likestojump

It may be a Vengeance 107, as Velo was never made in that size. Otherwise sounds like an idiotic decision either way.

Sorry to hear about this - but I strongly disagree with your recommendation - FedEx or equivalent (UPS, DHL or other courier services) will be many times more expensive than USPS. The easiest route to take is to take pictures of the product before and after you box it and with the shipping label on it at the Post Office and use EMS level of service that provides online tracking. This way you have photo and electronic evidence you can provide to the buyer. Yes I have shipped to Thailand before. Yes I have shipped to many skydivers all over the world. Yes I can back all this up with facts and 100s of packages sent. Good luck all !

His message is quite clear. If unsure what JoJo Wings ore XF15 is - search is your friend. quit nitpicking everything people say John, most people are capable of using search, they are just lazy. Let's not encourage lazyness.

That's a killer looking cat.

I don't really agree with that... Skydiving, even if someone leaves the sport before 500 jumps, will always be a part of you. There's something about jumping that changes people, and whether you have 5 jumps or 500, it's something you take with you forever. Except for how it will make you feel like a poser to have people ask "oh skydiving tattoo - cool - you must have lots of jumps". Just to tell them you have not done it for years and only got a few skydives. I don't have any tattoos, and don't care to. But being that they are quite permanent - think twice, reassess, think again, and if you still really want one - talk to your friends to see what they think. Of course if you don't care about others opinions then just do what you like - it'll make you happy, at least for the time being. Personally, it's just tacky to have for the last 10 years all the guys have barbwire tats around the bicep, and all the girls have a trampstamp. I think it's not that original to have everybody conform :)

This may not be that as extreme as the next phrase I use, but nowadays, with the many inexpensive freefly friendly rigs on the market getting a Vector2 just because it's cheap, and dumping $$$ into it so you can freefly with it is like polishing a turd - at the end it may look good, but it's still a turd. Like I advised you a few weeks earlier - spend a few more hundred bucks, and get something that was made to be FF friendly. I have bought plenty of nice containers for around $400 - $500. Not a big price to pay for being safe.

Keep jumping, you just need more practice landing ...

Andy and I will gladly stay in our hole. It's nice and cosy here. I bet the dude with 110 jumps really understood the sarcasm in John's response, and appreciated it.

This is not exactly what you are looking for, but I will throw it in anyways. Safire 129 - ate grass Sabre2-120 - tippy toe Safires (original) seemed to have a bit different flare than what I was used to. A friend transitioning from a Sabre2-135 to a Safire2-149 noted the same thing, and he is right around 1.5 WL

No, he always posts crap like that. Just because hes an old dinosaur who can't hold a candle to skydivers these days he tries to belittle people with what he thinks is his "ace" card just because he jumped in DaVinci's time. For a change somebody ELSE is the 'Old Fart'! Other than that Andy, I dunno if I'd agree with your opinion... John jumps for a main, a big 7 cell and a spring loaded pilot chute...you know like reserves! He jumps a lot, is current, proficient, safe and I don't hear about alotta cutaways or injuries from him...that's actually the kind of 'candle holder' some of the 'skydivers today' might need around.

ok, as this topic has been discussed many times (7 cells vs 9 cells), it's silly for yet another thread to appear. Nevertheless, to be constructive.. This weekend I realized that I actually have about equal amount of jumps between 7 cells and 9 cells :) 7 cells by far have less flare power. No doubt about it (I have no tried the new PD canopies that everybody raves about, so don't know how those compare). Now, just because they have less flare does not mean that they dont have enough - just don't expect your 7cell to fly/flare like a 9 cell and you'll be fine. Same goes for the reserves, where I really believe that the "problem" people are having is not the canopy being a 7 cell, but the canopy being made from F111, thus needing a different flare. But both are quite nice to fly once you are used to them. Traditionally 7 cells are more forgiving, and that's why many WS pilots prefer them. (short of the Diablo :) This year so far I have jumped : Spectre 120 dacron lines Spectre 135 microlines Spectre 150 microlines Sabre2-120 microlines Sabre2-135 microlines Saber2-150 microlines Heatwave 120 microlines Heatwave 135 HMA w/ H-mod Heatwave 150 microlines Crossfire2-149 vectran Safire-129 microlines Vengeance 120 microlines Mojo 240 dacron Troll DW MDV 265 dacron Blackjack 280 CUS dacron Ace 280 dacron Parafoil 252 Raven2-218 microlines (as a main) PDR160 (reserve ride) microlined Stiletto 135 microlines Stiletto 120 microlines Sabre-170 microlines Cobalt 135 microlines and H-mod FWIW My favorite by far has been the Spectre 120 w/ dacron :) I am 180lbs + gear

I am DISAGREEING with Andyman. I am saying that for newbies soft handle is a worse choice than a metal D-ring. And yes, I am in fact assuming the worst.

There I fixed it for you. You need get some help with you fixation problem. It is starting to be obvious to others. yet you are the only one who keeps pointing it out. obsessive ? Stuck in the Neurotic level of personality development ?

I don't follow. I've had 3 chops; I used the 2 hand method with all of them (ok, 2 of them, RSL beat me on one). No problems. What makes you think you're going to miss on one side versus the other? We are talking newbies, low time jumpers. If using two hands on one handle method, once you cutaway you go into freefall, possibly back to earth. Even if you did you EPs properly and located your reserve handle visually the chances of your handle having moved due to MLW loosing tension from the load are there. Add the stress that most newbies will have when dealing with cutaway, and you can find someone yanking on their MLW webbing quite violently, instead of ripping the handle. I have no AFF or Coach rating, and my experience working with students is limited to teaching them to pack and talking to them about gear. So perhaps someone with lots of AFF jumps can chime in here ?

That's not how I do it. yeah, no shit :) sorry, typo, I edited the original post to correct.

Oh, I understand! Here's the thing. To me, especially on a wingsuit dive, the most common malfunction is a spinning one. In this case, getting to the cutaway handle is just as important as getting to the reserve handle (arguably more important...), and often more difficult because of the g's from the spinning malfunction. Yet the industry standard for this case is a soft cutaway pillow, and I assume that you use one too, and are relatively happy with it since you haven't told us you switched it to a metal or fabric loop one. If it's so important to have a metal reserve ripcord handle, why isn't the same true for cutaway pillows? If you believe so strongly in the importance of a metal ripcord handle, why don't you think the same thing for your cutaway handle? I think that we're most comfortable with the stuff that we've been jumping for a long time. This is especially true for jumpers that have a lot of jumps. We like the gear we're comfortable with, because we're comfortable with it. To me, this isn't a good reason to recommend gear to students. There's a lot of gear that I'm comfortable with that isn't appropriate for new jumpers. (like my highly loaded eliptical) To get back to my previous point: If these things were dangerous, we'd see evidence of that in the incidents forum. _Am Very good point indeed Andy. my rebuttal as follows :) : 1) usual deployment sequence is right then left. Which means if you are using 2handed cutaway technique you have a much higher chance of missing or not having a solid grip on the left handle 2) assuming hard housings (which I use in all my rigs) I feel that the actual force required to pull the handle is much higher on the left handle - thus having a firm grip THROUGH the solid D-ring rather than ON the soft pillow in theory gives you a much higher success ratio. Honestly I try to be as objective as possible. Keep in mind being that I sell gear for a living I have jumped tons of different things. Say last 9 jumps I used 6 different rigs and 8 different canopies :) - so I do believe that I have a pretty solid and unbiased opinion of what works and why it works. I guess to sum up my thoughts on the actual thread topic : Do I think that pillow handles are bad for newbies ? Not in so many words, no. I do think that newer jumpers wanting pillows should want them for all the right reasons, and not because "they look cool". For example, I sold a rig to a friend of mine who at the time had about 150 jumps. He really wanted a pillow handle, but after I talked to him, he ok'ed me ordering a pillow and hanging on to it until a little later. He is now a bit over 250 jumps and I am swapping the handles for him next repack cycle.

I don't think you're wrong, and I do think your opinion is valid.... But I am curious. If the metal ring is so much better, why are you sticking with a soft cutaway pillow? It sounds like you think there's an awfully big downside to having one. _Am huh ? I think you misread what I wrote. I have a metal Dring, and intend to stick with it. I have jumped plenty of rigs with soft handles, and was not concerned about them, however in having also pulled plenty of dring and soft handles during repacks I personally felt that it's A LOT easier to pull the D in any direction as opposed to the soft handle - that may really make someone unhappy in whatever fucked up and weird body positions some people end up in. coupled with lack of experience and thus the onset of extreme fear and/or already built-up anxiety that newbies may have - may just be a recipe for another AAD fire :)

my 2 most recent cutaways were while wearing a Wingsuit. I am quite certain that I do not want a soft reserve handle for those jumps with my arms already as restricted as they were. Both were caused by fast spinning malfunctions. Low profile D-ring is what I am sticking with.

Why don't you grow up and quit making a fool of your self. Talk about "Spoiled Brats". This is the internet, right ? Why should your OPINION of what makes one look like a fool, or what is juvenile mandate MY behavior ? If you choose to not accept PMs from me, but still attack me on a public forum that doesn't say much of you either bud.

Your view of me is very myopic. Sign up for a debate competition. You may not win, but at least it will be entertaining. My view of you is based on the things you post.

Don't bother with him Andy. His view of the world is very myopic. I like 7cells. I like 9cells. I like anything I can fly, as long as *I* am the one choosing which canopy to fly :)

but that's the whole point - John is talking about $68 in the absolute sense of the money - not relative to the cost of the container. I don;t know too many people who suck it up over being screwed for $68

Essentially what you are saying is if you buy a used altimeter for $70, and the seller never ships it to you, it's a small enough loss not to worry about it ? I disagree with your reasoning, sorry.

so it's ok to screw someone, as long as it's for a small amount ? Thank you for that lesson in business. That's not what I said. What I said was that you're out $68, and have no chance of getting it back, so you should just accept this small loss, not fret over it or make a big deal about it, and move on with your life. how can you call it a small loss if you don't know how much the OP paid for their gear ? What if the container cost them $200, and now they have to pony up 34% more for parts that should have been included ? How do you now they have no chance of getting it back ? More than anything else, his post ended with an open-ended question "So my question is what would you do in this situation?" You just barged in and told him to stop whining. Not too useful.

so it's ok to screw someone, as long as it's for a small amount ? Thank you for that lesson in business.