faulknerwn

AFF may or may not help but definitely keep at it! I was a pretty lousy beginner but now have world records, instructor ratings, and over 10,000 jumps. You can see my student logbook here: http://crwdog.servebeer.com/CRWdog/HowCRW.html

Skydive Temple has been getting drizzly rain for a couple days but no real issues at all. Skydive South texas has definitely had some flooding in the hanger from what I hear but I don't know more. Spaceland has a flooded landing area but it hadn't gotten in the building as of this morning..

Dan Rossi, an amazing blind skydiver, passed away this week. He was an amazing guy. http://www.post-gazette.com/news/obituaries/2017/08/08/Obituary-Danny-Rossi-Skydiver-mountain-climber-woodworker-never-let-his-blindness-get-the-best-of-him/stories/201708070098

This spring we taught a guy who is 63 and about to get an A license. He does great.

I will tell you one example I witnessed. A couple years ago had a kid graduate AFF at our place but traveled all over the country for work. Probably did his first 10-12 jumps at my place. Was up in the NorthWest - bought a GoPro from a gear store at maybe 25ish jumps. Put it on his helmet and no one questioned him - got it riser slapped off on the first jump. Bought a second one but came back to Texas. Went to another Texas dz and was so busy putting it on his helmet he ended up rushing to the plane that he forgot his altimeter. He was too embarassed to say anything at this new dz with mostly tandems that his solution was to count to 60 and then pull. (I swear - he told me that personally.) He pulled a bit low and scared himself. Did a second jump at that dz with another newbie. Was so focused on videoing (by his own admission) that they collided with each other and almost had a canopy collision on opening. I think he lost the camera again on this jump. He showed up at my dz a couple of weeks later wearing a camera and I told him no. He didn't blink an eye and took it right off. He admitted to me later after a couple of beers all of the above stories and how he was almost relieved for me to tell him no because by this point he recognized that I knew what I was talking about and he had no business jumping with a camera.

I use really right stuff l-plate. It makes it easy to switch from horizontal and vertical.

I would absolutely give up a paper copy. Everything in there is so out of date by the time it is published - fatality reports are on here several months earlier. I have never met anyone who reads boogie articles who wasn't actually at the boogie. It seems that a lot of the magazine is just boring filler.

There are people like that but there are also a lot of poorer people scraping up the money just to make a few jumps a month. I know several people at my dz who spent $500-$1000 for their first rig (old and not freefly friendly but safe) I have rigs that I spent $300 or less on for main/reserve/container. There are lots of people who don't have a lot of money but who still love the sport.

As a rating-holder skydiver I pay $100 every year (before this) for membership fees. That's annoying. I would happily pay $10 less or x$ less for not getting a paper magazine. I generally skim through them in 10 minutes and its mostly boring boogie articles - I would happily pay less to get it electronically or not at all. Give us that option - it will save on printing costs. What were the legal fees with the NAA? Were they necessary? Living in a red state that constantly passes unconstitutional laws - I recognize that some legal costs may not be necessary. Ed Scott's article does not mention why we are in a legal battle with the NAA and FAI. I bet if you gave the membership an option to get an online magazine for a reduced cost ($10-$15 less in dues) 75% would take it. That would reduce costs tremendously. Expecting people to opt out of receiving the magazine without any motivation is pretty pointless.

That is a really big increase! What do they need all of this excess money for?

But is the curv crw friendly? Knowing the original poster :-) Some rigs with their freefly friendly riser covers make it almost impossible to stuff a CRW setup into them.

Have you had someone really experienced jump the rig? I have done that for a few people and immediately was able to tell what the problem was with the gear once I had it in the air. Wendy

I have never had that injury - but I would definitely want to be confident that I could flare well - i.e. not high with a "drop" at the end - and I would definitely want the first jump back to be on ideal winds - a no wind landing where you have to sprint would not be the best idea.

laugh. That so needs to go on a warning label..

That is interesting. We have one Navigator and multiple Solos. The Solos seem much more forgiving of bad flares. I have seen numerous students flare at 5 feet and 30 feet and still stand it up. We don't do static line so don't have a lot of subterminal openings on them but we definitely have not had any issues with line twists on them with AFFs. It is quite rare (and usually predictable from the student's body position when it is happening!) I've jumped them on a dozen demos or more and found them to fly really well. I like Pilots better than Sabre 2's as well so it might be partially personal choice.

There was also a student at Skydive Chicago - video was on here at the time. Deployed at a normal 5kish altitude, but had a hard opening and ripped stitches on his Vector 3. Flew around with a trailing freebag but didn't notice it. As he made his turn to final the bag finally fell out of the container releasing one riser just like in the tandem incident. The student did the wrong thing from what we teach (cut away at a few hundred feet) but in this case it let the skyhook pull out the reserve in time and he walked away. Very lucky...

We have been using Aerodyne Solos for quite a few years and I really like how forgiving they are for students.

When I teach the braked approach and landing for the A license, I really emphasize how important it is to keep practicing this on every canopy they every own. As I tell them, if you learn to do it on the student 230, when you get a 210, its still easy to do its about the same. Then if you downsize to a 190, its about the same as the 210 etc... But if you do it on your student 230, but don't do it again for a thousand jumps and now you are on a 120 and have to put it down in a tiny area - you are going to struggle. A few years ago I ended up videoing the last tandem out on a long spot and since I was turning the load I really wanted to make it back as far as possible. I was on a Crossfire 88 loaded 1.8ish? I practice braked on every single jump on every canopy I own. And for random reasons this was my first ever Crossfire jump. I got to just before the fence and had to land in the next field. I started a very deep brake turn back into the wind, got halfway through and realized I was out of altitude. Started to let up, got from my hips to my belly button, realized it was time to flare, and stood it up from deep brakes going crosswind and it wasn't even painful. But I practice flying slow all the time not just flying fast. And I teach my students to practice it all the time so that when shit hits the fan, its instinctive and natural. If all you ever practice is swoops and going fast, you will struggle..

Right. I know of at least 2 jumpers who bought 300 square foot ish reserves that were certified to 300 lbs...

I have had a handful of "large" students. Some bought their own gear. At least in Texas, we have a regular enough crowd of greater than 210 lb students that a large rig could have some use. A handful of the modern rig/canopy manufacturers make gear that is rated to >254lbs. Maybe buying one of those rigs with a large appropriately rated reserve and it could still have use on the the "just large" crowd.. Probably 25% of our AFF students start out on our 270 as it is.. The 300ish square foot canopies are quite forgiving even at 1-1 wing loadings...

Come up with whatever you want and Larry will make it to your specs. https://www.facebook.com/ChernisCollapsiblePilotChute Pilot chutes can be part of a problem on a hard opening but there are lots of possibilities...

I've got a couple jumps on them (and a few thousand on Triathlons). It struck me as a slightly more "fun" version of the Triathlon - less twitchy than the Diablo, more fun than the Triathlon, but with a really nice flare. I liked how much more power the flare had than my Triathlons of the same size..

Pack jobs have so much to do with it. I have a canopy that normally gives me 1000-1500 ft openings when I pack it. I was crazy busy one day and let a packer pack it. It was one of the hardest openings of my life. But I have never had that canopy even open brisk before or since so it had to have been the pack job...

I wear prescription goggles. Not that expensive and WAY better than trying to wear goggles over glasses.

I currently have an AFF level 6 student who is 63 I believe. He is a glider pilot and has wind tunnel time and is doing well.