forum area. While there IS a small degree of bullshitting going on in the Skydiver Talk Back section, the gear& Rigging and Safety and Training sections are a safe place for you to ask your serious questions of me (and the other very experienced jumpers/Instructors and riggers). It is that fact that keeps me logged on all day at work, and has me checking at least once a night at home. There are actually quite a few of us who try to keep our finger on the pulse of both sites; Alan Binnebose, the moderator of the gear and rigging forum here is another regular poster on the wreck. Actually, Alan told me that they awarded him an ALF number for his tenacity in defending his stance on some pertinent issues which have popped up on that site. If any of you people new to the sport want to check it out, then I say go for it. You had better, though, be prepared to defend yourself against a bunch of morons that post just to see their names on the archive every two minutes. You can see what I mean in just one review of the last five pages of the archive. Go their to get a good laugh, then come back here to get some decent information and meet better-mannered posters. Chuck Blue D-12501

Raeford is $18 to 13,500

In response to: "Besides twirling around holding one toggle down for a while, what else can I do safely that is fun?" Your Instructor should be having you explore all the potential effects of controlling your parachute with different inputs. These tasks include steering with your front and rear risers, stalling your canopy, sashays (pulling back and forth on both control lines), etc. It is imperitive that you get good canopy control training and also that you fully understand the capabilities of each and every parachute you jump. The way I teach, the very first thing you do when your parachute opens is a controlability check. This includes looking then turning left 90 degrees, looking then turning right 90 degrees, then finding the stall point on your parachute. Once that is done, I instruct my students to locate the landing area, then try manipulating their canopies in different ways for that first 1000 feet (1/3rd) of their canopy ride. Make it fun for YOU! Make every jump a learning experience. After that first 1000 feet (so long as they stay inside the wind-cone), I have them resume setting up for the entrance to the landing pattern. Every Instructor is different, but I am sure you will get the guidance you want and need to make you a better pilot. Chuck Blue SL-I, TM-I Skydive Raeford

Yes, you can fly on your back, and no, you don't do a barrel roll to clear your burble on opening. You dump in a track while flying along straight so that your pilotchute pulls your d-bag clear of the burble. No, it doesn't snap your neck because you are only going (on average) about 60 mph vertically. Also: NO, you do not pull lower; you pull slightly higher than normal so that you can deal with any possible suit malfunctions. They told me to go in to pull at about 4k. I was in the saddle at about 3,500. Chuck

This is actually a rehash of an older post (maybe 10 pages back), but to reiterate: I jump with my wife, my dad, both my sisters, my brother-in-law, uncle, and cousin. Yes, it is great to jump with your family. It certainly makes you stand apart from the crowd! Anytime we are at home, we all jump together. Actually, at my dad's DZ there are several two-generation skydiving families. Chuck

I have just under 2,700 jumps and no, I didn't jump a classic first. If he would have had a new SkyFlyer that fit me, I would have jumped it right off the bat. Dan Preston, the president of Atair USA has around 1,600 jumps and jumped the SkyFlyer for his first flight without incident. The bottom line is that they are very easy to jump, you just have to be VERY confident in your abilities and the malfunction procedures for that new piece of equipment. If you have a canopy that is prone to off-heading openings, they will recommend borrowing one that doesn't have that problem. I jump a Cobalt 75; it doesn't spin. It's all covered in the BirdMan flight manual, but basically, you just do a sort of jumping-jack at opening altitude to pull. The farthest up my body I was able to reach while in the suit was my base three-ring. Reaching your cutaway and reserve handles are not a problem at all. Once under canopy you reach across and unzip your arms, then you can reach your toggles. You next unzip your legs and get out of the booties. After that, you just land; business as usual. If for some reason you DID have to get to your toggles or risers in a hurry, you just pull the wing-cutaway handles on the suit. You then have immediate access to everything. In all, it is a very rewarding experience. Terribly pleasant and very quiet during freefall. Chuck

Last time I cared to ask, they had around 80 men and women. My wife spent six years on the team as a demonstrator and assistant team leader. All the competion team and demonstration team slots are filled with enlisted personnel. The only officers on the team are the Commander, Operations Officer, XO, and some of the pilots. Yes, they do Tandems now. It is a fairly new program that they use (very successfully I might add) to get publicity for the Army's recruiting command. The recipients are mostly high-level VIPs and media personalities (Joan Lunden, Army Generals, etc.) They also use the section to give tandems to local area recruiters at airshows. The section used to use Vector II tandems, but are now switching to Sigmas I believe. Hopefully, our club (the Green Beret Parachute Activity) will get some of the leftovers! There are some very talented Tandem masters and video men on the Tandem team. Chuck

That is correct, that is CORRECT! Yep, I took my first flight at the Easter Boogie at CSS and had a BLAST! I jumped the Bird-Man GTI. A full minute into the freefall (when my internal clock was going off) I checked my altimeter to see that I was still at 9,500 feet. Unbelievable. A buddy of mine (my same size) bought a demo suit at Quincy last year. Now that I have done it, I will definitely be borrowing his suit on a regular basis until I get my own. "There goes my income tax return!"

In response to: "Jumping all day for free! Cooooooooooool. Boot Camp? Like that TV show? Do I get $500,000? Does the Army jump eliptical? Man, I could swoop right over that mine field" Well, jumping 10 times a day and packing for yourself (if you are on the S&A or RW team). S&A team guys have their accuracy rigs with foils, plus two Javelin Odysseys with Stilettos for Style and CISM. RW guys jump Jav Odysseys and Stilettos. Chuck

In response to "But then again no Marine would join the army even to skydive!!" You will be very surprised to find out that you are wrong on that one. SSG Mark Hogue, the guy in charge of the Golden Knights Tandem section (and up until then a U.S. Marine), enlisted into the Army to take over that section. Also, to the person that said that the Army wasn't looking for 32 year-olds: They would take you too. There have actually been a surprising number of civilian skydivers that have been recruited to the Army Parachute Team in the past decade. Also, you can attend Golden Knights tryouts as a member of the National Guard and Reserves. If you pass, you enlist full-time and go straight to the team. The current team leader of the Gold Demonstration Team, SFC Johnny Mulford, did exactly that. Chuck

First of all, like the first response says, my brake lines are VERY loose. I can pull both dive loops all the way down to my chest with my toggles in my hands and not deflect the tail at all. If you can't do that, then you are just asking for your main to buck or "porpoise" in your one-riser dive. My wife's Stiletto 120 is set up very tight and I absolutely hate it. Any front riser input at all makes it buck wildly. As for the other line-length mods I am referring to, some guys are lengthening their lines at about 1/2 inch per lineset from the inside out. This, to REALLY flatten out the canopy over your head. I have not done it, but have seen mains done this way and their owners swear by it. One guy, a Stiletto driver, said his openings were slightly harder, but more on-heading. That, and his surfs were MUCH longer as compared to stock trim. In another thread (concerning Slinks) I wrote about guys fine-tuning their front to rear trim by putting Slinks on one end and Rapides on the other (front or rear, obviously). Joe Trinko taught me that one. Hope that helps. Chuck

Those of us who take canopy performance very seriously all pull our sliders down as far as possible to get the very best out of our canopies. Aerodynamics are critical to those trying to get that extra five feet out of his or her surf. They also play a big part in allowing some of us to get away with jumping our tiny little canopies. Let me explain the progression: The first things a person will normally do to get a bit more performance out of his canopy are to get a kill-line pilot chute and a collapsible slider. Most mains sold today come stock with collapsible sliders and all container manufacturers offer kill-line pilot chutes as an option. These two things do wonders to your performance, plus having a slider flapping over your head is just plain annoying. As we say on our DZ, "Slida Flappida is a disease only you can cure." Next, we concern ourselves with allowing the wing to extend to it's flattest possible configuration. We do this by pulling our already-collapsed slider down below the french-links to the bottom of the risers, right at the 3-rings. There are two possible places to "stow" the slider at that point to ensure it doesn't go flying back up behind your head: hooked to the back of your jumpsuit or your reserve pin-protector flap; and under your chin. Personally, every jumpsuit I own has a 2" square piece of velcro with a loop sewn to the back of the neck. When I am jumping without a jumpsuit for any reason, pond swooping for example, I stow the slider under my chin. Next on my list is using "triple", or "toggle" risers. On these, your control lines are held out on a separate piece of webbing with a guide ring at the end. These allow the tail of your main to stay much flatter and allow for a more powerful flare. This, of course, does not work unless your slider is collapsed and pulled down to the 3-ring. Some very respected swoopers disagree and choose to use standard risers (just check out pictures from swoop meets), but many, many people prefer triples for their more precise directional input "feel." What you are doing, besides flattening the tail, is taking out the friction on your control lines where they would normally go out from your hands, then in to the guide rings, then back out and up to the tail. Most rig manufacturers offer triples, but they are very easy to make yourself. The last thing that we do, minus re-trimming our canopies, is to loosen our chest-straps all the way until our harnesses "v" out from our hip rings (as opposed to from the base of the 3-rings), up past our 3-rings and risers, all the way to our canopy. This allows the maximum possible "flattening" of the airfoil and provides the best lift and glide. The whole procedure takes me about 20 seconds and goes like this: open, clear airspace using rear risers, collapse and pull down slider, stow slider on jumpsuit, loosen chest strap, unstow brakes and haul ass! Chuck Blue D-12501

I believe both places have websites. Crestview has a Caravan, and Emerald Coast has an otter, though I believe they are closing down. Rumor is that they are going to lease out the Otter. If you get to Crestview, look up Pete Markow and his wife; they are a trip! Another option for you is Moss Point, MS. It isn't really TOO much farther down the road in the opposite direction. Chuck

As an SL and Tandem I, I see nervousness all the time. With tandem, I always stay upbeat and very positive about the experience. I encourage the fellow jumpers on the load to chat with the passenger and I make sure the passenger watches the others exit before us. Hooting and hollering at them breaks the ice. I have never had a tandem passenger "not go". I have had them balk in the door, but was able to convince them it was better to jump than land. I have found that the worse ones are the 30-somethings that are very hesitant on the ground, even before you kit them up. If someone appears they are going to give me a hard time, I try to have them give me a definitive answer before I get the rig on. Static-line students are another matter. About half the students I deal with (which is a lot), get pretty freaked out when the door opens the first time. I always make sure they are perfectly comfortable with the procedure before I put them on the plane, then I stay very upbeat and positive on the way up; pointing out things from the window and telling stories. It is MUCH more critical that a SL student actually go once he gets out the door. My commands are as follows, so that they really don't have a chance to balk out on the step: "sit in the door", "crawl ALL the way out and HANG", "go". Previously, we had a "crawl out", then "hang" step, but had many more people freezing out there. Some even wanting to get back in! The bottom line is that if you rush your students/passengers, then you are going to have a much higher likelyhood of problems. This happens way more often at "tandem factories" than at smaller operations. Chuck

I am trying to figure out what manner of "through the risers" you are inferring. If you mean that the reserve somehow snaked it's way through one SIDE of the main risers, then if you cutaway it would choke off your reserve. I cannot for the life of me figure how that could happen, but of course ANYTHING is possible. OK, assuming it DID somehow happen and you had a reserve out, but the main was dragging the lines (due to this odd configuration) and you knew you were going to eat it because it would NOT fly straight, then what I would do it break out my hook-knife. If the reserve snaked through the left (or right) side UNDER the slider I would cut the front main riser on that side, then cutaway the main. If it was somehow OVER the slider then through the left (or right) side, I would first cut the slider in half, then the front riser on the "bad" side, then cutaway. Remember, this all if there were NO way the configuration could be made to fly safely. I have seen all varieties of crazy malfunctions, to include double malfunctions induced when a person first fired his reserve into a bad main without cutting away, then cutaway the main right into the reserve thus creating an even LESS survivable situation. Very ugly to say the least. The method I stated above would, in theory, work given a very heads-up individual and, of course, the right peice of equipment (a good hook-knife). We would all like to think we have what it takes to deal with malfunctions. I can tell you all that I am here right now but by the grace of God. I, like a complete idiot, found myself docking for a final 2-stack at the end of a CRW jump with my friend Ray Porterfield. We were at maybe 1,200 feet and off the windline, but hey, "let's land it!". Ray hit me with his left end-cell and me, like a dumb-ass, started down and right. This, instead of centering-up first before starting down the lines. Anyway, as I got about halfway down and over, Ray's main turned right into me. Now it get's interesting: I had on a video camera. We were spining wildly with two balls of crap over our heads and I had a line wrapped around my camera. I screamed "cutaway" at about 900 feet and Ray chopped. I looked up and now had TWO balls of crap over my head, the line still hung, and chopped anyway. LUCKILLY, the line cleared and my reserve fired cleanly. I was in the saddle around 700 and made sure Ray was OK; he was. Now, there is no reason in the world for me not to have just reached down to my chest strap and cut that one line that was tangled. It was right there, but I never once considered using it. If that line would not have cleared on it's own I would have been dead for sure. I had right at 1,500 jumps then and thought you couldn't scare me; I was wrong. After that I really started checking myself and touching my handles, etc, on every jump. I haven't done much CRW since I started jumping elipticals, but when I do (rarely), I take all the safety precautions. Sorry to be so long-winded this time, but I feel the response goes along with the intent of the post, which I beleive was to get us thinking. Chuck