SkymonkeyONE

Assuming you are not independently wealthy to start with, you are not going to make enough money skydiving to do much else. Yes, you can subsist, but I don't know any regular "staff" skydivers who have built up a nest egg of any type. I get away with it because I have a pension from serving 21 years in the army. I get by when the weather is shitty. I get by when the planes are down for maintenance. I get by when there are only two tandems all day long, but eight full-time staff guys to fight over them. I would venture to say that over 90 percent of full-time skydivers I know (read: coaches, AFF, Tandem guys) live in trailers on the DZ or share a house with several other people who also just squeek by. It's definitely not a glamourous life. When it's over 100 degrees f outside and you have 80 tandems to do, it stops being fun. When it rains for a solid week and you are penniless, it sucks. When you sprain your ankle on a tandem and can't work for three weeks, it sucks.

Is "no one" really spelled "noone?" I don't think so.

Come on Al, SPILL IT! I guess Aaron Stocum had a bad meet then?

Make no mistake: skydiving is dangerous. People die skydiving every year. Some through no fault of their own. ALL of us who have been at it for any length of time have lost friends to the sport. Keeping a level head, being properly trained, and knowing our limits are what keep us out of trouble in this sport. For the most part anyway. Chuck

"supporting a family" and "career in skydiving" are not phrases that go together well.

I have been at places where they let it stay up and places where they mandate it be closed. Personally, I don't see any reason in the world why you can't keep it cracked a foot for circulation. The people saying "suck it up" are clearly not the ones stuck up in the front of the plane on EVERY skydive like I am. Chuck

I know they got at least some rounds off; my wife told me so.

Please do not ask to borrow the Buell, bro. No wheelie for you! I will be back in town on Tuesday. Chuck

That's not an accurate statement at all, Glen. I know of at least two other manufacturers who use waivers on the road.

They sell surplus Pinzgaurs here in the USA at a place in Kentucky (or Missouri). A know a guy in NC who has one. He paid $14,000 USD. They are cool toys, but only run like 60 mph wide open and that's a stretch. They are also pretty small vehicles. Chuck

I've seen it live too! Perris, CA in 2001.

By "feel", absolutely. That's the pisser. One could only wish that there weren't such a wide disparity in the way companies measure their products. Even then, planform and trim have a lot to do with "feel." By comparrison, I will just say that (back in the day) my old Alpha (Atair Impulse/pre-Cobalt) 84 felt about the same size as my VX-74. I competed professionally for three seasons under a Cobalt 75. When I switched back over to PD, I had them send me a Velo 75 and a 79. I felt sure that the 75 would be my "regular" main and that the 79 would be my "distance" and "wingsuit" main. I was totally wrong. I found no use for the 75, even though that was the size canopy that I was accustomed to in a "nine cell" and instead used my 79 for everything (except wingsuiting, which I started using a small Sabre2 for). Eventually, I ended up trading the 79 for an 84. the 84 feels about as big as my old Cobalt 75 (but obviously goes much, much farther on landing). The point? I don't know, except that to say you really ought to try out all those three choices listed in the original post before committing to any of them. It's pretty amazing how differently supposedly-same-sized mains fly. Going off what you THINK you will like isn't smart at all. Particularly when you consider how much a x-braced main runs these days. Buy smart: demo, demo, demo. Chuck

That's a great shot of Marius! You should hound him to buy it before you go BACK TO ZEE RAAAAANCH! Edited to add that Laszlo has taken the absolute best photos of me swooping I have ever seen. He's great and he gets a ton of my money, even when I don't want to spend anymore!

The ones at Raeford burn right off of memory cards. I believe what the OP might have been asking, though, was how do you get stills off of a video and onto a CD. The way I do it is to play back the video and snap stills along the way with the photo button on my camcorder. That saves the images to the memory card. From there, you can either move your memory card over to your reader on your PC or stick it straight into a burner (like we have a Raeford). Chuck

Somebody from home get on the computer and tell us how the CPC meet is going. Chuck

You do NOT lose any bed length in "real" four-door pickups. You can get domestic 1-ton duallies in short or long bed, two door, extra cab, or "real" four door. Yes, you are going to lose bed length if you buy an import four-door pickup.

creepy

Our "four door" is a Chevy C3500 long bed dually. It does not suck. Well, it sure does suck alot of gas.

But will you have any video of Bruno Rodriguez pounding in under his VX?

No need to name names here, Jim, but can you tell me how current this jumper is? Total jumps and number of jumps this year? Be as accurate as possible. I am just wanting to see if this fits within the left and right limits of my current hypothesis about such invite-only events. Chuck

Worth repeating. Saying you "like nine cells better" has nothing to do with crossbraced canopies. Any "seven cell" crossbrace is going to fly much differently than your Crossfire. 27-cell crossbraces, on the other hand, do not fly that differently than 21 cell crossbraces. Their openings are quite different, but the glide and landings are not too terribly different. If there were such a difference, there would not be so many people still kicking ass under "seven cell" Velocities. Also, "mello" is a relative term. My second crossbraced canopy was an Icarus VX-74. A "nine cell" by your definition. I can tell you FOR SURE that the Velocity 75 that I had a number of years later was a MUCH faster canopy. I didn't like it at all and ended up upsizing two times in the Velo line until I found the size I liked best. Chuck

At that point you better do whatever you can to save your ass.

Says the skinny little monkey. My thigh is bigger than your waist. And you are BRAGGING about that???

That's brilliant. Make us proud, boys.. I expect that there will be a bunch of pooping and popping going on!

The waiver can be downloaded off of the BirdMan site. Where we use them, generally, is at boogies where we are doing FFC's and organizing. Anywhere where we feel accountability might be an issue. Chuck BMCI-4