adamsr

this sounds pretty awesome, my most used apps are photoshop, flash and dreamweaver. they make great apps by themselves, lets hope they can make even better programs together!

Best headline i have seen is for the West Briton, it's a local newspaper cornwall in the UK. the headline was:- "Public toilets in Redruth may be vandalised" must have been a slow week for news!!

I pretty much always pack for myself. The only time i've used packers is when i'm on holiday, and then probably only about 50% of the time, and usually it's soo hot that i can't be arsed to do it myself!!

you dont look too happy about it in the pics!! smaile dude you just got a new rig!!

yeah i was gonna say, from the looks of the harness alone it looks very VERY retro, must be a pretty old piece of kit!!

Thanks for the info. To be honest it's not something i really thought about or researched when buying my rig. I have put on some weight since buying my rig.... guess i need to get off my ass and get the weight off!!

I have a freeZr too, and even though i can take the helmet off with the little strap in place, i have done some freeflying in it and the helmet has stayed put... i've always been a bit wary of it though, the second strap sounds like a good idea

I can see your point entirely, and the reason for me overloading my reserve is due to me putting on a bit of weight. I'm working hard to get the weight off, but university doesn't help!! Also the data from flight concepts seems contradictionary, as the official manual for my reserve states, and I am using a direct quote:- "Munufacturers Recommended Maximum Suspended Weight (defined as Jumper + clothing + equipment)" Maverick 200-R = 240 LB Yes at my current weight including gear I admit i am 15LB above, but before I jump next (I'm unable to jump over the winter due to university commitments) I will be below this limit again. Also the Manufacturers use of the word 'Recommended' indicates some leaway. And as I pointed out earlier PISA sets a recommended upper limit of 1.2:1 on all their canopies, which especially on the Heatwave ellyptical many people will exceed. Are you saying all these people should not use their canopies if they are loading at greater than 1.2:1?

I am not trying to compare myself to someone with much greater experience. I hope one day to have thousands of jumps and be experienced in the sport, but I realise that goal is many years away. All I am saying is that I believe a 200 square foot reserve canopy is well within the level of my abilites at this time and do not see a wingloading of 1.25:1 - 1.3:1 on a 7-cell square F111 canopy to be extreme or above my abilities at all. All of these comments and flaming stemmed from me just backing up a point that I believe that looking out for other skydivers, reminding EVERYONE to be careful as skydiving is a dangerous sport, and that EVERYONE is at risk not only those with less than 1000 jumps is a fair point to make. I did not aim or associate the comment to any particular person, but it was a general comment aimed at the entire skydiving community, including myself!! I dont know why some people, especially it seems the skydivers with more experience, would begrudge anyone looking out for them or concerning themselves with other skydivers well-being and safety. I want to put this subject to rest now, as was said in a previous post we will have to agree to disagree.

I notice both your profiles do not have you gear info or weights, but i would not be suprised at all if you are overloading your reserves also. The maximum exit weight for PD canopies is the same for the PD reserve 126 all the way up to 253. I know this is due to strength tolerances, but indicates to me that wingloading in no way affects the manufacturers tolerances. Personally i dont see why if the 126 - 253 can only take 254 pounds, why the 281 square foot can take 300 pounds.

I see your point, but i think we all need to get over the jump number snobbery, good advice is good advice no matter who it comes from. No one person is any better than another person just because they have more or less jumps. People with more jumps are more experienced, and many experienced jumpers have a lot of good advice to give out, which as a low numbers skydiver myself is extremely useful to listen to and not make the same mistakes myself. Forums like these are extremely useful in spreading and sharing knowledge, but no one should be put down, attacked, or dismissed without consideration when obviously just trying to look out for the safety of others in this sport, just because they dont have as many jumps as other people!! And I am sure you are a very careful skydiver, but in a sport as potentially dangerous as ours, it pays to be careful, check everything, check it again, and look out for others. We are all human after all.

how about the main too, PISA set their limit at a maximum wingloading of 1.2:1 for ALL their canopies. Basically this limit is to cover the company against law suits from people who blame the canopy for going in! I believe I have a fairly conservative reserve setup, as my reserve is bigger than my main, which goes some way to closing the gap in performance caused by the difference in ZP to F111. I see no real reason why anyone would want a reserve smaller than their main, as the last thing you need after a potentially stressful malfunction and emergency procedure is to have to land a canopy smaller than you have ever landed before, plus the performance defecit of a F111 canopy, and very possibly an off landing due to losing height from the malfunction. P.S. I do agree my wingloading is creeping up, but it's very easy to put on weight while at university... takeaways and beer aren't the ideal healthy lifestyle! and I plan to do something about it in the coming months!

I have to back up kelpdiver on this one, I dont see his post as being a personal attack on anyone and think it was taken out of context, he was just extending the 'be careful' advice. Yes, having more jumps and more experience will generally allow you to do more things like successfully pull off safe controlled high performance landings, but that's no reason to become complacent If every skydiver throughout the world took a step back, evaluated their performance and aimed to be safer and more conservative under canopy low turn fatalities would reduce across the board irrespective of jump numbers. The problem applies to all skydivers, and death wont be impressed by how many jumps you have!!

Yep, gotta aggree with that, my second and third jumps were more scary, kinda knew what was coming!!

I did too, took about 6 months (28 jumps) but enjoyed every minute!

I haven't jumped since the end of september 2004 not expecting to be able to jump till june, and it's been like this for the last 3 winters!! basically when i'm at uni i can't get to a dz and dont really have the money to jump anyway. Plus my bpa membership hasdn't been renewed yet, and my reserve is out of date since jan 2005. so basically it sucks!! but i finish my degree this year, so it's time to go get a job close to a dz and then i can jump loads!!

I bought my Hornet 190 straight off student status, and now have about 200 jumps on the canopy, I love my hornet and since i started Psycho packing haven't had any hard openings. I love the performance and it has a powerful flare making the canopy easy to land. Reference to SCR10480 comments, the hornet is NOT like the Sabre, it is almost identical to the Sabre2 (but bought out a couple of years before the sabre2), which even though the name is similar, is a completely different canopy. I have jumped a sabre2 170 which i found pretty similar to my hornet, although a bit quicker due to the 20 square foot drop in size. Only thing wrong with my hornet, which i'm going to get fixed at the next reserve pack is the length of the brake lines. This is due to line shrinkage, but has caused tension in the brakes lines even at full drive, increasing front riser pressure and making the canopy buffet a bit under front riser input. Oh and lets not forget the very simple but great idea of the colour coded line acctchments on the canopy, making pro packing a breeze!

I think this is a great idea! just wish more skydivers did this and made an effort to include more people especially low timers. I personally love jumping with low timeskydivers, and in my limited 230ish (so far) time jumping i've done a first 2-way with 3 separate people, and all of them were awesome skydives, just having fun and playing about. I'll always remember my first 2-way and I get a kick out of introducing people to something new. I reccomend everyone do this, go make a low timers day, and have great fun doing it!!

sorry my post was a bit unclear, one of the main riser caught the corner of the reserve tray, and ripped it most of the way off his back, at which point the main riser snapped in two. The jumper managed to clear the damaged main and deploy his reserve. However the hardware on the rig was severely bent and buckled. He had a wide style chest strap, and it was the opinion of the rigger that if the rig was fitted with the narrow style chest strap it would have broken under the force of the opening (as the chest strap buckle was bent at pretty much 90 degrees) and that he was very lucky that the harness stayed intact. So although a lot of people argue that the chest strap doesn't take much force, it can do in some situations. I think i'm right in saying that bill booth only offers the wide type 8 webbing for chest straps on his rigs, and that i think says a lot!

I voted horeshoe, but i've been shown pictures of a rig (or what was left of it) after a premature main opening while in a stand, ripped the rig to shreads, ripped the reserve tray off, and even completely snapped the main riser in half where it was caught on the reserve tray. was a real advert for only freeflying in ff safe rigs, plus if the rig had had a thin chest strap (type 17 i think) i doubt the skydiver would have lived to tell the tale

that's the only thing about multimap, as it's done by ariel photos it's quite a long job to fly a plane over every inch of the country, so it's only for the UK at the mo. and they can provide higher quality pictures if you ask for them, you have to pay though. still it's a pretty good system

we've had this in the uk for a while, but with ariel photos of the entire UK. got a cool feature as well, when you move your mouse over the ariel photo it shows an overlay of the street map so it's easier to pick out features when not zoomed in http://multimap.co.uk/map/photo.cgi?client=public&X=356372&Y=336641&gride=&gridn=&scale=25000&coordsys=gb&db=GB&lang=&mapsize=big that is my home dz

a lot of the time I dont use a verbal count when doing 4-way, outside centre just shakes grips when ready, then bobs up, down, then go. Can't really hear a count when wearing a full face most of the time anyway. When i do use a count it's 'ready', 'set', 'go' but always backed up by a visual key

all you need is a plane with a tailgate, no chance of hitting the tail then!! low tails can help if a canopy opens in the door, have seen a video of a guy floating on a proter, his reserve pops, and he gets dragged over the top of the tail missing it completely. that same situation on an otter and his canopy would probably have got caught on the tail

the look on it's face in the last pic is classic!! My girlfriends printer took an overdose once, it stopped working so i took it apart and found a couple of paracetamol jammed inside!