ficus

To save you a 61 MB download, the downloadable database I mentioned above does not contain seal symbols and will not be of assistance in this particular task.

I downloaded the entire Airmen Certification Database from the FAA: http://www.faa.gov/licenses_certificates/airmen_certification/releasable_airmen_download/ I am refraining from posting names on a public forum out of respect for privacy, but is trivial to search for ratings if you know what to do with the files. Feel free to PM me if you need assistance. There is definitely a discrepancy between the searchable online database and the "complete" downloadable database. Danny Page is not in the latter (which contains just under 6500 riggers total, FWIW).

There is a rigger in Maryland with all four type ratings whose certificate is listed in the FAA database as being issued on 5/19/2003. In the entire database, there are 25 Senior lap rating holders and 3 Master lap rating holders.

It seems the more quotable the person, the more likely he is to earn misattribution. Mark Twain, Winston Churchill, and indeed, Voltaire must be near the top of the list. http://ask.yahoo.com/20030331.html

Mike G's Mirage tips: http://www.chutingstar.com/archives/00000126.html

No idea how someone managed to pack that without noticing. I cracked up when you looked up and said "what the..." Glad you're okay.

Yes.

I'm not disputing that at all. Open up your Safire 189 and watch the Velocities fly by. Tell me you don't feel like a boat. What I'm saying is -- you're on a boat; that's fine. Maybe you don't yet have the skills to fly something faster. Maybe you have upsized for risk management reasons. Whatever the reason. The water is the same, but the environment is not. Trying to fix the problem by manufacturing bad words is no solution.

You used it. You tell me what YOU think it means. You obviously didn't get the point. I told you in the part you didn't quote: slower and less maneuverable. Injury and death to any skydiver is offensive. Propagating the "smaller is better" attitude and the "gotta downsize" mentality gets people hurt. I hope you are offended enough to fight against that attitude and mentality. I think you don't understand my position. I don't think there is anything wrong with calling a 190 a boat. On the contrary, I think your attitude is harmful. Telling a new jumper that their 190 really is a Ferrari not only insults their intelligence, it robs you of influence. Who's going to listen to you when you are telling them how high-performance their canopy is while someone tears across the pond at 70mph? See? You just don't get it. You may be right. But tell me why.

Yep. AND you just propagated the idea that smaller is better...AND added to the desensitization...AND added to making it become the norm. On behalf of all the youngsters getting hurt under the dishrags, thanks. Oh, please. A hit dog will holler. He is obviously talking from the perspective of the average young jumper. Do you seriously think that if nobody says "boat", nobody is going to notice the difference between someone landing a Sabre2 190 and a Velocity 103? Which one is slower and less maneuverable? What do you think "boat" is meant to connote? Implying that he is contributing to the injury or death of skydivers is offensive. Too much too soon is a problem in basically every aspect of life. In the waters of 2008, a 190 is a boat. But you've still got to learn to drive the boat before you get to drive the jet ski.

The Vector 2 tandem system works just fine, too. Why did they bother with the locking disc on the Sigma? Just don't pull out of sequence, right? I agree with you that this is not Aerodyne's "fault", but the fact remains that this particular misrouting is impossible on PD Slinks. I have not reproduced the error at home, nor seen pictures, but if it is as easy to confuse for correct as OP says it is, then it's an even stronger point. The stitching on reserve lines is now a different color than the lines. Most BASE canopies today have black (and red) lines. Improving ease of inspection saves lives, period.

I have this same issue on my old 2001 Wings. Rotating the leg straps fixes it for me.

I've heard from many people that the Katana is a "Velocity trainer" or something along those lines. The guy who I bought the Mambas from has moved to Velocities. He said that the Mamba was great preparation because it flew almost exactly like the Velo, but slower. He had the same impressions of the Katana that I did (fronts too light, rears way too heavy). Disclaimer: I've got around 250 Mamba jumps, 50 Katana jumps, and 0 Velocity jumps. But am I missing something?

With a 5 second delay the openings are awesome. Soft and comfortable but not too slow, and on heading. I talked to Karl in Eloy and he was going to observe my pack job and see if he noticed anything, but I was running around all day and ran out of daylight. Measuring the slider is an interesting idea. Eli, sorry for hijacking your thread...

I do remember our conversation and you showing me the video of your most recent opening (which you must have looked at ). I have had openings like those and they are very nice, if all too rare, but it seems to happen at random. I've tried letting the nose hang (my usual), tucking it in, and rolling it. None of those things seem to stop the thing from giving me a spanking. I am tempted to try a slider pocket. I often have 12 pounds of camera helmet on my head and almost never watch my opening.

This worked great when I had the Katana, and I thought it might work with the Mamba as well. But the really problematic openings with the Mamba are very fast. It doesn't snivel and seek around like the Katana (or the videos I've seen of Velocity openings). Most of the deceleration happens immediately and then the canopy takes off.

I put about 50 jumps each on a Katana 135 and a Mamba 132 (@ 1.4ish) before deciding to go with the Mamba. Some impressions: The recovery arc is very similar between the two canopies. Whoever said the Mamba is like a Stiletto that opens better, I don't know what canopy you actually jumped, but I did my 90 from 300 ft on both canopies at only 1.4. I found the openings on the Katana to be better. The Mamba would very frequently spin me around 360 degrees, open really fast and slam me, or both. (200ish jumps later on the Mamba, this seems to have gone away. I don't know if it beat itself into trim or what, but I have a second one that is much newer and it also misbehaves on me from time to time.) The Mamba is much twitchier on the toggles and I got more out of the harness on it. Why I chose the Mamba over the Katana, in brief: the rears. The balance between front and rear riser pressure on the Katana is terrible, IMO. The fronts have "power steering": you can hold down on them all day long. But the rears are like pulling on steel bands. I found them much harder to meter when I had to yank on them so hard to get anything out of them. In contrast, the rears on the Mamba are excellent. A decent amount of pressure, but tons and tons of feedback. They tell you well in advance that a stall is coming. I feel really confident on the rears on my Mamba. It's just a much better balanced canopy. Cliffs Notes: Mamba opens poorly (maybe?), but once it has opened, it flies great, you can be on the rears forever and ever. Katana opens all right, rear riser swooping is like doing a pull-up.

Really? Why not? I say don't buy used unless you're on a tight budget that forces you to buy used. If you can afford it buy new. I agree. Someone needs to buy new beginner-sized rigs in order to replenish the pool of affordable gear with 100 jumps on it.

Riiiigggghhhhhttttttt. That's why guys like Norm Kent continue to seek training from others as well. Maybe you meant "It's not that hard to learn to not flail around with a pair of wings under your arms"? Maybe you read "not that hard to master"? What I actually wrote is quoted above.

Did you miss the part where he told me to get 20-25 jumps with my suit and helmet under my belt first? We're talking about being safe here, not shooting good footage. Camera wings are not that hard to learn to fly. Presumably I would be sent off to get more experience, and could come back for another try when I thought I was ready and had dealt with whatever issues he noticed on the skydive. I guess he was confident that I wasn't enough of a dumbass to go tracking into him and his passenger. If I'd gotten too close, I probably would have been shooed off. This particular instructor is an experienced video flyer and has probably 5000 tandems. I suspect he was able to gather the information he needed to decide if he was going to let me come in close by watching me on that one jump. Probably so. But if not 60 jumps, then what? Once that is answered, why? I think UPT's numbers are too strict, but they do at least recommend RW jumps and not just "jumps". Flying safely with a tandem involves about 2 things as far as I can tell: knowing where you're not supposed to be and having the flying skills not to end up there. Jump numbers are just such a crappy way of deciding if someone has the skillset to get up there and be safe. But maybe they are the best we can do.

This is my point exactly -- it doesn't have anything to do with camera flying. You could just as easily conceive of a situation where the TI is taking up the 50 jump wonder roommate's girlfriend and he wants to give her a kiss pass. This I have considered. I have been fortunate enough to receive a great deal of personal attention and mentoring.

Is this really that big of a deal? At the end of the day, the tandem instructor is in charge of the skydive, period. I expressed interest in doing tandem videos relatively early on and was given a to-do list by one of the head instructors. "Come see me when you have 300 jumps." "Go do 20-25 video jumps with that new camera suit and helmet." "Come with me on a tandem, but don't get very close to me. I want to make sure you are flying that suit and not the other way around. If you don't scare me, you can come again." I was safe, so he let me come with him to practice whenever there wasn't already video. After I got my skills up, they put me in the rotation. Case of beer. I guess I just assumed that was how it worked for everybody. To me, if this is actually a problem that needs solving, then the real problem is that we don't trust tandem instructors to decide if someone is safe to jump with them. And if that's the problem...

I set mine at the beginning of every jump day. I don't believe there is a way to get it to "stick".

"The bear seemed to understand, but needless to say we don't." This was in Parachutist? I guess the times have changed indeed.

Less than 6 months after I graduated AFF, I spent 14 hours driving a dead jumper's car home to his girlfriend. After the guys in my caravan and I had carried his things inside and given her hugs and our condolences, we left. On the steps outside her apartment I said "Well, that wasn't on the waiver."