brettski74

As people have mentioned, the Team Fastrax website is a fantastic resource with exit videos, block animations and colour-coded dive pools showing how to cheat the grips, but for a rank beginner, I'd also recommend first looking at the standard dive pools that you can obtain such as that contained on pages 45-48 of the USPA Skydiver's Competition Manual. Other national organisations like the CSPA, APF, etc have similar dive pools available for download from their websites, also. The standard dive pools you get from these places will help you get a better initial mental picture of what each formation looks like. Get that, first, then start learning how you can cheat the grips to make things go faster. The Fastrax Dive Pool is great once you know what you're looking at, but if you don't, a lot of those formations may look very similar to you. Several coaches I've worked with also like to concentrate on angles more at the beginning before you start cheating the grips. It tends to develop better discipline in flying your slot first and taking the grips last. FYI - In case you're wondering, cheating grips is not cheating. In 4-way, angles don't matter so much as flying in a position that allows you to take the required grips. If you take a longer formation like a K or L and curve it around a bit, you can get there with less movement. If you look at the Fastrax dive pool randoms and compare them with those in the USPA SCM, you'll see what I mean.

http://www.skydivingmovies.com/ver2/pafiledb.php?action=file&id=6863 Clicky.

More precisely, it's about 61% of what it is at sea level at the same location.

Start by reading this thread The original poster there is only 230 pounds, but there are a few heavy guys who've posted in that thread, some who were heavier than that. There are also some fairly experienced big skydivers who've posted in there and may be able to help you out. I don't know him personally, but you might consider sending a private message to someone like BIGUN. Bottom line is that most of us here are just going to be able to tell you the party line because really 280lbs *is* very heavy, there are real safety issues that may arise with heavier jumpers and very few of us have had to deal with finding gear and instruction for someone so heavy.

That's just silly! [Crazy] Everyone knows that oil is made from fish. Forests make coal!

Do you perhaps mean the Bonehead Havok? I think there may be other brands with a similar system. Even with this type of helmet, I'm not sure how easily or not they are to open and if there was a risk of cervical spine injury, I'd still be requiring a second person to immobilize the head before opening the helmet unless there was a higher priority issue to be dealt with such as airway or breathing problems.

A few things that came to mind reading your post... Why are you thinking of getting a Micron? The largest Micron container fits 120sf canopies and smaller. A 120sf canopy is a very aggressive choice for a first canopy by almost any standard. I think you're more likely looking for a Vector 3 M-Series if anything. Why are you considering new for your first rig? There's a lot of good reasons to consider a used rig for your first purchase. The instructors and/or riggers at your local dropzone should be able to help you find something appropriate. Do a search. Buying new vs used for your first rig has been discussed on here a bunch of times before. Other than that, if you really are going to buy new, go through a dealer like everyone else already said. I'm sure that they could arrange a pick-up from somewhere if that's what you really want, but ask the dealer. Alternatively, they could ship it to your family in Florida.

Ok - I think we're on the same page. I was responding to the most recent question asked in this thread which asked for impressions regarding stickers that you can buy to put on your helmet warning people to not remove the helmet. While I'd consider this good advice to give to the average Joe Skydiver, one of the stickers was specifically directed at EMS personnel, which I think is silly for the reasons stated above.

I'm not trying to teach first aid or patient transport here. My point is that EMS personnel and other first-responders are trained to provide care in a certain way. They are trained to do so for reasons based on years of experience from countless individuals and incidents. They are much more aware of the relative risks of various courses of action and signs and symptoms than the accident victim probably is. They are legally required to provide care and transport in the manner in which they were trained. If they don't, they lose all protection that they would have otherwise had under good-samaritan laws. If their training says that a potential head/spinal injury patient must have spinal immobilization for transport, and this requires removal of the helmet and securing the patient to a backboard, that's what they're going to do, sticker or no sticker. To put this another way, how do you think the motorcyclist would respond if told, "OK fine. We won't remove your helmet until you get a doctor to look at you, but that means we can't move you safely, since you have a potential spinal injury, so why don't you call your doctor and see if he can come out here to the accident site and have a look at you, and when he/she's done, we'll remove the helmet, put you on a backboard and take you to hospital." If the EMS person or other first reponder has been trained in a safe way to move a spinal injury patient with the helmet still on, then they might do it that way, but that's a decision that's going to be based on their training, not on some sticker put there by someone with no real knowledge or experience in the area of patient care and transport. Edit: Their/there/they're!!

I assume that when you say this you are someone with little or no training or experience as a first responder or as a provider of emergency care. While it is true that you want the helmet to be removed by a properly trained pair of individuals, if there really is a risk of c-spine injury, the patient will need to be immobilized on a backboard. You cannot properly immobilize a spine on a backboard when the patient is wearing a helmet for at least three reasons. 1. The helmet elevates the head which causes flexion of the cervical spine - ie. it cannot be placed in a straight and neutral position against the backboard while the helmet is in place. 2. The majority of helmets do not fit tight enough to ensure adequate immobilization of the head during transport. If the helmet is not removed and the cervical spine is compromised, we can only secure the helmet to the backboard, meanwhile, the head is free to jiggle around inside and maybe shear part of your spinal cord. 3. It is not possible to correctly fit a cervical collar to a patient while they are wearing a helmet. Beyond that, leaving the helmet on can lead to complications in cases of vomiting and bleeding and may conceal signs of head injury. Finally, as said before, first responders are usually not doctors. Where they have been trained to deal with a specific set of signs and symptoms in a particular way, they are not at liberty to improvise. If they've been trained that the safest way to move a possible c-spine injury patient requires removal of the helmet, and that's the only way they've been trained, then either the helmet is coming off, or they're not moving the patient, but what exactly should be the protocol for a patient who is lying immobile on the landing area, breathing and alert, but unable to move and refusing treatment because that would involve removing the helmet?

The first sticker may make some sense - I'm assuming that it's directed at untrained bystanders who may be first on the scene and do things they shouldn't. The second sticker directed at EMS personnel is just plain dumb. EMS Personnel will do what they are trained to do. If they do not, they run the risk of losing protection of good samaritan laws and being liable in the event of any resulting complications. As a former ski patroller, in all likelihood, I probably wouldn't notice a sticker like that until after the helmet was removed. If I did happen to notice it, however, it would not affect my decision to remove the helmet. As stated above, I am required to render first aid in the manner that I was trained. To do anything different exposes the patient to additional risk of injury and myself to risk of legal liability.

Well now you've painted yourself into a corner. If your statement is true, then it would appear that you are pointing out a stupid person... Because telling the guy straight out didn't seem to get through, so people are trying another approach. And even if it doesn't help make the point to this one guy, maybe someone else reading this now or finding it in a search sometime later will see how seriously dumb people thought this was. You say that you don't find this funny. Well, I don't find this thread funny, either. In fact, I find that thread somewhat disturbing because it shows yet another jumper willing to totally ignore the experience and advice of people with much greater experience, and also the willingness to ignore the evidence shown in statistics over the years that this is not a sensible approach to downsizing. Instead, he seems dead-set on finding some way of "doing it safely" because "he can handle it". Which is the more dangerous message to be sending out to new skydivers who may be reading this forum? That if you do something stupid, people might make fun of you, or that reducing the amount of fabric over your head by 40% while also transitioning to an elliptical canopy is perfectly acceptable? If I do something stupid in this sport, I only hope that a few people I've never met making fun of me is the worst consequence I have to deal with.

What's wrong with the classifieds? Did you not read the forum rules?

I don't have a problem with that concept at all. A great many people make their living by selling things for a higher price than that at which they acquired them, however I don't see the relevance of your comment. My point is, if you want to build a power generation plant, then build one. If you want to build a vertical wind tunnel, go right ahead, but they're two separate businesses.

Did you try clicking on the link only two posts above yours?

To what business are you trying to attract investors? A pumped storage hydro-electric generator or a sports related amusement? If you have many millions of dollars to spend, then by all means go ahead, but if you don't you're going to have to convince someone else to give you the money. The lack of focus will make it harder to attract investors in the first place. Those same investors will also ask the question of why they should be giving the power they generate to the wind tunnel on the cheap or even for free when they could sell it on the open market for a better price. Investors aren't likely to give you money to build something that doesn't give them a return on their investment. Those profits from the pumped storage hydro-electric generator belong to the investors and they're not likely to be interested in using them to subsidize your playing in the wind tunnel.

Yes - I realize that the further away from the wind tunnel you place the turbine, the less impact you're likely to have on the airflow in the flight chamber, however, you're also capturing much less of the exhaust wind and therefore much less of the waste energy. I think that by the time you've moved the turbines far enough away, the energy yield from the turbines will be negligible. You're also talking about some very expensive plant. Let's assume that you do generate enough power to run your lighting and video equipment, POS terminal and such. At worst, this is going to save you perhaps a few hundred dollars per year. These turbines and generators you want to install are likely to add millions to the capital costs for construction of the system. If you spend a million dollars to save less than $1000 per year, it's going to take you at least 1000 years for the installation to pay for itself. I just can't see the wind tunnel lasting that long, and we haven't even considered the maintenance cost of the plant, yet, which I'm also fairly sure would outpace the power saving you might get.

Not sure what the content of your email was, but it sounds like someone might have actually read your email - either that or they now have a standard response for comments about NPA 99-148. The piece that I quoted, however, sounds like maybe they're missing the point, since the concern in the skydiving community seems to be that the new regulation will not only hurt the industry, but also do nothing to improve safety. I guess until we see the actual text of the proposed amendment, it's hard to say for sure, but based on the comments and available information to date, it doesn't seem to be about a balancing act between safety and industry interests at all. It's more like the information available to date suggests the proposal will be bad on both sides of the industry vs safety equation.

You need to go and talk to your instructors about that logic of yours to get it fixed. Look at the information coming out of virtually every reputable canopy coach and manufacturer who are all saying that small canopies (ie. anything under a 150) is still dangerous for an inexperienced pilot at *any* wing loading.

The idea is not totally stupid. The perpetual motion bit is silly, and so is the comment about using electric motors, since pretty much all the well-known tunnels *are* electric. On the other hand, citing conservation of energy isn't going to answer everything, either, because in an open flow tunnel like SkyVenture Arizona, the exhaust out the top of the tunnel is still carrying quite a bit of kinetic energy that is essentially being lost into the atmosphere. The trick is harnessing this lost energy in such a way that it won't mess with the airflow through the flight chamber. If you just stick a couple of turbines attached to electric generators on the top, this will impede the airflow through the tunnel and require you to run the fans a lot harder to get the same airspeed, and due to friction and other losses, the extra energy into those fans will always be greater than the energy you can extract from those generators. I suspect that the best way to make use of the kinetic energy in the exhaust wind would be to build some kind of aerodynamically efficient ducting to redirect the air back down around the side and into the bottom of the flight chamber again. Hang on... [:D]

Do you set your brakes before coming off the landing area, or do you leave that for your packer to do? I was taught to always set your brakes straight away when you land, so I've always done it that way. I'm not sure that I know all the reasons for doing so, but it does help avoid getting twists in your brake lines. It would also mean you have some idea that they were set properly and not with a knot. I've seen a few ways that carelessly setting the brakes can lead to knots when you try to unstow them in the air, but I think different systems for stowing the brakes and the excess line can have different failure modes that lead to knots. There have been a few threads on here about such things. Maybe you should do a search and see if any of these apply to what happened with your demo rig.

My issue with rubber bands has nothing to do with speed or the ease with which I can stow the lines. I have no trouble getting the parachute in the bag, getting the lines in the stows. The issue is the effect that repeated stretching the stows and slipping my fingers in and out in order to stow the lines slowly but surely damages the skin. Drier climates like that in Eloy tends to exacerbate the problem. On an average weekend, it's not so bad, but on a busy weekend, or a 1 or two week trip, I typically end up with cracks, bleeding, tears and other rather uncomfortable problems. If you can come up with a packing technique that doesn't require my touching the rubber bands, great. I prefer to pack my parachute for a number of reasons and I choose to work through the pain and discomfort, but if there's an option that allows me to avoid that, then that's an attractive option. Note that I don't yet have a lazy bag, but I have considered getting one, but I'll probably jump my new rig un-modified for a while longer and discuss it further with my local riggers before I take that step.

I saw one of these at Ramblers last year. The person jumping it said he'd had no problems with it and is one of the most senior jumpers on the DZ, so I respect his opinion. I'm not sure how long he'd had it at that point, but from the way he talked about it, I got the impression he'd put a not insignificant number of jumps on it. The point about getting the canopy in the bag is true - it won't help there, but *my* biggest complaint about packing is dealing with those rubber bands, and this bag design certainly addresses that.

Actually, forget the petition. Paper and ink petitions are never as effective as people think they are. Electronic petitions are even less effective as there is usually no way to verify the identity or even existence of the people named on them. The last time I looked at this online petition, it was filled with duplicate names and anonymous entries. I also know that there are at least some names on there that are not Canadians. We're better off not circulating ineffective devices of opposition to this proposal. People who might have otherwise written letters or made calls to their MP or to Transport Canada may figure that they've done their bit by placing their name on this website and be less likely to do something else that would have been more likely to have an impact. If you're serious about opposing this regulation. Write a letter or make a phone call to your MP, to Transport Canada or to whoever else is involved in this process. There are a lot of people who've put thoughtful responses on the petition. Go the extra step. Print it on some paper, sign it, and mail it to you member of parliament. Everyone will have to figure out their local MPs contact details, but can someone post details of where else such objections should be sent? I'm assuming that there would be one Transport Canada address for everyone where such objections should/could also be sent.

I have to disagree with that statement, also. My first experience in a wind tunnel was at Aerodium in Latvia, which is a similar flying experience to the Niagara tunnel based on what I can make out. At the time, I was a "newer flyer" with only about 70 jumps. During the late autumn I got close to an hour of time in that tunnel but no jumps due to weather. While I was flying in the tunnel, I was often frustrated by the limitations imposed by wind speed and turbulence, by the big baggy suit I had to wear and was convinced that while it was some fun, I wasn't learning much about skydiving. That January, I went to Eloy and was surprised at how much better I seemed to be flying in the sky compared to my last jumps. Obviously, I learned a lot about bodyflight by flying in that tunnel without realizing it at the time. I doubt it's going to be useful as a training tool for serious 4-way teams and you should have different learning expectations in different types of tunnels, but to say that it has no training value for skydivers is narrow-minded and/or shortsighted.