faulknerwn

Where are the jumpsuits? And don't tell me that the center line is all gonna shave their heads just for that touch of extra speed!!!

That was discussed on the CRW mailing list. He didn't realize she didn't want anyone docking on her (post-stacks are common practice at CRW events).

I'll be happy to archive em on my webpage as well if you send me a link! Kevin wrote great stuff - whatever happened to him? W

#3! High Priestess :-)

The URL for the poll about what to do about CRW awards is http://www.zoomerang.com/survey.zgi?p=WEB224HW7VHKMR You can email me at wendy.faulkner@gmail.com W

My website has lots of info and pictures: http://crwdog.servebeer.com W

Yep. Its true. She's one lucky lady..

Eh? That sounds like you're talking about a kill-cone not a diaper. A diaper was what used to be attached to canopies like Prodigies - on those it wrapped around the first S-fold and you'd stow your lines in it.... W

I had an old friend who was.. Unfortunately he died from an illness about 5 years ago, but he had probably 1500 jumps at the time. W

Wow! And people give me heck about my pack jobs! W

That's definitely a consideration. I have 6 rigs (all bought VERY cheap), all but one of which these days are used only for CRW.... No way do I have the cash to throw AAD's in them all... W

Definitely the 113's are available to anyone, and I'm pretty sure the 106's are as well though I'm not positive about that. For years PD wouldn't hardly admit making them - my first 2 113's didn't even have a Lightning logo on them much less the size... I don't know why they've never changed their advertising, but the 113 is definitely readily available. Not sure about the 106. W

:-) Yep there are a bunch of them out there. Actually some of the CRW teams these days are using Lightning 106's! W

I think she had somewhere around 300ish jumps - not so sure on that. Over a hundred CRW at this point. She was invited to be on the Women's CRW record that ended up getting cancelled. She has CRW skills but clearly needs some emergency procedure refresher training. I'm not sure who trained her for her first CRW jump, but I know how to handle wraps and entanglements is in any first CRW jump brief I've ever heard. I also know we regularly push people to review some of the emergency procedures I have listed on my website. As to why she cutaway? She says she couldn't see and it didn't feel "good." Someone else there said it was flying straight but had a line twist in it. This all was happening below 3k, she wasn't expecting to do CRW, and I expect it was a variety of factors: 1. Not thinking about how being in freefall with a canopy wrapped around you is much worse than being under even a bad canopy. 2. She knew she was getting low and I suspect there was a bit of panic in there. 3. She said she was worried about a canopy downplane but a canopy downplane is better than no canopy.. 4. She forgot she had a hook knife that she could use.. 5. She had trouble finding her reserve handle because her hand wasn't on it when she cutaway and the wrap of course made things harder to find... She's a tough woman so I doubt she'll quit CRW altogether. I do know she will be getting a lot of emergency instruction before she gets back in the air though. She's got a lot of friends out there who want to keep her alive. W

We had an extremely close call at a Xenia Ohio CRW camp last weekend and its been discussed greatly on the CRW mailing list. I decided to post it here as well because there are a lot of people here who aren't on that list, and I see people regularly post at dz.com about doing their first ever CRW with the a Jedei or a Stilletto or even worse cross-braced canopies - and they don't have proper CRW training. They might make the same mistakes as were made here and not be so lucky. Anyway, what happened at this event was as follows: The first part of the skydive (the bigger-way) was uneventful. Afterwards, a fellow on a 176 decided to try and dock on a girl who was on a 126. It seems that the dock went poorly. She wasn't expecting it and it went bad. She properly called down to him to cutaway, which he did and landed uneventfully on the drop zone.. At this point, she has a perfectly functional main, and a 176 wrapped around her. At this point, the one thing that one should NEVER EVER EVER do is cutaway - you then find yourself in freefall with a canopy wrapped around you which of course would make it quite hard for the reserve to come out. You can hack away with a hook knife, try to free it, but you don't want to go into freefall. I might try and dump my reserve into my mess at some point, but never release the only good canopy you have. Unfortunately that is exactly what she did. She went into freefall wrapped in his canopy. She never pulled the reserve handle. Somewhere below a thousand feet 3 cells of HIS canopy inflated and she landed spinning in a cornfield in soft dirt. Everyone there thought she was dead. A couple of people landed with her, including a doctor, and after all was said and done, she walked away with bruises and a broken arm.... She's EXTREMELY lucky to be alive. In CRW, mindlessly cutting away during a wrap is not always the correct thing to do. Cutting away with a canopy wrapped around your body just made things go from bad to worse.. This happened on a 2-way with CRW squares - anyone out there doing 2-ways with ellipticals needs to be EXTREMELY aware of what can happen, how to fix things, and understand that as bad as things worse, they're 10 times worse on an elliptical wrap. You need to be knowledgable, versed, and ready to do the correct things and not panic during a wrap. I just see too many people doing CRW without proper knowledge of emergencies - and in this case someone we thought knew what to do, still failed to execute properly. She's very lucky to be alive... http://crwdog.servebeer.com/crw/crw.html W

I load my MicroRaven 120 at about 1.2, and what I've found is that if I just do a straight-in approach, it'll stall when the toggles reach my shoulders. I normally come in on double-front-risers and it lands much more "normally" that way... W

The Cypres issue could be a valid point - but there's a good possibility in the intervening years someone put a Cypres in there so its already Cypres-ready. I did RW for years with Racer's of that age. They worked fine - in fact my riser covers stayed closed MUCH better than the Vectors or Javelins of that era. Admittedly - its not the newest rig, it doesn't have some of the fancy stuff that more modern rigs do, but most of the Racers from that era are good functional rigs for RW as long as you keep the velcro in good shape which your rigger can do for you. I've definitely seen rigs where people didn't keep the velcro in good shape and flaps came open, but that was mostly poor user-maintenance rather than the fault of the rig... W

I was told that many years ago when I was a young jumper and over the years I have definitely come to believe that its just an old wives-tale. I definitely prefer flying with a belt and I can wear a lot less weights.. W

Happened to me once. I had just hooked up the canopy, but had to undo the cables once or twice to get it straight, and my riser fell off when I set the rig down in the packing area after the skydive.. Egads! Mine I'm sure was my own stupidity. I'm a lot more careful now... W

Yep. They change the angle of attack so its not so floaty. W

Remove the links? Are you kidding me? I've probably got less than 50 jumps total on 113's without links and I HATE it! The links stay permanently.... I can't stand jumping 113's without extra links... W

Yep that's it. Its beautiful but a frigging &(#(*#&@(*&@(*@&#(*#@&#*&#@(*@ to pack... Floaty as heck too. Keep hoping its gonna wear off soon... W

My new Lightning just arrived in a few weeks ago - the booklet PD includes with it (assuming you bought it new) explains how to pack it, Its pretty easy. W

From Jumpshack's web site: ----- Discussion: In April 1997, Jump Shack began manufacturing release handles with a red Teflon coating, replacing the yellow Lolon-coated cables. The Teflon cables are a response to an epidemic of difficult cutaways, and the realization that many skydivers do not regularly maintain their cables. Teflon-coated cutaway cables were introduced for purposes of reducing maintenance and lowering the typically high pull forces which are associated with lack of maintenance in the Lolon-based system. (The industry-standard yellow Lolon cables must be inspected and oiled on a monthly basis). ---- I've never done any pull-force tests or anything on them, but I do recall very vividly the first time I chopped with the red cables - I went back into freefall staring at the handle in my hand cuz I couldn't believe it pulled so easily...

In all honesty its hard to remember - when you have a 75 sq ft canopy spinning up that fast. I'm not really paying attention. I can't imagine that of all of those that none of them did. All of my yellow cables cutaways were back in the mid-90's so I'm rather fuzzy on that. I know one of them was immediately after a repack so it probably was, others maybe not. I would clean them regularly at the time but not oil them. *** Were the 2 hard cutaways with twisted risers? Did the risers have metal inserts? [/quote I have never had a cutaway with inserts so all of my knowledge is from risers without them. W