faulknerwn

Moderators
  • Content

    2,481
  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    2
  • Feedback

    0%

Everything posted by faulknerwn

  1. We always tell students to make sure their furniture is in the center of the room!
  2. This lady was crazy. The tandem master had less than a hundred jumps at the time, and spent the entire skydive moving from fetal/touching her toes to going back belly to going back fetal. The poor TM could never get a hold of her feet because she was so violently transitioning back and forth. I was just happy he got the drogue out! When I flew up to them I just gave him the pull signal - "save yourself!" When we got down - the student's comment - "Well, this sport isn't for me..."
  3. Marty was my grandfather's sister's son - whatever the hell relation that makes him to me. He was found dead at his computer this week. He jumped quite a bit in the 1980's in North Carolina - I suspect at Carolina Sky Sports if they were around back then. His family lived in Henderson, and I remember going out one day to watch him jump when I was 12 (1982) but he was weathered out. It was funny - I remember all the "adults" around me whining cuz he lived in a trailer and survived on fried okra and beer. Even at 12 that sounded like a good life to me I didn't see what the problem was! He broke his leg sometime in the 80's and stopped jumping but I know he always still cared about skydiving because he always liked hearing my stories.. His services will be this week if anyone remembers him and would like to go.
  4. Start with the slow group- don't worry - he'll still pass ya :-)
  5. Its really about attitude towards learning. I'm at a small dz but the young jumpers watch me land in the peas 99% of my jumps. They desire to learn that kind of accuracy skils and I regularly spread my knowledge. I have guys with a 100 jumps here on Sabre2's and Pilots and such who can land in the peas all the time. Its not hard to learn, but you just have to make an effort. Backyard landings - let's see - my tightest landing ever was in Sebastian on a CRW load. We put 20 jumpers down in a TIGHT backyard surrounded by power lines, trees, a fence and a house. All CRWdogs so they were comfortable with canopy control and all landed fine. The little old lady who lived in the house couldn't figure out why everyone always wanted to land there (hers was by far the best spot I could get to) because a freefaller had tried to land there 6 months before us and accidently went through her roof because he couldn't pull it off.. A friend of mine told me a story once about being on a hundred way somewhere in Virginia. After opening, they all realized they were over a forest. My buddy looked down and saw a small opening in the forest and started aiming for it. He then realized 50 other people were going there too. He made it in fine but he said people were landing in trees and stuff.. Where else - I've landed in a McDonalds parking lot before - best out I had.. I actually landed in a backyard a few weeks ago by choice - long spot and couldn't get back. I could have made a farmer's field but would have had to climb a barbed wire fence to exit. There was a nice manicured backyard that I felt very comfortable landing my 120 in and chose to land in there rather than have to climb the fence. I didn't have too, but being comfortable with accuracy did give me more choices. Oh yeah - my most recent off landing - last jump at Nationals at Spaceland this year. Landed off (earlier that day had landed at an explosives factory and a horse track so spots weren't perfect). This jump was just off the end of the airport but happily there was a bar right there. Landed in the small grass parking lot with a friend and went inside and bought some beer :-) And that was on my Diablo 88. I feel just as comfortable setting my 88 down off-field as I do my 135. But it takes practice. And being comfortable landing accurately will help you avoid "get-home-itis" after iffy spots. If you're practiced at landing accurately, then you don't sweat landing off so much and don't feel the pressure to get back to the field you know.. Learning accuracy is really important to saving your life. We have had 2 fatalities this year of highly experienced people on small canopies who couldn't set them down safely where they needed too. Learning accuracy is way more important than doing 90's and practicing swooping.
  6. Of course we still have bad spots and you still have to be able to land a modern canopy in a tight area at times. Not being able to do that has killed many people over the years. Better to practice at the dropzone in good conditions than learn accuracy in someone's backyard. And students don't necessarily have to go for a crowded pea pit. I have had students tell me they were aiming for a certain easily recognizable spot on the dropzone that was farther out and less crowded and I'm more than happy to sign off their accuracies if they land there.
  7. You don't think accuracy is important? Being kind of accurate on 12.5% of your jumps doesn't matter? Accuracy skills will save your life when you have to land off the airport. Being able to land close to where you mean to on 12.5% of your jumps is not an onerous requirement. Accuracy is a life-saving skill that is WAY too ignored these days.. I think S&TA's that blow that off shouldn't have that rating..
  8. Darrell was easily the most natural AFF student I ever taught. He had everything done for all 7 levels by jump #3. His first jump had his other instructor and I looking at each other wondering what we were there for... He died far too young in a BASE accident today.. BSBD Wendy
  9. They're common in the CRW world but I don't know of any business who really sells them. Someone might see this thread and reply to you about getting one..
  10. Its a round cloth ring with a large grommit in the center. It slides down the bridle and serves the purpose of collapsing the pilot chute after opening.
  11. I just wear the standard green foam ones with the yellow string. They don't feel particularly tight by any means I can't imagine looser ones blocking much sound.
  12. I just wonder whether the people who do it regularly and have no problems have bigger "ear holes" or something than those whom it bothers. I often have to take mine out briefly even on the ride to altitude to let my ears adjust - just wonder whether my ear plugs plug up the ear more solidly than other people...
  13. I always wear them on the way up but never on the way down. One time I forgot and I thought my eardrums were going to explode. It was like jumping with the worst head cold ever.. Never again!
  14. And with most Satellite TV companies, all you have to do is tell them to cancel your service because they won't help and you won't pay for no tv, and they'll promptly wave that $50 service charge.. :-)
  15. And if your friend weighed more than 120 pounds, his biggest mistake was his equipment choice before he ever stepped foot in the airplane. A friend of mine recently got a 98(?) sq ft Smart reserve. He's tiny, but we're similar sizes and I wouldn't jump that small of an F111 canopy! Its insane. If you're a 90lb girl its one thing, but if you're a human being of average size you're way overloading it.. Especially if you're not used to 7 cells.. Your friend's mistake was not landing off - it was buying a reserve way too small for him.
  16. Unless it was headed into an area with no outs, I would definitely follow my gear. But I've got a lot of experience and am comfortable landing most anywhere. If you're a beginner on a canopy you've never flown before, the right call for you might be to land at the dropzone and then go searching for it.
  17. Not necessarily. Years ago I was a rookie jumper and went to a dz where PD had a booth and John Leblanc himself downsized me to a 135 when I had less than 50 jumps. But I only weighed 110 at the time. Wing loading matters. And please - jump any canopy before you make an opinion of it. Other people bad-mouth Triathlons - I have over 6000 jumps and have 8 rigs packed up ready to jump. 7 have Triathlons. They open beautiful, fly nice, and land easily.. Absolutely - you're not going to swoop across the pond and win swoop competitions with it - but if you fly it like what it is - a 7 cell canopy - they fly great. I regularly jump Triathlons from a 1.0 to a 1.7 wing loading - they all open soft and fly and land softly and easily..
  18. I just installed dacron on my Triathlon 99. The openings seemed to be softer afterwards. I don't notice any reduction in speed. In fact the lines they shipped were so similar in size to the the original spectra that we had to compare them for a few minutes to make sure I got the right thing! W
  19. All the regulars at Skydive Temple have checked in and are fine... W
  20. All of our regulars have checked in and are fine. We're very thankful at Skydive Temple W
  21. Exactly. An AAD misfire on a freefall jump - you end up with 2 out. An AAD fires on a CRW jump - your reserve just went through your friends lines and you now have no good canopies left available to work with. Modern AADs are designed to NOT fire if you have anything at all out. CRWdogs die because they have too much out - wrapped canopies etc. Assuming that you can get out of an airplane and pull without killing yourself on the tail, a modern AAD should never fire on a CRW jump. So if it works like it is supposed to - it will never fire and be of no help. If it misfires (and they definitely have) you'll probably die from the AAD-induced wrap. The risks outweigh the benefits.. And there were a bunch of CRWdogs who didn't turn on their AADs in France. The vast majority of CRWdogs I know of think the risks outweigh the benefits. Heck - there were a bunch of cases a while back of radios firing Cypreses - SSK seemed to have fixed the problem - but all 100 people on the last world record were wearing radios in tight formation. Can you imagine an AAD misfire in the middle of that thing? It could have killed a bunch of people. Admittedly the odds are low, but there have been AAD misfires and if you're in a CRW formation and your AAD fires, your odds are low of survival.
  22. Yeah but their are published lists on both Apple and HP's website listing printers and a heck of a lot of them which have scanners and faxes currently only support printing :-( I finally got ours to scan using vmware and Windows...
  23. Yes and No. Generally Hp's will print basic stuff ok, but as I discovered today trying to get our all-in-one HP printer scan on Snow Leopard, HP hasn't updated the drivers for most of their printers and a lot of people have had issues.. Google HP and Snow Leopard and you'll see how I spent my morning :-) Hopefully HP will update their drivers soon and get things working again.