primetime

Once you're under canopy, assume every other person in the air is trying to kill you. This also works for driving...

I have a theory... OH CHUTE and the old lady in Skydiving History who thinks her deceased husband was DB Cooper are in actuality one and the same person. The boldface and the ALL CAPS are dead giveaways... ...and both of them are Shah and he's pranking every one of us!

LOL...he wants to smell Obama's birth certificate. He and Orly Taitz are perfect for each other.

I have not seen this packing method before (slider exposed) but it makes sense to me. There would also be less wear and tear on the center cell from the slider grommets during extraction. However, I think it would be more appropriate for WS and tracking dives, as the openings might be too "brisk" when deploying without forward motion. Can you post a picture of this pack job with the d-bag closed? I would like to see how you position the slider. Thanks Yuri.

I agree with John about sitting up as the canopy deploys. Don't make it an exaggerated move...after awhile you can feel when the time is right to start transitioning to upright position. It also lessens the opening shock on your shoulders and neck. On deployment, I focus upon keeping my shoulders and hips level and symmetrical as a unit. One thing I notice in alot of videos is people reaching up for their toggles too early and latching onto the risers, invariably yanking on one harder than the other and inducing a turn. I keep my hands in a symmetrical boxman until the wing is out of the bag (to be more precise, until the wing begins to come out of the bag). I also make sure to always look straight up to assess the canopy and not look over either shoulder. A few times I have been able to look up and notice the beginning of line twists, but I was able to fly my body in the same direction as the spin until I caught up. Of course, there have been other times where I started kicking out of line twists and realized I was going the wrong way...doh! Sounds like I need to get me one of them semi-stowless bags...

Ever since I started jumping high-performance canopies in 1996 or so (damn, was it that long ago?!), I have always pulled my collapsed slider down to the 3-rings and stowed it behind my head, and then loosened my chest strap all the way to the keeper. When you loosen your chest strap, you can actually feel the wing spread open above your head. When you pull your slider all the way down, it moves the bottom of the triangle from your connector links to the 3-rings. Then when you loosen your chest strap, it moves the bottom of the triangle further down your body to somewhere between your chest strap and your leg straps, especially if you have an articulated harness. As Brian says in the video, loosening your chest strap "puts you inside the system."

In my opinion, flaking yer main canopy does have an effect upon opening characteristics. Especially if you're jumping a cross-braced at 3.0, in which case everything affects openings...packing method, line trim, body position, harness adjustment, thinking bad thoughts, a duck's fart, the alignment of the planets, etc. The effect of flaking yer canopy might be negligible, but it is there.

Brian on loosening yer chest strap: "It puts you inside the triangle, instead of hanging below the triangle." Excellent description of something I always knew instinctively but didn't know how to put into words. Thanks for imparting your wisdom as always, o jedei master.

The USPA website lists 5 or 6 DZs in Italy. Body Fly University is just east of Reggio Emilia (2 hrs. from Milan): http://www.bfu.it Central Italy has drop zones all over the place. When I was there a few years ago, I found DZs in Pontecagnano (s. of Salerno), 2 overlooking the Adriatic (Fano and Fermo) and a little one in the Republic of San Marino.

I wish we could do double sunset fun instead. I hate getting up early.

Thank you, John. That helps a lot. I didn't realize that a racer's reserve pins are on the pack tray side. I would like to see a racer repacked sometime. I am in the market for a new rig, and I could give fuck-all about how pretty it looks, I want functionality. The videos posted recently on dz.com by John Sherman were very enlightening. The racer reserve deployment is faster than a vector equipped with a skyhook.

flawed design Best reserve pin protection on the market. Hey John. Please elaborate on racer's superior R pin protection. When I was coming up in the mid-1990s, some people would bad mouth the racer and say it had poor pin protection due to the exposed pop-top being an easy snag point for airplane parts and suspension lines. The argument made sense to me when I looked at a javelin, which has an exposed pop-top just like the racer, but they added a big closing flap over it for increased protection. FWIW, I have 2500 jumps on my current rig, a mirage g3. Comfortable, reliable, and my 6 reserve rides had excellent deployments, even with some gnarly BP.

I threw out a ridiculous bet to DSE hoping to spark the debate, but he was too smart to take the bait... The OP was asking about a tracking suit. IMO, if it doesn't have wings, palms down will serve you better. Your arms from your elbows to the tips of your fingers become your wings. Today I tried tracking with palms up. The PC answer would be to say that there was no difference and it is all about personal preference, but in truth I still think palms down is more efficient. It's funny, I had never heard of FS skydivers tracking with palms up until I moved to the west coast.

Clean profile, clean shmofile. I challenge you to a tracking contest, sir. Palms up versus palms down. Identical jumpsuits. Bragging right to the winner. We can do it at Perris or S'nore. Whatta ya say, DSE? :) Blue skies, Erik Prime

The shuttle flew right past the window of my 6th floor office in Culver City. Damn, I would have loved to add add that bird to my log book.

For a max flat track, ya gotta go palms down. You can roll your shoulders equally well with either option, but with palms down you can push mightily on the wind and cup your elbows/hands for extra horsepower. All the best trackers I've ever known (Airspeed, etc...) go palms down. Wingsuits are another story. I think it depends upon the type/configuration of the suit along with other factors DSE mentioned such as altimeter.

Todd’s been gone for 4 years now. I still think of the silly bastard whenever I’m at the dz and something crazy or righteously cool happens. I know Todd would be the first one to volunteer for the craziness…with his camera helmet firmly cinched in place. One of my favorite Todd stories is from Bridge Day 1997. At the time, Todd and I were both financially challenged, so we talked another jumper from the dz into accompanying us to West Virginia even though she wasn’t jumping. Basically, we needed the services of her car. Todd drove most of the way there, and he had the speedometer pegged in the red zone most of the way. He drove so fast in the mountains that 3 of the 4 hubcaps flew off. The first time we stopped for gas, I told Todd and the girl that we should take turns paying. I paid for the first fill-up, the girl paid the next time. When it was Todd’s turn to pay, I watched him slowly crack open his suspiciously-thin wallet. He only had 3 one-dollar bills in there! I asked him how he was going to pay for food and beer, not to mention the hotel room. He just shrugged his shoulders. When I told him to use a credit card, his face lit up like a x-mas tree. He hadn’t thought of that. With a confident stride, he marched inside the gas station to pay for the gas, but he came back out a few minutes later with a hangdog look. “It didn’t work,” he said. “My wife put a hold on the credit card.” It was common knowledge that Todd was one of the cheapest dudes in human history. He was always begging, scrounging, pilfering, and eating nasty or rotten food because it was cheap. Previous posts have described him eating dog food and purchasing ten burgers on dollar burger night to save a few bucks. However, I could never get mad at him for being cheap, because his reason was that he wanted to spend every penny on skydiving. Hard to argue with that logic. I ended up paying for his share of the hotel room that weekend…and yes, a few burgers and a few beers. But when I think back to how great a friend he was, and how many times he packed my rig for free (it must be in the hundreds…), it seems like I got the better part of the bargain. Damn, I miss that cheap fucker.

People may not know this about Todd, but he was the best canopy pilot in the Midwest from 1996-2008. I should know, I was #2. I have about 2,000 landings with Todd. The dude could work miracles under canopy.

Thank you for the new cartoon, Namowal. "To Three or Not To Three" is hilarious and yet poignant because we've all been there, just starting out and learning how to fly our bodies. I was LMAO when I saw that the third jumper was not a duck but a green rooster with a red comb and tail... and it looks like he's flying in the mantis position.

What about the British guy during WWII that bailed out of his Lancaster bomber without a rig and lived to tell the tale? Doesn't he get Chuteless Landing #1? Devils advocate: should Gary and/or Jeb make their jump without a rig? The lower exit weight would actually increase their odds of survival...

Welcome to the aerial playground, my friend. Don't hesitate to comment or, more importantly, ask questions on dz.com. Who knows which little fact or tidbit will one day save your life? I was LOL about your comment that the rig you purchased from Ralph's was a smoking deal--at $5200 bucks! It made me feel like a grizzled veteran. In 1994, when I purchased my first main/reserve/container, I paid a whopping $325. Granted, it was a real POS. The main canopy even had a nickname..."the Cruise-Lite of Death." My advice regarding canopy progression: Stick with 188 sq ft for at least fifty jumps. When you are ready to downsize, purchase a non-crossbraced canopy in the 135/150/170 range (depending upon canopy model and your exit weight). Put hundreds and hundreds of jumps on it. Wear that bitch out. When you are completely dialed in on that canopy, in every situation, weather condition and landing area, and you can hit the pea gravel/landing target every single time...only then should you consider downsizing further. And if you are thinking about high-performance landings, proceed with caution. That shit can kill ya.

I agree that longer risers will increase the altitude of your recovery arc. When I have jumped canopies with short line sets, the recovery arc tends to be ridiculously short. A friend of mine has a theory that longer risers will also increase performance because it helps spread the planform above your head, the same reason we remove our sliders and loosen our chest straps all the way. It helps spread the canopy to its most efficient profile. The same philosophy resulted in the third riser set-up, a short-lived fad in the mid-90's sold as part of a "speed package" that included the brand-new technologies of kill-line pilot chute and collapsible slider. The third riser was intended to allow the brake line to come more straight down in flight, instead of being constrained to an angle that put pressure on the brake lines. I'm jumping a circa-1995 third riser set-up right now, but I'm still deciphering its merits and disadvantages.

The top five killers are all made by Performance Designs!!! Oh my God! Run away! Just kidding. I'm sure its a reflection of the fact that PD is the big brother of the industry and makes a large percentage of the canopies on the market. Or is it? Here are my guesses on the top killers from the ten years before your study (1994-2004): Stiletto = at least 15 Sabre 1and2 = at least 12 PD Vengeance = 4 Jedei = at least 7 Jonathon = 4 Batwing = 5 Velo = 13 Icarus FX/VX = 15 Crossfire 1and2 = 7 Xaos 21and27 = at least 7 Triathalon = 7 Manta = at least a dozen, all students Nova = definitely more than 3 Add 2 or 3 deaths apiece on the Cobalt, Hurricane, Katana, Samurai, am I forgetting any? Please note that herewith numbers are pure speculation upon the part of the author not legally binding in any way.

Thanks for all the great stories. This thread disputes the notion that "If God had meant us to fly, he would have given us wings."

At my first home DZ in Wisconsin, there used to be a family of red-tailed hawks that lived off the end of the runway. Over the years, they became quite used to canopy traffic. They would often get within 50 feet or so of an open canopy. One of my fondest skydiving memories happened on a tandem jump. It was Father's Day, and I was taking a male student on his fifty-ninth birthday. It was already an emotional jump for me, because my own father had recently passed away and he had never found the time to make a jump with me. Under canopy, I noticed a bald eagle about 100 feet below us. I pointed out the eagle to my student, then asked for his permission to spin down and try to catch the raptor. The eagle heard our approach but didn't appear overly concerned. We ended up planing out with the bald eagle lurking approximately 10-15 feet away from our right end cell. It was one of the most amazing things I've ever seen in the air! The eagle stayed with us for at least 30 seconds before peeling off and descending away from us. It was so breath-taking that I was getting a bit misty-eyed. Then I was brought back to reality by my student asking, "Does this happen on every jump?" Only later did I consider the ramifications of having a malfunction with a pissed-off bald eagle with razor-sharp talons entangled in my lines... Has anyone else experienced flying with birds? I am reminded of Norman Kent's video Willing To Fly, the sequence with the peregrine falcon. If you watch the extras on the DVD, there is footage of the falcon actually latching onto the end of someone's pilot chute and flying backwards.