BikerBabe

Usually only an inch or two seems to do the trick. Look around your DZ, someone might actually have this. I think they actually slit it, then put a patch in there so it doesn't fray or anything. Never meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup!

What is your definition of tight? One thing that it absolutely SHOULD have is enough room for you to arch (with gear on) without pulling on the back of your neck. Look at any of the top teams, most of them have several inches of extra length in the torso. This is a big problem I see with suits. If it is too short in the torso, you can have your rigger do the "Airspeed mod", wheich is essencially cutting a slit in the back of the suit, right under the collar, to relieve some of that tension. Never meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup!

I've done it before, and I'd do it again just for old time's sake. It really wasn't as bad as everyone makes it out to be, though it WILL show you how well you learned your PLF. Never meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup!

yay...I'll be there next weekend, too...team training. We've finally found a fourth and we're ready to get down to business. See y'all soon! Never meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup!

What about a mini cooper? Never meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup!

Definitely a forest fire/wildfire, mainly because of our current living situation. We live out in the mountains east of Albuquerque, near a national forest. It's been INCREDIBLY dry the past couple of years, and they are already predicting a "catastrophic" fire season for 2003. What makes it bad where I live is that there isn't really a "town" so to speak. There's pretty much houses spread out all over, on 1, 2, up to 10-acre lots, covering a couple hundred square miles. So there would be no good place to dig a fire line...there would be hundreds of homes lost, guaranteed. Eeek...I don't want to think about it. Never meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup!

Yep, a lot of the Jedeis from that time were prototypes that Brian played with for his "new" design, the Samurai. My Jedei is probably different from Phree's, and both are probably different from the one you may buy. Fly it...I bet you'll like it... Never meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup!

I can't get over how MUCH it costs to be a smoker! Around here, a pack costs about $3.50. Which is comparatively cheap, from what I've heard. Say you smoke a pack a day...that's ~$105 a month, or $1260 a year that you spend on cigarettes. My goodness, that's a new container a year. Or a new reserve. Or a new Cypres. Or a helluva lot of jumps. Whenever a smoker complains to me about not having a enough money to do one more jump...that's what I tell them. Never meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup!

When you check in at the ticket counter, ask the ticket agent to look up the Airtec Cypres in their system. They will find a short statement that says it's OK to take on the plane. Have the ticket agent print that out and sign it, and have it ready when you pass through security. Also, have the card that came with the Cypres that has the picture of the x-ray on it. The ticket agent may initially balk, but just ask them nicely to look it up, and they (and you) will be pleasantly surprised. I now try to fly SWA almost exclusively because of this. Never meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup!

Phree, you and I can sit around and gush about our Jedeis and leave the cross-brace folks to themselves. Mine was made in 96, on of Brian's prototypes, actually custom buit for Chuck Karchers. You said it right...it's "thoughtless" in flight...just think and it happens. Never meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup!

If you fly Southwest, nicely ask the ticket agent at the counter to look up the policy on the Cypres in their bag regulations database. Then when they find it, ask them to print it out and put their signature on it. You should have no problems getting through security, since it says that a parachute with a Cypres is allowed as a carryon. I'm not sure if any of the other airlines will do this, but I guess it's worth a shot. I am extremely hesistant to check my rig anymore, since they are now allowed to go unlock your checked bags and go through them. I don't want some half-literate TSA monkey pulling anything he's not supposed to be pulling without me standing there watching. Never meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup!

I love love love my Jedei. Absolutely a blast to fly, and I get decent swoops without even trying. The best way I can describe how it flies is "intuitively", meaning, it does exactly what I expect it to do when I give it an input, in the exact way that I want it to. My next one will definitely be a Samurai...no question. Never meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup!

Mac! How was Hawaii? Where's your next exotic destination going to be? Never meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup!

ditto...get a snap. Works like a charm and you'll never have to worry about it again. Many riggers will do it, or if you have a handy person around the DZ, they might be talked into it for a beer or two. Never meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup!

LOL...OK how about this: Clouds drape the mountains; They hold uncertain beauty. Snow is coming soon. Thought it up as I was driving home yesterday...and it snowed 6 inches last night. I was always told that haiku were supposed to be about nature in some way... Never meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup!

I actually think it's only 1 at the moment. We're a small DZ, but because of personal connections, we have a lot of folks flying Big Air canopies (Jedei, Samurai). I can think of 3-4 off the top of my head, and that's probably about 25% of our regular experienced jumpers. Plus, our atmospheric conditions make an airlocked canopy really attractive...lots of dust devils and turbulence in the hot dry summers. Never meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup!

I'd recommend demoing a Samurai. they are a blast to fly, easy to get a good swoop out of (if that's what you're looking for) and they just lowered the prices! Seriously, I love my Jedei (the Sam's precursor) and a long time down the road when it comes time to get a new one, I'll look very closely at anything Big Air puts out. Brian is always tinkiering with a new design, too, so maybe if you really want a kick, wait a few months for the Sensei (airlocked AND crossbraced). Never meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup!

Anyone here seen the movie "Muriel's Wedding"? Great little Australian movie...Toni Collete's first real role. If you've never seen it and you like ABBA....go rent it now! Never meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup!

Love 'em. Favorite song has got to be "Fernando" and "Take a Chance on Me" and "SOS" and... Never meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup!

woohoo! I like that suggestion! When I was a geek in high school, my dad always told me: remember, engineers and scientists rule the world behind the scenes... Never meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup!

Yay Lisa!!! Read this: http://www.dropzone.com/safety/articles/UnderstandingYourSlot.shtml it's a great description of each slot and some of what flying the slot entails, both mentally and physically, so to speak. Good luck...and tail is where it's at! Never meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup!

erm....last time I checked, microwave weapons are being considered because they cause LESS collateral damage than conventional weapons. Don't believe everything you read in Newsweek or Time... Wait, are you under the impression that microwave weapons will be used to fry PEOPLE to a crisp in one shot? Sorry, microwave weapons are intended to target ELECTRONICS, not people. i.e., frying the enemy's computers so they can't process data or send command and control messages. The whole point is to SAVE lives by shortening a war and killing fewer people when a weapon is used. The term microwave is used to describe a particular section of the electromagnetic spectrum (as in wavelengths of 1 millimeter to 1 meter), not in the sense of the thing that sits on your counter and cooks your TV dinners. Besides, it sounds like its still too far in the future for this war, anyway. Never meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup!

Yep...glad the let them do this. Airspeed 8 and Endeavor (Swiss 4-way) also used the Porter. I'm glad I got to see the 8-way launch out of a Porter, because I was curious... Never meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup!

The time awareness issue is valid, I think, and not just for students. Personally, I can tell when a skydive is about to end based on how long I've been falling, but that comes with experience. If it starts to "seem long" (like we got extra altitude or something) I will glance at my altimeter just to be sure. As for students, I'm not sure if they've changed it, but where I used to teach, a student's first five jumps are 10-second unassisted freefalls. They were drilled over and over on the 10-second freefall sequence. Of course, we also gave them about 40 hours of ground school before they jumped, but the big emphasis was on counting to ten. Rather than low pulls/no pulls, what we found to be the most common occurrence was early pulls because adrenaline rush led to fast counts. There were sometimes one or two students per course (out of about 30) who forgot to count, but most counted, just too fast. I was one of the "too fast" folks, myself. As a reference, by the time I was teaching at USAFA, we were putting approximate 1000 students through the course per year. It was rare to see a main AAD fire. Usually those who "forgot to count" didn't forget to pull, they just fell longer than 10 seconds. The main AADs were set to fire after the equivalent of around 18 sec of freefall. Any current PTWOB/AM-490 grads on here care to comment? Never meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup!

Not sure of the usefulness of the double arm grips, but then, I've never had them. Definitely go for the inside leg grips. Cat grips will never be the same.... I would recommend the "fat" grippers, as well, they are much easier to get a hold of and keep a good grip on for turning blocks and the like. Never meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup!