morris

Hi, I´ve just read the PD-Blog about Nik Daniels flying a Sabre2 107 to 5th place in a CPC comp. Congratulations, I´m impressed! As we don´t have amateur comps with 10ft gates in Europe I´d like to know how the official speed course for the CPC looks like. Kolla posted Niks time, it´s been 3.4 seconds. If the speed course would be we official IPC-course, a 75 degrees carve over a distance of 70m (~230ft), this time would have been worth almost 80 points at the WorldCup during the same speed-round(s) Jay set (a) new world record(s). Therefore I think you must have a different kind of speed-course for the CPC. Please let me know how it looks like, thanks. Second question: I´d like to know how the handicap-system for participating pros is working, thanks again.

I´m not surprised to hear this. The nitron has a very short recovery arc and therefore your previous experience isn´t worth much. You need to turn WAY higher!

I´d say sand. But the sand shouldn´t be too soft, you shouldn´t sink in(to it). If the sand is too soft the risk of injuries is increased for stand-up landings.

Hi, I know that there are pictures from the final day of the WorldCup with a whole lot of spectators in the background. I contacted SydneySkydivers to get some of those pictures for the german federations magazine (they had/have some on their website) but the guy in charge, "Russell" (his name), never sended them, maybe you have more luck... On skydivingmovies.com is a very nice video about the 2005 PST/CPC in Colorado....

There aren´t any competition records anymore! (Maybe the one(s) that are in the books stay there forever, but no new "competition records" will be added.) The IPC took the decision (at the meeting in Paris/France early this year) that it doesn´t make sense to have two different kinds of records. The overall record - the performance record - is what counts. It doesn´t matter if this record takes place in competition or during an official training round or whatever, there just have to be enough FAI-judges around to prove it.

I flew 459ft the days before the SpanishOpen 2007 in Lillo/Spain with FAI-judges on site, the run took place at 2000ft MSL and is the official german distance record (139,90m). Way more interesting for me (than the official records) would be to know the best ever someone did in training...

Hi guys (and girls)... I´d like to get the opinions of the competitors out there about the wind limits we have at the moment in our rules. I guess those limits have just been chosen because it´s been like this for good old Accuracy?! How many pilots are out there who are able to fly the official accuracy course in a 14 knots headwind? How many will do well at carving-speed in a 14 knots crosswind coming "wrong way"? Who really likes to go for distance in a 14 knots downwind? The IPC is always very willing to change the rules the way the competitors like to have´em...

Hi, I would like to reduce the amount of gear I have (it is way too much!). One of my containers has a Springo 140 as main and is just for WS and demos, I use it only once in a while. If I would have a smaller packing main that fits into containers that usually hold nothing bigger than a Velocity 96 I would not need the whole system anymore. Does anyone know the packing volume of a Spectre 120? Would it fit? What would you recommend? Any thought welcome! Thanks, Morris

I got the same opinion as ianmdrennan. And I can´t really see those hot newcomers you are talking about. Take Spain for example, there is just one really good pilot (by international competition standards).

Now I can add some information about the packing volume of the Optimum. Two of my containers are TearDrops "Viper", both build for a PD-R 106. I had PD-R 113s in those containers, fitting a little tight. Now I replaced the PD-R 113s by/with Optimum 126s. The packing volume of the Optimum 126 really is less than the one of the PD-R 113. It fits very nice into those 106 containers!! Once more I´m impressed by a PD-product! For flight characteristics see my review on top/above.

June 13-15 is "only" coaching, right? (No competition?) Just to make sure...

Does anyone have any pictures of the event that havn´t been posted yet? Please share!

Today the weather was worse than hoped for. Pretty strong mixture of cross- and downwind, many competitors stayed on the ground including the local Aussies. This was for a reason cause crosswind from the east causes turbulences over the pond due to the very nearby and higher located highway...

Update from Australia: The last two days (sunday/monday) no training has been possible due to very strong winds. The day before (saturday) rain and clouds were the problem. Friday jumping was possible (headwind) and so was last thursday (the last day with really good conditions). Today it looks jumpable, if the forecast is right the whole competition will see mostly medium to strong downwindconditions interupted by showers...

Velocity96 loaded 2.5 500m 440m 340m ---> start 450 I´m using the "Guide" and I really like the Optima...

Maybe the rule should be changed? I guess the idea was to create more safety but that doesn´t seem to work out...

By "not coming in straight" I´m talking about entering the course at angle (10-15degrees) for not having to turn the whole 75 degrees. (I don´t mean entering with a bank angle of the canopy.) And I´m not sure if it´s perfect to fly it all on rears, but you might be right on this cause it´s not that far to go. If it comes to distance I think that many pilots tend to stay too long on their rears...

Hi guys, I´d like to know how you fly the official FAI-CarvingSpeed (75 degree). Do you cheat a bit by not coming in straight? Do you fly as close as possible to the inner side of the course (course half way done)? (looking for the "perfect (shortest) line") Do you leave the course (at the end of the course) pretty much on the outside to fly a bit less than 75 degrees? At what point you go from rears to toggles (if you do so at all)? The way I do it is: Coming in "hot" (it´s called "Speed" for a reason) Coming in straight (trying to start with a perfect hit) Close on the inside first, going more to the outside at the very end Flying about the first 50% on rears Thoughts welcome!

sure it`s not the V3 prototype?

As far as I know the Neptune has no "Guide-function", right? Ever tried it? You don´t wanna jump without anymore!

Hi, I got here something for CompetitionSwoopers to think about, I´m interested in your opinions... How do you like the following idea? As in CRW, the worst score of a competitor doesn´t count. (Maximumscore would be 800 in a 9 round competition, the rule could apply for intermediate only or in general.) Why this? Several reasons: 1.Safety At the moment you´r out of the game (toppositions) if your missing the gate a single time. Therefore you have to make the gate at almost any cost. With this rule you´d be flying way more relaxed (as long as you havn´t missed once). (Disadvantage to me: Part of the excitement would be taken away what makes a CP-Competition second to nothing.) 2.Tension (might be the wrong english word for what I´d like to say) More competitors would stay in the race for the title till very last round. (on the other hand it´s not very likely that a competitor - who´s missing a gate - scores high in all the other rounds... but possible) 3.Records If the last round of a competition would be speed or distance and you´ve made the gate 8 times you could give 120% in round 9... (take the risk of setting-up to tight for example) Thoughts on this?

We´ll go back where we came from (if it comes to training in the US): DeLand - my favorite place...

I´m not coming to Eloy anymore, without highspeed approaches the trip from Europe just isn´t worth the money. But I can imagine that Larry can afford not having me there. It´s only something ranging from 500 to 1250 slots each time my team came by...

I´ll be using the bigger wing, just wanted to make sure everybody agrees with that decision. During the last years my distances went up and up with the higher and higher loading. (Of course my better skills are responsible as well, so it´s difficult to tell what´s really causing it.) While the distance on the very highly loaded 90 was less, the 96 seems not to be overloaded with 2.5 and I´m definitly going further than at 2.2-2.3...

Hi, good to hear from you! I couldn´t compete in Berlin because I HAD to work on Friday. Klatovy and Bussloo haven´t been possible because I had trainingdates with my team and I didn´t like the idea to cancel the teamagreements I already made (long before). At least I´m not gonna miss the WorldCup in Sydney :-) ! Due to the WorldCup it might take a while before I can show up in Lillo again because late October/early November would have been Lillo for sure... Take care, Morris