faulknerwn

I would really like to see some experiments. Take some out of date cypresses, pack them in some of these modern right rigs, and do some drop tests with them. I would love to see the video. The cutters are already expired so they can be useful for playing with :)

I mostly jump Triathlon 120s loaded at 1.3 for my video jumps. I inevitably get out out last because I have a lighter loading, so the larger canopy enables me to get back from long spots. If the spot is long, the tandem has to come back too so I will still land before them. The openings are really nice and soft so that's not an issue. It also helps on AFF jumps - I have no worries making sure the spot is fine for the student because I don't worry about making it back.

Just remember that not all landing areas are the same. We don't have nice smooth grass like in Florida. Our landing area is very bumpy and you can't slide out a landing very well on it. I know of other DZs in Texas which have gopher holes and such around the landing area. I don't particularly want to try to slide out ( or run out!) a 15 mph downwind landing at many dropzones. Florida wouldn't be so bad!

I've got really small ears. I wear earplugs in the plane on the way up but they are extremely painful for me to wear on the way down. It's like jumping with a cold for me. I do want to try the sure fires though - I think they might work for me if they allow better equalization ( I normally have to pop out the foam ones briefly on the way up even to allow equalization)

You can buy a cutaway cable from Jumpshack and put it on other rigs without a problem.

I have 22 ish reserve rides these days. It's WAY easier to cutaway when using the red cable than the yellow. I have encouraged many of the smaller female friends I know ( especially them) to switch to the red cable. It's a very noticeable difference in cutaway forces.

Thanks. And it was definitely not me down there in the basement! I like my altitude :) And I was glad you knew where you were going at Perris cuz I was definitely following you!

I've contacted their customer support in the past as well and had new parts shipped out immediately. I do agree - they rock..

Laugh. Sounds like a great video!

He covers all the net torque and angular momentum and lever arms and all sorts of stuff. He said he didn't do it because parents wouldn't approve :)

I'm taking a class at coursera.org called how things work. It's basically a physics class but he includes lots of cool videos to explain stuff In a section on seesaws, he mentions something about what would happen if you took a seesaw out of an airplane. He of course didnt have video of this. That to me just seemed like a challenge :). And an opportunity to provide him with a cool video! Anyone up for it? I suspect a tailgate would make it easier. And of course you would have to be careful of where you jump out depending on how you made the seesaw..

Has it ever been considered taking the rigs on any of the multiple events now where the aad didn't get a canopy open in time - and doing a dummy drop like the TSO tests are - and see what happens? Preferably with the same length closing loop and such? Even if the rig was cut off following an accident you could duck tape it to a drop test dummy. It seems like that could be enlightening to see what it was about the particular rig/canopy situations that caused the canopy to not deploy in time.. And any of the folks who've been around a while help me out - I really only recall hearing about all of these aads not getting a reserve out in time incidents for the last 5 years or so. I just don't recall anything like that back in the 90s. I certainly recall reading about numerous AAD saves, but I don't recall about hearing where the reserves weren't opening in time. It might just be my old age not remembering - anyone else have a recollection on this? I do know rigs have gotten dramatically smaller and tighter in that time - and I have definitely seen such tightly packed rigs I would be afraid to jump.

In a full time skydiver. I watch weather religiously :). That being said -on obviously gorgeous days I don't watch anything. But on every other day - I wake up, read my email, use aeroweather to tell me the aviation forecasts,then the weather.com app for their forecasts. If they don't agree I check weatherbug, accuweather and weatherunderground - all apps on my phone. So having one app Display on the screen wouldn't be that helpful cuz I check a bunch daily! I know that I have become the unpaid default geek at the dz. and our windows computer causes more problems than the 5 macs combined. The only reason we have any windows computer is because our manifest software is only windows. Otherwise there would be none. Example problem - mid afternoon today our windows computer decided it was April 29 not march 29. That screwed a bunch of stuff up. I know our manifester didn't open up control panel/date and time/ edit the month. How on earth it changed I have no idea. But it took a bunch of time for me to fix that random date change that it wrought. Drives me nuts!!! If we find a good manifest software that runs on macs we will switch in a heartbeat. That one windows computer is a serious PITA!

If anyone wants to be in a bracket challenge, I created a group called skydivers on the NCAA iPhone app for match madness. Anyone is welcome to make a bracket and join in!

Just remember when you are watching your canopy on opening - you are not watching around you for other people who may have had off heading openings or line twists and are on a collision course with you...

For the night crw we have been doing, we get one of those little rotating head lamps and attach it to the helmet. It lights up your canopy well, and you can spin it to light in front of you in case you land off...

He posted photos on Facebook. That day the steady winds in the area were 50 and gusts were 70-80. One of the gusts broke all 3 of the tie-downs on the plane, spun the plane 90 degrees, pulled the metal loading area benches and all out of the ground, smashed the tool shed and then took out the PAC :(. Left some dents on the wing, a hole in the side of the plane, and twisted and really bent up the tail of the airplane. :(. I was on my way back from Florida and a crw boogie that day and spent my time in the Orlando airport googling what the crosswind component was for my JetBlue flight. Luckily our 45 mph crosswind was 5 miles under the limit for that plane. The landing was interesting.... Saw a ton of fires around Austin that day driving home - all from downed powerlines. Did stop and buy mark mark a large bottle of vodka on my way home so he could drown his sorrows....

I've got 50-60 jumps on a spectre 150 and it does tend to open brisker than the triathlons I normally jump. That being said, I had a crazy fast opening today on a triathlon 120. This triathlon was just recently relined with Dacron lines, and normally takes 1000 plus feet to open. It opens beautiful. Today, I threw out, sat up, and was instantly open. This was with double-stowed Dacron lines like I always jump. I wish I could blame my packer but it was me :). No clue what caused it, but rogue hard openings do happen. I was just thankful that I got sat up first because my neck ( and camera helmet) were in line with my spine and so I didn't get any kind of whiplash. That's why you will never see me watching my canopy on opening.

This was in lake wales where there was no ac but 80 degree temps on the ground. Tons of white puffy clouds so it was humid. This was one of the 8mm lenses not an expensive canon 15mm however.,.

I still own a PD 150 ( I load it at 1.1 these days) and it wouldn't surprise me if it had 4-500 jumps on it. ( it's not the one for sale). It still lands me nice and soft when I pull it out and jump it. Depending on how it's been taken care of, and as long as you know how to flare it, it's not a bad canopy. That being said - resale value for that canopy is about $200. I wouldn't pay anything more than for it.

I thought only vector and javelin banned it ( maybe mirage?) and everyone else is ok with it? I'm mostly confident that wings, racer, infinity, dolphin, vortex and others still allow it. I thought it was only the 3 manufacturers that ban it? I would actually rather have an Argus than a Vigil. The Vigils have such a long history of 'unusual' firings and their typical response is that it was within firing parameters. I don't like their firing parameters. If I'm in a Cessna where the door accidentally opens I don't want my aad firing!!!

I was in lake wales so there was no ground ac. I even bought desillicant ( or whatever that stuff is called ) and had it in my camera bag.

I travel to Florida every February to play CRW and photograph it. Florida is notoriously more humid than in TX. My Canon 10-22 has no issues with fogging ( though it does have a simple UV filter on it). I want to be able to take fisheye photos though because they look so frigging cool. Last year I used my Canon with a 8mm lens - the common one thatis sold everywhere. Took beautiful photos other than the spot of fog dead center. Nothing worked to clear it. Thought I just had a lens with some moisture in it. Wanted to play with my Nikon D7000 this year so I took both it and my T4i to Florida. Had the same brand of Fisheye lens on my Nikon - same problem. My Tokina 11-16 lens had no problem without even a filter. I think because the fisheye lenses are so round that the humidity in Florida is making the dot on the lens. It doesn't do it in TX. So my goal before I got back to Florida next year is figure out to successfully take fisheye photos!!!! Does anyone successfully use this kind of lens in Florida? I really like the look I can get when I get my brightly colored canopy curved around the canopy formation in front of me. I'd love the look even more if I could get it without a dot of fog dead center.. I borrowed a friends Fisheye opteka lens for my cx for some jumps - it got the same dot of fog in the center while my regular video camera wide angle didnt. It's hard for me to test this stuff in Texas because it very rarely gets so humid here.. Any ideas of how I can fix this before next year?

From my experience racers weigh quite a bit less than other rigs just by the way they are designed. Mirages always seem quite heavy..

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=WhFb4IMk9EY Fun times!